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BC Mag #5: Vintage Paper Chase

Bleeding Cool Magazine article excerpt by Mark Seifert & William A. Christensen

"One" isn't the loneliest number when it comes to comic book collecting. Quite the opposite in fact—it's the most popular number. Even non-collecting civilians have known that for a few decades now.

It hasn't always been true. Number ones have had their ups and downs among comic publishers since the the 1930s. At the dawn of the Golden Age, publishers were sometimes unsure about how the launch of a new series would be received, and going back to press was occasionally necessary (Superman #1 is a prominent example of a Golden Age comic with multiple printings). In the Silver Age, DC Comics thought that a new, untested series might inspire such a lack of confidence among newsstand browsers that they'd sometimes leave the #1 off of the cover. But by the Bronze Age of the 1970s, publishers were prominently drawing attention to their new first issues with "Fabulous First Issue!" and the like bursting from their covers.

They'd finally figured out what collectors had been telling them during the previous decade—numbers are important. And if you're buying a series you like, eventually you want to go back to that first number.

You can find the full article in Bleeding Cool Magazine #5 at a comics retailer near you.  Here is the Bleeding Cool Directory of retailers who have shown special support to the magazine and this website. Are you a retailer who would like to be included? Contact us.

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