Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Dan Zolnerowich, fiction house
Highest Graded Copy of Sheena #1, Up for Auction
The highest graded copy of the 1942 debut of the Sheena series from Fiction House is up for auction, and features a cover artist Dan Zolnerowich. #Sheena #FictionHouse
Article Summary
- Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #1 gave Fiction House’s star jungle heroine her own 1942 solo title after Jumbo Comics.
- Sheena #1 stands as an underappreciated Golden Age key, especially with her earliest appearances being notoriously hard to find.
- Dan Zolnerowich’s Sheena #1 cover highlights the work of a prolific Fiction House artist with more than 100 credited covers.
- The highest-graded Sheena #1 on the CGC census is a lone 9.2 Denver pedigree copy, with no higher Universal examples recorded.
Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #1 gave an established Golden Age star a title of her own. Following in the footsteps of other major comic book stars like Superman and Batman, the character got her own series while continuing to star in the anthology title that made her famous. Already familiar from the publisher’s flagship Jumbo Comics, Sheena arrived in the series with friends, enemies, and themes already established. Sheena collectors have it tough when it comes to trying to obtain the character’s key issues. Her true first appearance in UK weekly Wags #46 is almost never seen, and there seems to be no record of a copy ever coming up at public auction in the U.S. Her U.S. comic book debut in Jumbo Comics #1 is another incredibly tough comic book to get. But the debut of her own series in 1942 is an incredibly underappreciated Golden Age key with a beautiful cover by Dan Zolnerowich.
Sheena’s All-New Solo Launch
With a Spring 1942 cover date, the Catalog of Copyright Entries record gives December 12, 1941 as the publication date, which means that Sheena’s own title preceded Wonder Woman’s Summer 1942 solo comic, though not Wonder Woman’s debut in All-Star Comics #8. Fiction House launched the series with a cover by one of their star artists, Dan Zolnerowich (1915-1995), who is one of the most overlooked comic book artists of the Golden Age. The creator contributed to over 400 comic books, including over 200 covers during a comic book career that lasted 1940-1953 during its primary era. Zolnerowich worked for the Eisner & Iger Studio and then for both Iger Studio and Will Eisner‘s studio when Eisner and Jerry Iger split in 1940. Via those studios, Zolnerowich produced work for comic book publishers including Prize, Quality Comics, and Hillman Periodicals among others, and worked with Eisner on The Spirit and P.S. Magazine. But he might be best remembered for his work at Fiction House, where his contributions included 101 credited covers for that publisher on titles including Fight Comics, Jumbo Comics, Jungle Comics, Planet Comics, Rangers Comics, Sheena Queen of the Jungle and Wings Comics.
There are 46 Universal copies of Sheena #1 on the CGC census, with one at CGC 9.2 and none higher, and the Denver copy on offer here is the sole highest-graded copy. The Denver pedigree collection was assembled by a Denver, Colorado newsdealer who saved and carefully stored 153 #1 issues between 1938 and 1944. The highest graded copy of a significant Golden Age key, there’s a Sheena, Queen of the Jungle #1 (Fiction House, 1942) Denver pedigree copy graded CGC NM- 9.2 with off-white to white pages up for auction at the September 24-26, 2026 Comic Books Signature Auction #7469.
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