LARGEST PUBLISHER OF COMICS (CURRENT)
Marvel (USA) had a larger market share than any comic
publisher at the end of 2015, claiming 41.82% in terms of units
sold, according to global comic-book wholesaler Diamond
Comic Distributors. The second-largest comic publisher of
that year was DC (USA), with a 27.35% market share.BEST-SELLING
SINGLE EDITION OF A COMIC
X-Men #1 (Marvel Comics, 1991) enjoyed
sales of 8.1 million copies. It was created
by Chris Claremont (UK) and Jim Lee (USA,
b.^ KOR). Lee drew four variant covers: 1A,
1B, 1C and 1D. These fitted together to form
a larger image, used as the gatefold cover
to 1E, which appeared a month later.Comics published
by one author
Known as “The King of
Manga”, Shotaro Ishinomori
(JPN) published 770 comic-
book titles (included in
500 volumes).Covers for a superhero
comic book
Marvel’s The Amazing
Spider-Man #666 – the
prologue to Dan Slott’s
“Spider Island” story arc –
was sold with 145 variant
covers. Most of the variants
for this issue had covers
dedicated to individual
comic-book retailers.
The most expensive
comic-book cover sold
at auction was a special
edition of Tintin in
America. It sold for
€1.3 m (£1 m; $1.6 m)
to an anonymous
bidder at an event held
by the Paris-based
auction house Artcurial
in Jun 2012. The ink-
and-gouache artwork
was created in 1932 by
Tintin creator Hergé, aka
Georges Remi (BEL).
An unknown
collector paid €312,500
(£279,569; $425,884) for
a hand-drawn page from
the 1963 Tintin book The
Castafiore Emerald on
10 May 2009 – the most
expensive page of comic
art sold at auction.Eisner Comic Award
wins for...- Best Writer: Alan Moore
(UK) has been voted Best
Writer nine times at the
Eisner Comic Awards,
for a number of key
works. They include:
Watchmen (1988),
Batman: The Killing Joke
(1989), From Hell (1995–
97), Supreme (1997)
and The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen
(2000– 01 and 2004).- Best Artist/Penciller:
P Craig Russell and Steve
Rude (both USA) have each
won four times. - Best Colouring: Dave
Stewart (USA) has picked
up nine Eisner Awards, in
2003, 2005, 2007–11, 2013
and 2015. He has won for
his work on, among others,
Hellboy, Captain America,
Daredevil, Batwoman and
X-Men, colouring for Dark
Horse, DC and Marvel.- Best Cover Artist: Comic-
book artist James Jean
(USA, b. TPE) won six times
consecutively between
2004 and 2009, in part for
his work on the DC/Vertigo
title Fables. - In one category: US
comic-book letterer Todd
Klein has won the Best
Letterer award 16 times,
most recently in 2011.- Best New Series: Brian K
Vaughan (USA) has written
four titles that have won
Best New Series gongs:
Ex Machina in 2005; Buffy
the Vampire Slayer Season
Eight in 2008; Saga in 2013;
and Paper Girls in 2016. - Best Anthology: Dark
Horse Presents, which has
been published by Dark
Horse Comics since 1986,
has picked up five Best
Anthology awards, winning
in 1992, 1994 and 2012–14.
- Best New Series: Brian K
MOST EXPENSIVE
COMIC
On 24 Aug 2014, a 1938
copy of Action Comics#1- which saw the debut
of Superman – sold for
$3,207,852 (£1,935,080)
to Metropolis Collectibles
(USA) in an online auction.
The most expensive
Silver Age^ comic book
ever sold is a 1962 issue
of Amazing Fantasy
#15,
featuring Spider-Man’s
debut. It was bought
anonymously in an
online auction for $1.1m(£676,578) on 8^ Mar 2011.
The term “Silver Age”
denotes publication
between 1956 and c. 1970.Why
is there
a hyphen in
“Spider-Man”? Stan
Lee introduced it to
distinguish the name
of the character
from DC Comics’
Superman.MOST VIDEOGAMES BASED ON
A JAPANESE SUPERHERO COMIC
Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ballseries stars Son Goku,a monkey-tailed boy with superhuman strength and
top martial arts skills. The series included 146titlesbetween 1986 and 2016, across a vast selection of
platforms from Super Cassette Vision to PlayStation
and Xbox One. Toriyama’s originalDragon Ball mangawas^ serialized in 1984–95 inWeekly Shōnen Jump.