DETECTIVE COMICS #6 * Taschen Copy * The Major Impugned

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Title: DETECTIVE COMICS No. 6
Place Published:
Publisher:DC [Indicia: Detective Comics, Inc.]
Date Published: August, 1937
Description: CGC certified: Fair (1.0). Grader's notes: "All interior wraps split; light bends to cover; light soiling on cover; light tears to cover; very minor amount of glue on cover." Brittle pages. Provenance: The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION.

GPAnalysis: A 1.0 sold for $900 in 11/17. More recently, a 0.5 (incomplete) sold for $933 in 4/20.

CGC Census: 21 graded copies (14 Universal, 6 Restored, 1 Signature Series). Gerber Photo-Journal Guide Scarcity Index: 7 ("Scarce: 21-50 copies").

Credits: Cover: Creig Flessel. Scripts: Creig Flessel?, Bill Ely (credited as Will Georgi), Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Vin Sullivan (credited as Paul Dean), Bill Patrick, Jerry Siegel (credited as Jerome Siegel), Ed Winiarski? Art: Creig Flessel (signed as Fless), Bill Ely (credited as Will Georgi), Sven Elven, Tom Hickey (signed as TH), Bill Patrick, Joe Shuster, Ed Winiarski (credtied as Win).Tapped by Taschen: The DC Universe Collection copy of Detective Comics #6 is illustrated in Taschen's 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking (page 32). The book notes that "Detective Comics features include the brawling tough guy Slam Bradley and Spy, featuring an operative named Bart Regan. Other notables include Speed Saunders, Bruce Nelson, and Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise."

More About the Major: Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson is all too often the forgotten man in historical accounts of the formative years of DC Comics, but a movement is underway, spearheaded by the Major's granddaughter, Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, to rehabilitate the Major's rep and restore his proud legacy. "The manner in which [the Major] was depicted was often slanted and inaccurate. His life seemed fantastic and unbelievable. He has been called a poor business man, worse, a charlatan and a dilettante, with some comics historians commenting that Wheeler-Nicholson's extravagant lifestyle contributed to his downfall.... Once you impugn someone to the extent that the Major has been impugned, it's easy to rationalize whatever means and methods were used to appropriate someone's hard work and vision as your own. It should have occurred to those who were writing comics history that if Siegel and Shuster got a terrible deal from Donenfeld and Liebowitz, why would that not have been true for the Major as well?

"....In later retellings of the story almost everyone, including Harry Donenfeld and Jack Liebowitz, indicated that without their promotion of Superman, it would never have seen the light of day. Although this is another great story, it is, as so often the case, not quite the full picture.... There was only one person who believed in Superman from the very beginning — Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, the publisher of New Fun, More Fun, New Comics, New Adventure Comics and Detective Comics." — Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson, DC Comics Before Superman: Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's Pulp Comics. Hermes Press: 2018, p. 15.****************************************
The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION comprises over 40,000 comic books, encompassing every single DC comic published for retail sale from 1934 to 2014. The collection was amassed by British music producer Ian Levine over the course of several decades, and it's been hailed as the single greatest collecting accomplishment in comic book history. This collection served as the basis for former DC Comics president Paul Levitz's monumental book 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, published by Taschen in 2017. PBA is proud to present this epic collection in a series of themed sales, including The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION Part 3: The GOLDEN AGE, coming this summer. To join the DC Universe Collection notifications list, contact pba@pbagalleries.com.

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