BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

Marvel did the same thing -- offering a whopping 1 cent discount on four comics when you probably want less than all four.

I'm well acquainted with them all. Occam's razor, for example, essentially states the simplest answer that explains all the questions is the most likely answer. It's why I say that in this case one mistake, imperfectly corrected, early in the print run explains everything better and more simply than the suggestion that there was a lesser mistake that went uncorrected until late in the print run and was considered important enough to correct late in the print run, but was then "fixed" with an even worse mistake. This so much more fun than trying to figure out why people seem to want to propel mankind to its doom.

I would agree that the dot and no dot are part of the same printing. That the dot would be deliberately removed relies on the supposition that a sitcom-level stewpid guy was told he must stop the print run because the dot was the wrong place, and "fixed it" by removing the dot. I totally get why people who own a Bat 1 might want to work backward from that conclusion and why they will never back down from it, or simply switch to another just as unlikely reason. I am not expecting to change any minds. But I am curious about how people argue and why and when people abuse or ignore logic to make conclusions and sway others. And, at least on this issue the fate of mankind isn't hanging in the balance.

If the misplaced dot had been replaced with a properly placed dot, then Occam's razor would clearly support the idea that misplaced dot came first. But occam's razor does not support the idea that someone would notice a dot is misplaced and go to the trouble of removing the dot without then putting the dot in the correct place. The simplest explanation is that as they ran off covers of Batman 1 somebody noticed early on that the dot was missing and it looked like it said "no one" instead of "number one" and they added a dot. Somebody was clearly told to "fix it". And then they made cover proofs with the change. All of which likely occurred within the same day, within minutes. So, which makes more sense? That somebody fixed it by putting a dot after the "No" (and incidentally put it a bit further to the right than they should have)? Or that somebody "fixed it" by removing the dot? Calling the latter more likely flies in the face of occam's razor. And paints an image of a production person who behaves like a "dumb guy" in a bad sitcom

"Earthquake"? Shouldn't he be calling it a Kryptonquake?

Soon enough, 9.9 will be the new 9.8

I never worked in book publishing but I did work for a company that printed its own newspapers and magazines. It was not uncommon to run off hundreds of copies before a pause to correct things. And if a minor error was found and corrected, the copies with the minor error would go out along with the corrected copies. Only if something was especially egregious or factually erroneous would they take the step of meticulously separating out and trashing the imperfect copies. I would imagine it was somewhat the same in the comics magazine business.

Your final paragraph is the one suggestion that makes the most sense. The vast majority of copies have the period in that "wrong place". So the idea that some production person would, very late in the process, see it's in the "wrong place" and halt production so he could remove the dot completely -- rather than put it in the "right place" -- that makes no sense at all, no matter how many people say it. The dot is clearly a correction, even if it's still not a perfect correction because it's in the "wrong place". But you are probably right in suggesting that all copies in the first printing, with or without the dot, likely hit the newsstands on the same day

This ad appeared before the book was on the stands, but it was not necessarily printed before the cover itself had been printed. House ads were not always created with a stat of the actual, final cover, very many of them show differences between the ad and the published cover, especially in the logos and blurbs. Sometimes the differences are huge: a house ad prior to Captain America #1 release shows him without wings on his head. And a house ad for an early Timely comic had Stalin partnered with Hitler, while the published book removed Uncle Joe because in the small window between ad and publication, Russia had become our ally. There may have been copies printed with the original cover, but destroyed. And this ad for Batman 1 has the number and date in blue, whereas in all published copies (dot or no dot) the number and date were clearly part of the red plate. So it's definitely not a version of the cover that was published.

There's a Batman 1 first printing (aka "no dot" copy) in HA's current auction. In rare book parlance, they might actually call this not a first printing but, more specifically, a "first printing, first state" due to an "errata" -- because there are so few "no dot" copies that it's virtually certain it was a mistake caught early in the printing process and corrected before too many copies had been printed. But whatever you call them, the dotless copies are clearly the first ones off the press.

I don't know that I would go so far as to call it a house of cards, but I would agree the value of rare first printings (Supe 1, Bat 1, Marvel 1) has remained close to the value of subsequent printings in a way that is almost completely out of keeping with the way such things are treated in other collectible fields. Even, actually, in the way so many modern comic "variants" are valued. And it seems likely, IMV, that some of that is due to collectors who for various reasons don't want people to have an interest in the more rare earlier printings, resulting in a fair amount of "nothing to see here" over the years.

Prior to 1961 it was gospel that a person might read comics prior to puberty but would be expected to dispense with them soon after along with other childish things. Stan unraveled that narrative so that pre-pubescent readers would, as they got older and more sophisticated and started liking girls, would abandon the childish comics and graduate to Marvels, which depicted real adults with real and relatable problems.

Another beat in ASM 38 has always made me want to see the OA and Ditko's description of what's happening: Spidey has defeated the villain and turns to see a smiling mannequin, which irks him so much he punches it. Stan's dialogue has spidey saying the mannequin "reminds me of Ned Leeds". Being this was literally the last time Steve drew Spidey throwing a punch, and that he did so while planning to quit, methinks Steve might've meant it be a parting shot as another person, like maybe somebody with a nickname about his "smilin'"

A look at Spider-man 38 shows the divide between their views. Ditko drew it in late 1965 with no input from Stan. It contains a sequence wherein Peter confronts student protesters who behave like sneering brats and Peter seethes because he'd like to thrash them, later Lee and Romita did a similar sequence in 1968, and Peter is much more sympathetic to the protesters.

A 60s magazine named "Charlie" -- that's part of an article

Reading typical quotes from Stan during this era, you can imagine he's wearing love beads and a peace symbol necklace while "Revolution" plays in the BG

It seems odd that the consigner was a clearly a big fan (enough to go to the Marvel offices where they were given this), but was neither a big enough fan (nor sufficiently curious to investigate) to realize, in 50+ years, that the image was the basis for an image that has appeared countless times on all sorts of common spidey merchandise?

Does Reo dance on the sand?

The OG poster was printed in 1964 and advertised in the comics. That seems to be of the era.

Stan liked the image enough that he had a knitted version of the published poster in his office for many years.

Definitely can be classified as published

This looks like it may have been used (with some repo'd limbs) to make this poster.

Depending on how much you're working backward from a conclusion, Kirby's magic ring boy story means he (and not Lee) created Spider-man, even while the rejection of the magic ring story means Ditko (and not Lee) created Spider-man. It's okay to embrace those contradictions because both of them work backward from the conclusion that Stan Lee had nothing or at lest very little to do with it. The fact that Lee mentioned the ultimately rejected magic ring notion in an initial discussion means he could never have changed his mind to create or co-create what it later became. And Ditko's own recounting that Lee wrote a synopsis must be disregarded as inconsistent with the conclusion that Lee did little to nothing.

You may be in the wrong place with this.

Is there anybody for whom that is not true?