Marvel Comics #1

A pulp publisher buys a comic book

In 1939 pulp magazine publisher Martin Goodman expanded into the new comic book business by buying finished content from Funnies, Inc., a comics packager run by Lloyd Jacquet. Packagers of the day had the artists but not the money to print and distribute; publishers had the money but no artists. Funnies, Inc. supplied the pages, and Goodman's company, Timely Publications, put its name on the cover.

The result, Marvel Comics #1, was published on August 31, 1939, with a cover date of October 1939. It carried the first appearances of Carl Burgos's android superhero the Human Torch and Paul Gustavson's costumed detective the Angel, the Western hero the Masked Raider, the jungle feature 'The Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great' adapted by Ben Thompson from one of Goodman's own pulp stories, a one-off adventure called 'Jungle Terror,' gag cartoons and a two-page prose story about auto racing. The painted cover, by veteran science fiction pulp artist Frank R. Paul, showed the Human Torch looking quite different from the character inside.

The book also gave newsstand readers their first look at Bill Everett's Sub-Mariner, Namor. Everett's eight-page origin story had been created for Motion Picture Funnies Weekly, a planned giveaway comic for movie theaters that never went into general distribution, and he expanded it to twelve pages for Marvel Comics. Which of the two books came first has been argued by collectors since Motion Picture Funnies Weekly copies surfaced in 1974.

The first printing sold out its roughly 80,000 copies, according to published accounts, and Goodman ordered a second printing with the cover date changed to November. On most copies a black circle covers the word 'OCT.' and 'NOV.' is printed above it. That second printing is reported at about 800,000 copies. The title did not survive under its own name: issue #2 appeared as Marvel Mystery Comics.

The people on the payroll

Carl Burgos drew and wrote the Human Torch, an android named Jim Hammond who could engulf his body in flame. He is a different character from the Human Torch of the Fantastic Four, though Marvel later revived him in a new way, revealing that the Vision, an android who joined the Avengers, had been built from the original Torch's parts.

Bill Everett's Sub-Mariner, Namor, was written as an antihero rather than a straightforward good guy. Everett signed and dated page eight of his story April 1939, and the last four pages, added for Marvel Comics, look more hurried. Ben Thompson drew Ka-Zar, Paul Gustavson the Angel, and Frank R. Paul, a famous illustrator of science fiction pulps, painted the cover.

The book's success changed Goodman's business. With a hit on his hands, he began building an in-house staff and hired Funnies, Inc. writer-artist Joe Simon as editor; Simon brought his partner, Jack Kirby. Their Captain America Comics #1 followed in December 1940. Goodman also brought his wife's teenage cousin, Stanley Lieber, into the office around this time; he became known as Stan Lee.

Timely itself became Atlas in the 1950s and adopted the Marvel name in 1961, the year it launched Fantastic Four. The title of a 1939 comic book became the name of the company.

The Pay Copy

Lloyd Jacquet kept one copy of Marvel Comics #1 as a business record. In pencil, on the first page of each story, he noted who was paid, the check number, the amount, the date and the number of pages. The grading company's label describes it as a 'publisher's record of payments to artists noted on 7 pages and cover in pencil.' The copy came to light in 1992 in Jacquet's estate, together with a similar pay copy of Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1.

The ledger reads like a 1939 time card. Carl Burgos was paid $128 on July 25, 1939, for 16 pages of the Human Torch. On July 31, Ben Thompson got $120 for 12 pages of Ka-Zar, Paul Gustavson $64 for 8 pages of the Angel, the 'Jungle Terror' artist $48 for 6 pages, and Frank R. Paul $25 for the cover. The Masked Raider's artist received $72 for 8 pages on an undated check. Most artists were paid $8 a page; Thompson got $10, and the Masked Raider's artist $9.

Bill Everett's entry is the strangest. It shows two figures on the same check, $83.25 and $96.00, for 12 pages, along with notations of 64 and 32 that, at $8 a page, match the 8-page and 4-page parts of the Sub-Mariner story. Collectors have used the Pay Copy as evidence on both sides of the argument over whether Marvel Comics #1 or Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 came first.

The copy is also prized for its condition. When it first appeared at a 1993 auction, members of a collectors' grading committee called it the best known copy, citing its white pages and near-perfect printing registration; Marvel Comics #1 is notorious for off-register interior pages. It is also the only copy one auction cataloger had seen with the October cover date visibly showing through the black circle.

From record to record

The Pay Copy set a record for any comic book when it sold privately for a reported $350,000 to collector and dealer Jay Parrino. Sources disagree on the year: one auction description says 2001, the grading company says 2002, and a 2022 account says January 2003, with Steve Geppi as the seller. One description adds that other books may have been part of that deal. The record stood until 2010, when an Action Comics #1 became the first comic book to pass $1 million.

After that the Pay Copy cooled. It sold at auction in 2006 for $201,250 and again on August 3, 2007, for about $205,000, below its earlier private price. In February 2010 it sold at auction in Dallas for $227,050. In its 2007 and 2010 sales it was graded CGC 9.0, tied with one other copy at the top of the census.

