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Superman color comic strip (#29) from the first year of publication...
Superman color comic strip (#29) from the first year of publication...
Item # 724699
May 19, 1940
COMIC SECTION only of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 19, 1940
* "The Panic at the Circus"
* Superman (color comic strip) - #29
* 1st year of publication
* Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster
This is a first year printing of the "Superman" color comic strip (by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster), which began in limited newspapers (through the McClure Newspaper Syndicate) on November 5, 1939 (a daily, black & white comic began on January 16). The weekly color Superman strip had a story-line continuity which was separate from the daily comic. At its peak the color comic appeared in 90 Sunday papers with a readership of over 90 million.
Inside is Superman strip #29 with the artwork by Joe Shuster. Included is not just the Superman strip by the entire 16 page color comic section of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch dated May 19, 1940, containing many color comics.
Small binding holes along the spine, a few small archival mends at the blank margins, nice condition.
background: In the May 19, 1940, Sunday strip (#29), Superman finds himself in the middle of a chaotic scene at a traveling circus where a massive elephant has broken free and a pair of lions are on the prowl, threatening the panicked spectators. As the massive pachyderm charges, Superman demonstrates his early Golden Age power by catching the beast by its tusks, holding his ground as the ground shakes, and physically steering the giant animal back toward its enclosure. Simultaneously, he has to contend with the escaped lions; in one iconic sequence of panels, he effortlessly snatches a leaping lion out of mid-air with one hand and tosses it back into its cage, all while Lois Lane scrambles to document the narrow escapes for her next scoop. The strip perfectly captures the "strongman" era of the character, focusing on his role as a protector of the public against immediate, visceral dangers rather than cosmic villains.
Category: The 20th Century
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$150.00
