On 3/7/2022 at 8:57 PM, Jeffro. said:

I agree with you on the UK link and I also agree that we'll probably never know the reason why these exist. I think it's pretty safe to say that these were not price test market copies like the 30 and 35 cent Marvels. 

Yes, the UK aspect sort of rules that out doesn't it. If it were a market test - albeit of a lower price for less comic - it would only make sense if they were distributed in a US geographical region. 

I've been tracking the Harvey UK distribution aspect a little more, either side of the variants, and will post more about it soon. It's a bit like a jigsaw, as it turns out. 

On 3/8/2022 at 8:04 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

I've been tracking the Harvey UK distribution aspect a little more, either side of the variants, and will post more about it soon. It's a bit like a jigsaw, as it turns out. 

On 3/9/2022 at 1:42 AM, AJD said:

Might be a while yet Andy, sorry. I've got too many irons in the fire at the moment. Need some time to sort out how to present it.

As well as all that below in the Harvey file, I'm linking the other publishers timelines in too, as that can often be revealing. 

On 3/9/2022 at 8:17 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Might be a while yet Andy, sorry. I've got too many plates twirling at the moment. 

It is possible - just - that my quest to better understand the distribution of Harvey comics for a brief period in the UK in the early 1970s can wait.

On 3/9/2022 at 12:05 PM, AJD said:

It is possible - just - that my quest to better understand the distribution of Harvey comics for a brief period in the UK in the early 1970s can wait.

These 15c variants are proving to be quite hard to find, and I'm starting to wonder how few copies may have been made. It doesn't surprise me that finding 50 year old Harvey comics in the UK is hard going but there are so few copies turning up and there is so little to find about their distribution.

Here is a snippet from a UK fanzine of the time which indicates how scarce Charlton and Gold Key were in 1972 - Harvey doesn't get a mention here or in any of the other copies I have found of the time:

I've been adding to my pence stamped collection though, and here is a nice example from March 1971, which carries a 6p stamp that differs to some of the 15c variant stamped copies that would follow:

Little Dot becomes Big Dotter in this issue, in case you were interested 

I'm kicking myself for saving these two books in my files years ago as examples of UK stamped copies and not, at the time, realising they were US price variants:

I could so easily have bought them just as examples of the stamps, and then had a nice surprise when I went on to discover that 15cvs existed. And I recall that they went unsold for a few rounds on eBay at least. I've yet to see another copy of either. 

Ah well, I'll keep digging....

I managed to pick up a 15c copy of Richie #114 finally, so now have the full set:

I wonder how many people on the planet would be able to replicate that photo 

May 1974 Cover Dated Harvey Comics

While we wait for more 15 cent variants to surface here’s a post about May 1974 cover dated Harvey comics.

There are eleven of them, in total. Here they are on Mike's Comic Newsstand:

During this month, Harvey decided to increase the prices of some of their titles from 20 to 25 cents. As the four examples that follow show, they don’t appear to have made a very good job of it.

First up, we have Richie Rich #126. On every single copy that I have seen, there is an original 20c price sitting under what we can only assume was an overprinted 25c price, applied once the printers realised – or were advised of - the mistake:

The 25c price is even a bit wonky there, you’ll see, just to accentuate the mistake.

Here's a visual summary that I put together for Richie #126, because I like them:

Sad Sack #238 makes the transfer from 20 to 25 cents a little more successfully, which is odd given how clumsy he was. No 20c price visible this time, but he still manages to use a particularly odd oversized font, also wonky, and with a slashed c:

It then settles down to the ‘regular’ Harvey 25c font style that we are used to seeing.

So far so clumsy 

When we get to Richie Rich Money World #11, something wonderful happens – a price variant is born! Hooray! 

It’s clear that the printers were running along with the usual 20c cover price until someone pointed out that the issue was supposed to be 25c now. Why they didn’t overprint the 20c ones (as they did with Richie Rich #126) is anyone’s guess. I have a copy of the 20c variant and have compared it to my 25c ‘regular’ copy – there are no other differences. Just that cover price slip up.

And then we come to Richie Rich Millions #65 and our second 20c price variant appears. Double Hooray!

The odd thing this time is that the book clearly wasn’t in scope for a price change as the issues either side were 25c.

Similar to our Sad Sack #238, the font on the 20c variant is not in the style we are used to seeing. Why wouldn’t it be the same as the preceding issue I wonder? Wrong book, wrong price, wrong font! I own copies of both priced issues and, again, the cover price is the only difference between the two. Same page count, same indicia (Harvey didn’t add prices to their indicias for some reason, incidentally).

The remaining seven May 1974 issues all appear in order and haven’t yielded anything unusual – so far. Given that some of them involve prices changes however, it’s possible that some more price variants may be out there waiting to be found. Or it may just be that the two variants that I have captured here are the only ones – who knows. It’s likely that the instruction came to the printers mid way through the May issue production run, and some got through and others didn’t. We know that happens from my other research strands, and I’ll be looking out for date stamps in future to see if I can pin point the changeover / production sequence.

