Original Joe Shuster Action Comics Cover Art and Frank Frazetta Artwork to Auction

The cover of Action Comics No. 21 drawn by Joe Shuster who co-created the character Superman with Jerry Siegel leads Heritage Auctions' February 27–March 1 Comic Art sale.

A Shuster-penciled Action Comics page from a few issues later, Story Page 11 from No. 24 with inking by Paul Cassidy is also going under the hammer as is a Shuster illustration of a smiling Superman in profile on the artist’s own letterhead.

“Joe Shuster didn’t actually draw Superman all that long,” said Heritage Vice President Aaron White. “After just a few years, he had various assistants take over a lot of the drawing, so there was never too much original art by him. And then on top of that, a lot of comic art from the old days just got tossed. So to have an original like this, a World War II cover, is crazy. We had no idea this had even survived. It’s so early that Superman didn’t even fly at that point, he took flying leaps."

The auction also features: 

• copies of Action Comics No. 1 released in June 1938, the 1939 debut issue of Superman No. 1, and the May 1939 introduction of Batman to the world in Detective Comics No. 27
• the debut of Frank Castle, aka the Punisher, in The Amazing Spider-Man No. 129 from 1974 plus an original art page from that issue which also introduced the Jackal, and Ross Andru's, Frank Giacola's and Dave Hunt’s original story art from Page 18
• George Tuska and Billy Graham’s Hero for Hire Page 1 marking the introduction of Luke Cage, Marvel’s first self-titled series led by a Black hero
• Frank Frazetta’s cover painting for Vampirella No. 1 will also appear at the auction with the Drakulon Queen’s outfit and boots painted over by Frazetta to leave her wearing nothing but an armband and a bracelet
• one of Frazetta’s promotional paintings for the Battlestar Galactica television series, published in TV Guide and also used as the wraparound cover art for Battlestar Galactica 2: The Cylon Death Machine