MORE FUN COMICS #28 * Dirty-Dealing Donenfeld

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Author:
Title: MORE FUN COMICS No. 28
Place Published:
Publisher:DC [Indicia: Nicholson Publishing Co. Inc.]
Date Published: January, 1938
Description: CGC certified: Fair (1.0): Restored (C-5). Grader's notes: "Spine of cover completely split & re-attached with tape; tape interior; color touch on full right & full left & full bottom front cover; moderate creasing to cover; moderate staining to cover; piece added with tape interior cover C-4." Light tan to off-white pages. Provenance: The DC UNIVERSE COLLECTION.

GPAnalysis: No reported sales in this grade. Lowest-graded Restored sale is a 5.0 (SA) that sold for $301 in 2012. Fir comparison purposes, an unrestored 1.5 sold for $249 in 2018.

CGC Census: 16 graded copies (14 Universal, 2 Restored). Gerber Photo-Journal Guide Scarcity Index: 6 ("Uncommon: 50-200 copies").

Credits: Cover: Vin Sullivan. Scripts: Jerry Siegel, Creig Flessel, Sven Elven, Vin Sullivan, Russell Cole, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Whitney Ellsworth, Leo O'Mealia, and Ed Cronin. Art: Bill Ely, Joe Shuster, Creig Flessel, Sven Elven, Vin Sullivan, Russell Cole, Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Tom Hickey, Whitney Ellsworth, Homer Fleming, Leo O'Mealia, and Ed Cronin.Tapped by Taschen: The DC Universe Collection copy of More Fun Comics #28 is illustrated in Taschen's 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking (page 12), with the following commentary: "Sullivan, who created this cover, also drew the first cover of Detective and urged DC management to launch Superman and Batman."

Sullivan Speaks: Vin Sullivan discussed Siegel & Shuster and Bob Kane's successes with Superman and Batman in a 1998 interview with comics historian David Armstrong, one of the few public statements the artist made about his comics career before his death in 1999: "Prior to that [Siegel and Shuster] had quite a number of features that were used in New Comics or Fun Comics. That's how I met them, they came out from Cleveland and brought the stuff in and ended up pretty good.... I thought [Superman] was a novel idea.... And then Bob Kane came in shortly after that and he spoke to me about these two fellows who were making $1500 a week, you know, and I said 'Why don't you do the same thing, you know, come in with a character,' and he did the next day — not the next day, the next week I think it was. He brought in Batman, and he did okay for himself. Everybody did okay with Batman, I think (laughs)."

Sullivan's cheerful New Year's cover for this ish seems to auger a rosy 1938 for all parties involved — with the exception of Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, whose betrayal by his business partners should have served as a red flag to Superman's sires, Siegel & Shuster, who would have plenty to complain about by the time dirty-dealing Donenfeld was done with them.****************************************
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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