Beschreibung:

CGC certified: Purple Label C-1 (Slight Restoration) 3.0 (Good/VG). Off-white pages. Restoration includes small amount of color touch on cover. Right edge trimmed. Cover: Jack Kirby pencils, Steve Ditko inks. Script: Stan Lee. Art: Steve Ditko Origin and first appearance: Spider-Man. Signed by Stan Lee in blue ink in bottom margin of first page. GPAnalysis: No Purple Label copies in this grade were sold in 2021. A Purple Label 2.0 trimmed copy sold in February 2021 for $9500; a Purple Label 3.5 trimmed copy sold for $13,200 in May 2021; a Purple Label 4.0 trimmed copy sold in February 2021 for $19,200; a Blue Label 3.0 copy sold for $35,000 (April 2021). No signed copies in any grade reported sold in 2021. It should be noted that a SINGLE PAGE from AF15 was sold for $3800 in September 2021. Now that Spider-Man is a worldwide icon, it's hard to imagine how strange the character must have seemed when he debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15. Some readers might have recognized Steve Ditko's idiosyncratic style from various fantasy titles, including Strange Tales and Amazing Adventures. Older fans might have seen his work in pre-Code horror mags like Charlton's The Thing! and Ajax-Farrell's Fantastic Fears. These fans may have had certain expectations from a Ditko story, but superheroics probably wouldn't have been among them: Ditko's only prior superhero work was on ten issues of Charlton's Captain Atom and some inks over Mort Meskin's pencils on Harvey's Captain 3-D. Whatever readers expected, what they got was something entirely new to comics: a misfit hero whose powers seemed more of a burden than a gift. It was a counter-intuitive twist on standard superhero tropes, and publisher Martin Goodman was so sure it would flop that he tucked it into the final issue of a comic marked for cancellation. Sean Howe describes the novelty of Lee and Ditko's new creation in Marvel Comics: The Untold Story: "Amazing Fantasy #15, featuring the first appearance of Spider-Man, reached newsstands in June 1962. It strayed far from superhero conventions, further even than The Fantastic Four had. Unlike Kirby, whose heroes had a stocky majesty, Ditko populated his stories with rail-thin, squinting malcontents, placing the protagonist, Peter Parker, in a constellation of sneers, jabbing fingers, and angry eyebrows. On the very first page, Parker—tie, vest, big round eyeglasses and tightly combed hair—is ostracized by his letter-sweater classmates, a nightmare vision of high school life in which Archie, Jughead, Betty and Veronica have teamed up against one four-eyed weakling." This copy is signed by Stan Lee in the bottom margin of the first page. The consignor explains: "I got it signed when I went to my first ever convention at the Sheraton Hotel in New York City. I think it was 1989 but I'm not 100% sure. My sole purpose in going was to meet Stan and get him to sign my book.... When [Stan] got to me he stopped and said, 'Hey, this is the first Spider-Man book I did!' I cannot tell you how my heart leaped at that moment of recognition...." A limited edition of 150 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues is available. 400 lots, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcover $30, deluxe hardcover with dust jacket and limitation plate $200. Ten of the 15 hardcovers are pre-ordered and the rest will go quickly, so reserve yours now. To order, contact [email protected] . Consignments welcome for PBA's December 2021 Comic Book sale. Top prices for Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age, Silver Age, original art and ephemera. Send inquiries to [email protected] .