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D. D. Degg Published: November 21, 2025 Updated: March 11, 2026 1 minute 4 comments

Michael Maslin links to a few original art auctions from classic New Yorker contributors. One being a ca. 1937 Peter Arno College Humor cartoon, another being a 1941 Charles Addams New Yorker cartoon. The former went for $506 the latter for $24,381. A third original art from a Barbara Shermund Pictorial Review cartoon sold for $2,125.

Below the Original Shermund cartoon alongside the cartoon as it appeared in the Pictorial Review of June 1, 1947 via newspapers.com (ignore the Jan. ’49 date from Heritage Auctions notoriously lousy research team).

All of them, and any other comics auction, don’t hold a candle to Heritage Auctions’ recent Superman #1 sale.

From Heritage Auctions:

This copy represents the pinnacle of comic collecting. Not only is this the highest-graded unrestored copy Heritage has ever offered, but it also holds the top position on the CGC census, outranking the likes of several esteemed pedigreed copies including the Mile High and Davis Crippen copies. Heritage has offered fewer than 100 copies of this momentous issue in any grade, including restored examples — which far outnumber those that remain unrestored. Notably, we have encountered even fewer copies of this issue than of Action Comics #1. At a CGC VF 8.0, the Mile High copy sold in 2022 for $5,300,000, according to GPAnalysis, while most recently, Heritage sold a CGC FN/VF 7.0 copy on January 11, 2024 for $2,340,000.
We are pleased to be able to state that this copy is a first printing, i.e. the house ad for Action Comics #14 lists that comic as “On sale June 2nd” where other copies have the text “Now on sale.” We cannot compare and contrast this with other top copies that have been on the market since many of those are sealed in CGC holders with the interiors not available for ready inspection, but since we understand that only about 60% of the existing copies are first printings we are glad to say this is one of them.

And winning bid came in at $9.12 million.

It is big news. NBC News, BBC News, CNN, The Daily Caller, Cleveland Plain Dealer, even Sports Illustrated. Of course the more knowledgeable comic book sites reported: Comic Book Resources, Comics Beat, ICv2.