Summary
2 December 2011
An original edition of the first comic book to feature the character Superman has sold for a world record price of $2.1 million.
Reporter
Steve Kingstone
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Report
When it appeared on newsstands 73 years ago, the first edition of Action Comics cost just ten cents. The cover design showed a well-built man in blue tights and a red cape, smashing a car against a rock.
Superman was introduced to readers as a "champion of the oppressed," who could "run faster than an express train."
Only a hundred copies of that first issue survive. And for comic buffs this one was in breathtakingly good condition.
In an online auction it fetched a little over $2 million, a world record for a comic. The buyer remains anonymous. The seller is rumoured to have been the actor Nicolas Cage.
Connoisseurs of the comic world say this type of investment has become popular during troubled economic times because rare collectibles hold their value more reliably than property or shares.
Steve Kingstone, 大象传媒 News
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Vocabulary
- newsstands
structures in the street from which you can buy newspapers and magazines
- The cover design
the image that was on the front of the comic
- the oppressed
the people who are treated in an unfair and cruel way and are not able to defend themselves
- buffs
people who are very interested in and have a lot of knowledge about a particular subject
- breathtakingly good condition
not damaged at all and almost as good as new which is amazing considering its age
- fetched
was sold for a price of
- anonymous
his or her identity is not known
- Connoisseurs
people who know a lot about and enjoy a particular art form
- collectibles
things that people like to collect as a hobby
- hold their value
maintain and increase the price they can be sold for even during a recession
