Blade First Appearance: Tomb of Dracula #10 Value

Blade first appeared in The Tomb of Dracula #10, cover-dated July 1973, created by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Gene Colan (Wikipedia). He was a supporting vampire hunter in Dracula's own series; his first solo story came in the black-and-white magazine Vampire Tales #8 (December 1974).

PriceCharting values for The Tomb of Dracula #10 (1973), based on recorded sales, September 25, 2026:

• Ungraded: $415.16
• CGC 4.0: $495.00
• CGC 6.0: $665.37
• CGC 8.0: $1,149.99
• CGC 9.2: $2,016.63
• CGC 9.8: $10,541.59

Ungraded copies sell about twice a week on PriceCharting, while CGC 9.8 sells about once a year. The jump from 9.2 to 9.8 is roughly fivefold, so an unusually clean copy is worth a close look before you decide whether to grade it; see the comic grading guide.

The first Blade is not the film version. Per Wikipedia:

• No sword: he carried teak-bladed knives in a bandolier; Colan credited the bandolier to Wolfman.
• Look: an Afro hairstyle; Colan recalled that Wolfman told him Blade was a Black man and they worked out his clothes together.
• Origin: he began as a human immune to vampire bites. The half-vampire (dhampir) version came later, after Spider-Man: The Animated Series and the Blade films.
• Background: Eric Brooks, born in Soho, London; Wikipedia describes him as a mixed-race British man.

If a book shows Blade with a sword on the cover, it is a later issue.

• The indicia should read The Tomb of Dracula, No. 10, with a July 1973 cover date.
• Vampire Tales #8 is a magazine-size black-and-white book; it is Blade's first solo story, not his first appearance.

• Indicia: the small print on the first page or inside cover gives the title, issue number, cover date and publisher; later printings and reprints usually say so there.
• Cover price and barcode: a price or barcode style that did not exist in the cover year means a later edition.
• Paper and staples: decades-old newsprint tans at the edges; bright white pages on an old date are a warning sign.
• Restoration: color touch, trimmed edges and married covers show up on expensive keys; CGC and CBCS check for them. See spot a fake or restored comic.

• Blade (1998): released in the US on August 21, 1998, directed by Stephen Norrington and starring Wesley Snipes; it grossed $131.2 million worldwide (Wikipedia).
• Blade II (2002) and Blade: Trinity (2004): Snipes again.
• Deadpool & Wolverine (2024): Snipes returned as Blade.
• Marvel Studios' Blade: Mahershala Ali was cast in July 2019, had an uncredited voice cameo in Eternals (2021), and left the role in July 2026 (Wikipedia).

Shoot the front cover flat and straight on in even light, then the indicia and the back cover. The app reads the title, issue number and cover art, and ComicLens gives free scans every day; the indicia photo settles most reprint questions.