As far as scarcity goes, I’ve been looking for them for a bit now, and have yet to see a second example of either variant – there are bound to be more examples, but they do appear uncommon at this stage.

So there we go - a lovely little error strewn month, resulting in at least two new price variants. I say new, as I have not seen any mention of them anywhere else.

Comics are great, aren’t they.

Here’s one last observation – guess what month the Harvey Canadian 35c variants ended?

April 1974.

It was all going on in ‘74, wasn’t it 

I had a quick check to see if 'on sale' or arrival dates might help identify the cut off point for the May 1974 price variants. That has helped me in other areas of research but this time drew a blank. I plotted the Library of Congress 'on sale' dates from Mike's, and they line up as follows:

As you can see, there is no obvious order of printing that informs a likely error / cut off point, with the variants and 'erroneous' books being scattered over the production weeks.

I prefer to use actual dates on the comics themselves, as they tend to differ to the Library of Congress dates by some margin and are arguably more accurate, but there aren't enough examples to make an assessment on. Mike has two date sources on his site for Richie Rich #126 incidentally, if you check:

Funnily enough, my RR#126 copy has a date - one week after the LOC / house ad date:

I checked the dates in the comic ads inside the comics for the May 1974 issues myself, and as you can see, they are all over the place, changing from ad to ad:

Here are some other examples of our May 74 books that I found:

Cool, aren't they 

Yeah, I've noticed that sometimes the publishing schedule could be quite haphazard. A series that was ostensibly bi-monthly would sometimes go longer than than two months before the next issue would come out. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it. I'd have to dig a bit to find some examples.

I have Miller stamped examples for ten out of the twelve titles mentioned in the advert below now (the back cover of the Miller UK title War #5, dated 1961)

Only Dick and Dag missing!

Still no new Harvey 15c variants though....

I found another 15c variant - our 32nd - the July 1972 cover dated Playful Little Audrey #102 (my regular 25c copy to the right):

The picture isn't the best - it's from a bulk listing on eBay Australia which is priced far too high to warrant my buying. I'll wait for another copy.

If I have my dates right, that completes the three issues for the title and, as the chart below shows, all our July 1972 books are now in:

As I think I said in an earlier post, it has turned out to be much harder to find copies than I initially expected it might be. I look for them daily but copies have pretty much dried up since I seemingly cleaned the usual UK sources out and the most copies I have seen of any one issue since I started is three.

I'll get around to updating the other documents I created at some point - the source table will have its second 'found in Australia' entry if my memory serves and the indicia type tab of my capture spreadsheet will serve as the best clue as to whether the gaps in the above summary tab are likely to turn up or not. It'll make sense when you see it! Probably....

On 2/18/2022 at 10:56 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

October 20c titles where no 15c Variant is expected due to there being no preceding issues in the 15c Variant date window:

• Baby Huey, the Baby Giant (#98) - #97 is dated October 1971
• Casper and Spooky (#1) – First issue
• Casper and Wendy (#1) – First issue
• Little Lotta Foodland #29 - #28 is dated October 1971
• Richie Rich Bank Book #1 – First issue
• Richie Rich Jackpots #1 – First issue
• Spooky Haunted House (#1) – First issue

Well this'll learn me - a new 15c variant, and for a title that I'd previously assessed as unlikely to bear 15 cent fruit!

Baby Huey #98 - hooray! 

Who'd've thunk it 

Here she be, next to the 20 cee:

Found in England again, and it's a previously UK distributed title, just to further cement my UK related existence theory.

We have 33 confirmed issues across 14 titles now:

I've been looking again at the indicia situation with the September cover dated books and I think it is a near certainty that the two missing #54s will show up at some point as 15cvs. I also think the July dated Richie Rich Riches #1 will surface too, given the presence of the variant indicia on the 11th page of the regular 25c version. I've put a clearer table together to illustrate that point which I'll post soon.

I'm not as sure on some of the missing April-June books at this point as there are still some regular issue indicias that I need to check and some of them aren't that easy to come across in the UK. I have a parcel on the way from MCS which should help 

The appearance of Baby Huey is unexpected, given the absence of any previous issues in the 15cv window, and it raises the prospect of some of the others appearing.  Never say never again!

Morning 

Fifty years ago to the month, Harvey put out the following twenty September 1972 cover dated titles (screenshot courtesy of Mike's Comic Newsstand):

Of that twenty, ten are currently known to be 15 Cent Variant bearing titles (highlighted below in yellow)

Of that ten 15cv bearing titles, 8 are currently confirmed as having 15 Cent Variant issues cover dated September 1972. The only two 15cv bearing titles for which a September 15cv has yet to materialise are Little Audrey & Melvin #54 and, coincidentally, Little Dot Dotland #54. Two inconclusive fifty fours.

