Recent Auction Brings to Light Rare Early Canadian Comic Book

by BK Munn
We don’t usually take note of the “collectibles market” aspects of the comic book business here at Sequential. Breathless reporting of box office takes and Diamond sales is just not our thing. But a recent item on the ComicBookDaily site caught our eye, and prompted us to share.
As Hamilton comic book retailer Walter Durajlija reported in his recent auction roundup column, he is now the proud owner of a very rare early Canadian comic book, Robin Hood #1. The comic is one of two noted for launching Canada’s short-lived comic book publishing era 75 years ago when imports of U.S. comics were restricted. The book was based on a newspaper comic strip property created by a pair of Toronto artists, Ted McCall and Charles Snelgrove. (Read about it here.) It wasn’t a superhero thing, and the samples I’ve seen of the strip are fairly uninspiring, but it was a brand name popular enough to sustain a few different media incarnations over the years.
So there it is. Collectors are usually the ones responsible for preserving these historical artifacts, and I’m fascinated by these things enough to get mildly excited even just looking at a scan of the cover, so I thought I’d pass on the thrills to you.
Here’s Walter on his acquisition:
Robin Hood #1, Anglo American, March 1941 Graded by ComicLink at roughly a 3.0 sold for $3,399.00.
“I’m happy to say I won this auction. There was a lot of excitement about this book coming to auction. I believe it’s the 1st one ever to make an auction and it is the 1st one I’ve ever seen and I’ve been hunting Canadian Whites for years.
I think the sale amount is disappointing and I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of a CGC case. Oversized raw books are tough to mix in with everything else. Still, looking at the results the Robin Hood #2 and #3 got and the strong results for Three Aces #1 and #2 it’s hard to argue against this book selling cheap.
Robin Hood #1 and Better Comics #1 from Maple Leaf Publishing share the honors of co-launching the Canadian Whites era back in Mach 1941. I’m excited about having a copy of each.”