Skip to main content

107 guides · 9 topics

Comic collecting guides

Straight answers to the questions collectors actually search for: grading, the comic ages, first appearances, values, storage and selling. Every guide opens with the answer and links to the books it talks about.

Browse by topic

Latest guides

  • News

    Stan Lee (1922–2018) and the market for Stan Lee signed comics

    Stan Lee, born Stanley Lieber on 28 December 1922, co-created the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, the X-Men and the Avengers as Marvel's editor and writer, and died in Los Angeles on 12 November 2018, aged 95. In his last decade he signed enormous numbers of comics at conventions, many under CGC's Signature Series programme, so witnessed Stan Lee signatures are common; the value of a signed book depends on the book itself, the label, and the pairing of signer and issue.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • News

    How Marvel and DC changed comics distribution in 2020–2021

    In June 2020 DC Comics ended its relationship with Diamond Comic Distributors and began shipping to comic shops through Lunar Distribution (and, initially, UCS Comic Distributors). In March 2021 Marvel announced it would move to Penguin Random House, effective 1 October 2021, with Diamond reduced to a wholesaler. Together the two moves ended Diamond's 25-year near-monopoly on the direct market and set up its 2025 bankruptcy.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • News

    The Diamond Comic Distributors bankruptcy (January 2025) explained

    Diamond Comic Distributors, for decades the near-exclusive distributor of comics to comic shops, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 14 January 2025 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Maryland. The filing followed the loss of its exclusive Marvel and DC business in 2020–2021 and years of falling volume, and its businesses were sold through the court-supervised process during 2025. For collectors the direct effects were on new-comic supply chains and retailers, not on back-issue values.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • News

    Comics industry timeline, 2012–2025: the events that shaped the market

    The years from 2012 to 2025 saw the founding of CBCS (2014), the biggest single-issue print run since 1993 (Star Wars #1, 2015), the deaths of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (2018), the pandemic distribution shutdown (2020), Marvel and DC leaving Diamond (2020–2021), a run of record auction prices (2021–2024) and Diamond's bankruptcy (January 2025). This timeline lists the documented events that mattered for collectors, year by year.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • History

    Timely Comics: collecting Golden Age Marvel

    Timely Comics was Martin Goodman's comics line from Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939) through the 1940s — the Golden Age incarnation of Marvel. Its big three were the Human Torch, the Sub-Mariner and Captain America, and its keys — Marvel Comics #1, Captain America Comics #1, Marvel Mystery Comics, Human Torch #2 (#1), All Winners Comics — are among the most valuable Golden Age books. A CGC 9.4 Marvel Comics #1 sold for 2.4 million dollars in March 2022.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • History

    Mirage Studios: the publisher of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

    Mirage Studios was the name Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird gave the company they formed to self-publish Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 in May 1984 from Dover, New Hampshire — a mirage because there was no studio. The black-and-white comic's success made it the model for the 1980s independent boom, and the licensing that followed built a global franchise. Laird bought out Eastman in 2000 and sold the property to Viacom (Nickelodeon) in 2009.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • History

    MLJ Magazines: the Golden Age superhero publisher that became Archie

    MLJ Magazines was founded in 1939 by Maurice Coyne, Louis Silberkleit and John Goldwater (the initials) and published Golden Age superheroes — the Shield in Pep Comics #1 (January 1940), the first patriotic hero, and Steel Sterling in Zip Comics #1 (February 1940). Archie Andrews debuted in Pep Comics #22 (December 1941) and so outsold the heroes that the company renamed itself Archie Comic Publications in 1946.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • History

    Fawcett Publications and the Marvel Family: a collector's overview

    Fawcett Publications, the Minneapolis magazine house behind Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, entered comics in 1940 with Whiz Comics #2 and Captain Marvel, who became the best-selling superhero of the 1940s. Fawcett's line — Whiz Comics, Captain Marvel Adventures, Master Comics, Wow Comics — was ended by a copyright suit from DC that Fawcett settled in 1953. DC later licensed and then acquired the characters, publishing them as Shazam.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • History

    EC Comics: the publisher the Comics Code destroyed

    EC Comics was founded in 1944 by M. C. Gaines as Educational Comics and turned by his son William Gaines, who took over after his father's death in 1947, into Entertaining Comics: the 1950 “New Trend” horror, crime and science-fiction line, and Mad (1952). Its artists — Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Graham Ingels, Al Williamson, Harvey Kurtzman and others — made it the most admired publisher of the Golden Age. The 1954 Comics Code made its horror and crime titles unpublishable, and by 1956 only Mad, converted to a magazine, remained.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • History

    A short history of DC Comics

    DC traces to National Allied Publications, founded by Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson in 1934, whose New Fun #1 (February 1935) was among the first comics of all-original material. Detective Comics, Inc. (1937) gave the company its initials and, with Action Comics #1 (June 1938), Superman. Sister company All-American Publications added Wonder Woman, the Flash and Green Lantern; the firms merged as National Comics Publications in 1946, became part of Kinney National (later Warner) in 1967, and adopted the name DC Comics officially in 1977.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • History

    A short history of Marvel Comics: Timely, Atlas and Marvel

    Marvel began in 1939 as Timely Comics, publisher Martin Goodman's comics line, whose first issue, Marvel Comics #1 (October 1939), introduced the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner. Through the 1950s the company published as Atlas, mostly genre comics. It became Marvel Comics with the superhero revival led by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko from Fantastic Four #1 (November 1961). Marvel was bought by The Walt Disney Company in a deal completed on 31 December 2009.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

  • Key issues

    Sub-Mariner #1 (1968): Namor's Silver Age solo series

    Sub-Mariner #1 (May 1968), by Roy Thomas and John Buscema, launched Namor's first solo title of the Silver Age after his feature in Tales to Astonish ended. It is one of the 1968 Marvel expansion #1s — with Captain America #100, Iron Man #1, Silver Surfer #1 and Nick Fury #1 — and a solid Silver Age key with a Buscema origin retelling. Namor himself dates from Marvel Comics #1 (1939) by Bill Everett.

    Updated Sep 14, 2026

Characters & first appearances

All characters →