As we know from my earlier observations, September cover dated books tend to have a 15cv indicia on the 11th page of the 25c regular copy. Here are my 15c and 25c copies of Hot Stuff #112 to illustrate:

The 15c copy has it's own, slimmed down single line indicia, compared to the regular, full indicia of the 25c copy:

This is because the 15c variant copies that I own all have the first four internal wraps of the 25c copies missing and, presumably, a replacement indicia was required to keep things legal.

First internal wrap:

Second internal wrap:

Third internal wrap:

Fourth internal wrap:

As we can see above, when we turn the page of the fourth internal wrap of the 25c copy, we are then presented with the 11th page which is the first page of the slimmed down 15c copy. Both show the 15c indicia, as the printers cleverly realised that printing it on all the pages removed the need for additional work.

So, returning to my spreadsheet extract, we can see that in all 8 of the confirmed 15cv cases, the 25c copy has the 15c indicia on the 11th page:

The ten titles that do not have any 15c variants confirmed do not have 15c variant indicias on the 11th pages of their 25c copies. This can't be a coincidence, and is a strong indication as to whether a 15c variant will exist for those issues and also our two outstanding #54 titles.

My 25c copy of Little Audrey & Melvin #54 has the 15c indicia on its 11th page:

So I think this issue will have a 15c variant.

I don't yet have a 25c copy of the other #54, Little Dot Dotland, but a kindly eBay seller sent me this image which shows that the 15c indicia is not present:

Little Dot Dotland is a 15c variant bearing title though, #53 exists, so if issue #54 does not have a 15c copy, as the 25c copy indicia absence appears to indicate, that will buck the trend for all the other September cover dated issues. It happens though. There's always one troublemaker. 

I can post a similar assessment of the other months, but they are less conclusive as the indicia scenario does not really get established until the August cover date. Time will tell whether these September conclusions will be borne out. 

Cool arcana, as ever. But that Little Dot Dotland image you have is marked page (7) - allowing two pages for the covers, it seems to be the 9th page. Why do you say that's page 11 - is there an unnumbered ad page in between?

On 9/19/2022 at 9:59 AM, AJD said:

Cool arcana, as ever. But that Little Dot Dotland image you have is marked page (7) - allowing two pages for the covers, it seems to be the 9th page. Why do you say that's page 11 - is there an unnumbered ad page in between?

I don't have the book in hand, so can't say with certainty, but I believe there are indeed ad pages which make up the additional ones, yes. The chap who provided the image understood my request and said "I believe this to be the 11th page (if your counting the cover as page 1".

If you look closely at the image though, the page appears to be the second page of the 5 page story "He's a Good Man!" (see GCD), so you'd wonder how it could be page seven at all. Maybe the 'part 2' that I think I can see plays a part in the numbering. As soon as I snag a copy, I'll let you know!

On 9/18/2022 at 12:09 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I don't yet have a 25c copy of the other #54, Little Dot Dotland, but a kindly eBay seller sent me this image which shows that the 15c indicia is not present:

 

It turns out that the kindly eBay seller didn't understand my 11th page explanation, as my just arrived 25c copy of Dotland #54 does in fact have the variant indicia on the relevant wrap:

Consequently, I believe the issue should now exist as a 15c variant and I've marked it accordingly on the tracking sheet:

So both the September 54's are now 15cv likelys but both remain stubbornly absent, proving once again how the Universe likes a 'messing with your head' research coincidence.

I have some more 15cv stuff to post here but seeing as no one at Invision or CGC wants to solve the journal visibility issues, and no one noticed I'd stopped posting in them, I won't bother!

All good fun.

On 4/30/2023 at 2:50 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

 

I have some more 15cv stuff to post here but seeing as no one at Invision or CGC wants to solve the journal visibility issues, and no one noticed I'd stopped posting in them, I won't bother!

All good fun.

 

Can one still subscribe to your newsletter?

On 4/30/2023 at 2:35 PM, steveinthecity said:

Can one still subscribe to your newsletter?

That likely would be the overall number, yes. 

You've a link on the Boards' main page today....  anything interesting happening here? 

Oh.  Harvey. 

On 5/2/2023 at 8:15 PM, Yorick said:

You've a link on the Boards' main page today....  anything interesting happening here? 

 

 

Oh.  Harvey. 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Narrowly edges Charlton for the lack of interest title, Yoz 

On 5/2/2023 at 12:19 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Narrowly edges Charlton for the lack of interest title, Yoz 

I feel that my Future-Journal of L Miller books will be met with the same.  Maybe a thread instead?

On 5/2/2023 at 8:24 PM, Yorick said:

I feel that my Future-Journal of L Miller books will be met with the same.  Maybe a thread instead?

Definitely. The Journals have no visibility. I might have mentioned that once or seventy times. 

On 5/2/2023 at 12:25 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Definitely. The Journals have no visibility. I might have mentioned that once or seventy times. 

Or seven hundred and seventy seven…

On 5/2/2023 at 8:54 PM, OtherEric said:

Or seven hundred and seventy seven…

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