ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9607010072
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: The New York Times
FROM LITTLE LULU TO SUPERMAN, comics have entertained Americans for more than 50 years. Now, some of the old books are fetching huge prices.
Fifty-eight years ago this month, a superhero made his debut on the cover of a comic book. He was strong enough to hold a green sedan over his head and brave enough to test the fashion standards of the day, with a daring ensemble of red cape and blue tights.
Who was this caped man? And how did he get to be so strong?
These and other burning questions could be answered only by buying the comic book. That is how America learned about a planet called Krypton, a spaceship carrying an infant to Earth and other details that could make a child momentarily forget the Depression's deprivations. It cost a dime.
Saturday, one of those 1938 comic books - Action Comics No.1, which introduced Superman - sold for $61,900 to Steve Geppi, a Maryland man whose business interests range from publishing to owning a piece of the Baltimore Orioles. And Geppi makes no apologies for making a purchase that others might find extravagant.
``Comics is my life,'' Geppi explained.
The sentiment could have served as the motto for many of the people who walked past a somber doorman and into the main bidding room of Sotheby's, where the possessions of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis were auctioned two months ago amid international attention.
Saturday's offerings included no White House mementos. Instead, the auctioneer called for bids on Green Lantern comic books from the mid-1940s, including the one in which our hero battled the Sky Pirate; the Batman issue in which the Caped Crusader had to match wits with the treacherous Joker in 48 states, and the All Star comic book from 1940, wherein the Justice Society of America - the Flash, Dr. Fate, Johnny Thunder and others - convened to address agenda item No.1: the battle against evil.
By mid-afternoon, those assembled had spent more than $640,000 on the colorful representation of such morality plays, culled from various private and institutional collections.
Daniel Greenhalgh, a comic book dealer from Wallingford, Conn., played a significant role in Saturday's sales, spending more than $81,000 on various offerings. He said that older comic books, particularly those about superheroes, will continue to grow in value in part because of their rarity; there are only a few dozen extant copies of the Superman comic book now owned by Geppi.
More important, he said, is the emotional attachment. Adults remember imitating the flying exploits of Superman, and the lightning speed of the Flash. Indeed, Greenhalgh showed no excitement when a Little Lulu comic book came up for bid. ``I'm primarily a superhero dealer,'' he explained.
The auction for comic books and comic-book art began Friday, when bidders spent a total of $616,000 on offerings that ranged from a work depicting Popeye gazing with a goo-goo eye at Olive Oyl to the oeuvre of Frank Frazetta, whose subjects included half-naked women and pterodactyls.
The artwork of Robert Crumb proved popular, with his Fritz the Cat, in a decidedly frisky pose, selling for $56,350 to someone whom Sotheby's described as a ``European private collector.''
But Saturday belonged to the superheroic. As photographs of comic-book covers were flashed on a screen, a currency board spun with ever-growing amounts - in British pounds, Japanese yen and Swiss francs. Sotheby's employees handled telephone bids.
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Action Comics No. 1, with its cover art portraying theby CNBMan of Steel hoisting a car above his head, sold for $61,900 at a
Sotheby's comic book and comic art auction Saturday in New York.
Steve Geppi, 46, of Diamond Comic Distribution, made the winning
bid. color.