By the time it sold again it carried a CGC 9.2 grade. On March 17, 2022, at auction in New York, it brought $2,427,777, a record for the title and more than ten times its 2010 price. The buyer was not named; the auctioneer described him as a passionate collector of comics and other items.

The Pay Copy is not the highest-graded Marvel Comics #1. The 'Windy City' pedigree copy, graded CGC 9.4 and the only copy at that grade in the census when it sold, brought $1.26 million at auction in Dallas on November 21, 2019, then the most paid for any Marvel comic. The Windy City collection, despite its name, was assembled by a mailman in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, who bought every first issue of comics and magazines he could beginning in the 1940s; a Chicago dealer brought it to market.

How to tell the printings apart

There are two versions of Marvel Comics #1. The scarcer October printing carries the October cover date. On the November printing, a black circle is printed over 'OCT.' with 'NOV.' above it, and a black bar covers the October date in the inside-front-cover indicia, with the November date added at the end. The Pay Copy, the Windy City copy and a CGC 2.5 copy sold in 2022 are all unrestored November printings.

The comic is genuinely scarce in any grade. A December 2025 auction listing counted 76 copies on the CGC census. At the top, the census in 2007 and 2009 showed two copies at 9.0 and none higher; by November 2019 the Windy City copy stood alone at 9.4.

Common faults include off-register interior printing and covers trimmed or printed askew, so that the word 'The' at lower left runs off the edge or the red border of the 'Marvel' logo is cut off. The Pay Copy is identified beyond doubt by the penciled payment notes on its cover and interior pages.

The numbers

October 1939 printing

About 80,000 copies, reported sold out

November 1939 printing

About 800,000 copies, as reported

CGC census, December 2025

76 copies listed, per an auction listing

CGC census, June 2007 and December 2009

2 copies at 9.0, none higher

CGC census, November 2019

1 copy at 9.4 (Windy City), none higher

Pay Copy grade history

CGC 9.0 in its 2007 and 2010 sales; CGC 9.2 in its 2022 sale

Timeline

1. Apr 1939

   Bill Everett signs and dates page eight of his first Sub-Mariner story.

2. Jul 25, 1939

   Funnies, Inc. pays Carl Burgos $128 for 16 pages of the Human Torch.

3. Jul 31, 1939

   Funnies, Inc. pays the other contributors, including Frank R. Paul's $25 for the cover.

4. Aug 31, 1939

   Timely Publications publishes Marvel Comics #1, cover-dated October 1939.

5. 1939

   A second printing, cover-dated November, follows the sold-out first printing.

6. Dec 20, 1940

   Timely publishes Captain America Comics #1 by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

7. 1961

   Timely, by then Atlas, adopts the Marvel name and launches Fantastic Four.

8. 1974

   Copies of Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 surface in Lloyd Jacquet's estate, starting a debate over the Sub-Mariner's first appearance.

9. 1992

   The Marvel Comics #1 Pay Copy is found in Jacquet's estate.

10. 1993

    The Pay Copy first appears at auction.

11. 2001

    The Pay Copy sells privately for a reported $350,000, a record for any comic book (other sources date the sale 2002 or January 2003).

12. 2006

    The Pay Copy sells at auction for $201,250.

13. Aug 3, 2007

    The Pay Copy sells at auction for about $205,000.

14. Feb 25, 2010

    The Pay Copy, then CGC 9.0, sells at auction in Dallas for $227,050.

15. Nov 21, 2019

    The CGC 9.4 Windy City copy sells for $1.26 million, then a record for any Marvel comic.

16. Mar 17, 2022

    The Pay Copy, now CGC 9.2, sells at auction in New York for $2,427,777.

The world in 1939

• Apr 30, 1939

  The New York World's Fair opens.

• May 1939

  Batman makes his first appearance in Detective Comics #27, cover-dated May 1939.

• Jul 4, 1939

  Lou Gehrig gives his farewell speech at Yankee Stadium.

• Aug 2, 1939

  Albert Einstein signs the letter to President Roosevelt warning that uranium could be used to build an atomic bomb.

• Aug 15, 1939

  The Wizard of Oz premieres in Hollywood.

• Sep 5, 1939

  With war under way in Europe, the United States declares its neutrality.

• Dec 15, 1939

  Gone with the Wind premieres in Atlanta.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Marvel Comics #1 is number 5 of 100 in the comics entries of the FLOAT 100. 92 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (12 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Frank R. Paul was paid $25 for the cover. The copy recording that payment sold for nearly 100,000 times as much in 2022.
• Most contributors were paid $8 a page; Ben Thompson got $10 a page for Ka-Zar.
• Ka-Zar was adapted from a story in Martin Goodman's own pulp magazine, credited to the pseudonym Bob Byrd, which was Goodman himself.
• The Sub-Mariner story has a small blank box at the end of page eight. In Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1 that box reads 'continued next week,' a clue that the story was first drawn for that weekly giveaway.
• There was never a Marvel Comics #2. The second issue was retitled Marvel Mystery Comics.
• The Pay Copy's record private sale, at a reported $350,000, earned it a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most valuable comic book.