2013 Comic Book News Archives

July 22, 2013: A Look at Early Comic Book Restorations

Superman #53 Rich Williams at Q-Collection has shared with us this image of one of the earliest amateur comic book restoration attempts ever made.

    John (Q-Project founder) owns several copies of this 1948 SUPERMAN #53 origin issue. None of them compare with this copy. John included this copy in the Q-Collection to show historians and kids in the millennium to come what happened to unsold copies of comic books back in the 1940s. As you can see the TITLE was torn off and returned to the publisher for a full refund. The publisher had no interest in having these cheap pulp comics returned to them and permitted the newsstands to do whatever they wanted with the rest of the comic.

    Most of the comics, sans the title, were thrown away or recycled in bulk for the few dollars they'd bring. Others were given away to orphanages or schools in the poor areas of the cities. And still other copies were taken to the newsstand owner's homes and given to their own children to read.

    No one knows what happened to this comic between 1948 and the renewed interest in comics in the 1960s. However, some seller thought they could get more money out of this comic book if they "restored" the missing title. It was a valiant effort which, of course, fooled no one. The restoration was done with POSTER PAINT! Yes, that's the same non-toxic paint used in elementary schools in the 1940s through the 1960s. The rest of the comic is in very good condition. But it's this wonderfully restored cover that decided John to preserve it in the Q-Project.

Source: Q-Collection



2013 Comic News

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