Prince Namor

What does that prove? That original sales of those books were higher? I don't think so. The original print run of Hulk 181 has no bearing on its census popularity 40+ years later. All it shows is that Stan convinced a lot of people those books were collectible. A practice that Marvel continued for 60 years on. I'll wait to see the proof. You're free to believe what you like - based on anecdotal evidence and census numbers that make up slabbed copies of comics representing... less than 10% of any print run. Stan Lee hasn't convinced me.

There is. New Gods #3 - 292 copies on Census Fantastic Four #101 - 208 copies on Census Green Lantern/Green Arrow #78 - 331 on Census Conan the Barbarian #4 - 650 on Census Out the same month as New Gods #3: Iron Man #39 - only 129 copies on Census Sub-Mariner #39 - only 84 copies on Census The Census doesn't really PROVE anything, other than what we know already. There are plenty of copies of New Gods, GL/GA, Conan, etc out there and available.

When Kirby went to DC and was immediately paid as a 'superstar', OF COURSE it would ruffle the feathers of long time writers and artists there who DIDN'T get special treatment. It WASN'T Carmine who felt slighted - he simply had to deal with the complaining of some of the staff. (Kirby would face the same nonsense from Marvel staffers when he returned there later - hack writers like Bill Mantlo and Steve Engelhardt and Houseroy, criticizing him and putting him down - if that had been Lee they were talking about, Marvel Zombie's heads would've exploded). When Paul Levitz was working on his book 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, DC gave him access to their numbers, and according to him, the New Gods books were mid-level in numbers. There were other books that should've been canceled long before New Gods. It would've been nice if he'd revealed the actual numbers, but he didn't. The only Kirby book we DO have numbers for during that time, is Jimmy Olsen and Kirby's Jimmy Olsen outsold Lee's Fantastic Four AND Thor in 1970 and 1971. Kirby had made Jimmy Olsen a monthly book and made it a better seller than FF and Thor. After he left it was canceled a year later (actually the numbering would become 'Superman Family'). Bottom Line is... NO ONE was doing what Kirby did in creating the epic he was creating. It is SPECTACULAR in it's storytelling and creativity. Those who call it a failure, don't know a damn thing about comics.

No one is denying Stan promoted the line in a way that made young boys swoon. But the line started falling apart while he was still there, as shown in the numbers. By 1968, he was only in the office 2-3 days a week (as verified by both Roy Thomas and Stan himself). Sol Brodsky leaving in mid-1970 made a much bigger impact than people realize, because it was Sol who made the assignments, who scheduled and handled all production, who got people paid, etc., who really was the actual 'ringmaster', and once he left, THAT is when the running of the business started to get disorganized. Without Kirby and Romita to write the stories, and without Brodsky to actually run things, Marvel's line of comics not only was no longer 'the House of Ideas' in anything other than name, but also a disorganized mess. Deadlines became an issue, and the numbers went down. Stan's part of it as the mouthpiece was still there and at THAT he remained successful... continually telling everyone how great everything was, despite the proof being anything but.

Yeah, I can see that. Superman's live action George Reeves show had 104 episodes that ran from 1952-1958 on Network Television (with huge ratings) and then in syndication for decades (it was on when I was a kid in the 70's). Batman the same way... ran on Network Television, 3 years, 120 episodes, huge ratings... By 1978 they were 2 of the most popular Super Heroes... a Batman TV Show from 1966-68, a Superman run of Box Office Movies from 1978-1987 and then a Batman run of movies from 1989 to 1997, kicked off by the biggest selling Super Heroes Comic of the 80's (Dark Knight Returns at over One Million Copies) and... wait, I thought Stan Lee and Marvel Comics saved the Hobby?

http://www.milehighcomics.com/tales/cbg70.html Here, Chuck Rozanski explains how it worked: ROZANSKI: " To explain, affidavit returns are comics which were originally sent to certain very powerful newsstand distributors on what is known as a "sale or return" basis. These comics were ostensibly put out for sale by these distributors, didn't sell within the allotted 30-day sales period, and were then pulled back off the newsstand and replaced by new issues. As a part of the contract that the publishers make with the newsstand distributors, all unsold newsstand issues were then supposed to be destroyed. In fact, most distributors are required to "strip" the covers (or the top third of the covers) off all unsold issues, and mail them to the publishers as proof of destruction. Where this system went totally wrong was when certain very large distributors were able to make arrangements to simply send in notarized affidavits of destruction, rather than actual stripped covers. Books that were then supposedly destroyed were simply shipped out with a willing trash hauler, who then sold them into the secondary market, and split the money with the distributor. Joe Brancatelli wrote a wonderful expose of this practice in his short-lived INSIDE COMICS newspaper, back in about 1980. If I remember the details of Joe's story correctly, the FBI investigated the entire newsstand distribution system at that time, and there were indictments of certain players. It was strongly implied that the FBI believed that this entire process was all being run by elements of organized crime. Soon after I read Brancatelli's circa 1980 article, I happened to meet with the VP of Marketing for a major comics publisher. One group of items I had kept from my 1978 purchase of Richard Alf's mail order comics business was a stack of carton labels that Alf had torn off of some unopened boxes of bulk books that he had purchased from a certain East Coast wholesale back issue comics supplier. This bulk dealer was so brazen about selling affidavit returns that he never even bothered to remove the original distributor shipping labels off of the unopened cartons of mint comics that he was dumping into the back issue market. Alf felt sure that these labels would be of great interest to the publishers. When I showed my friend the comics executive the labels, he blanched, and asked me to immediately destroy them. He then told me a very complex story about having set up a "sting" at the Sparta printing plant the year before, where he had a plate change made in just the copies of books going to the distributor who's name and address were on the labels Alf had saved. He kept the information on the plate change completely secret, limited to only a couple of top Spartan Printing executives, and the pressmen. Soon after the books were released, he told me that he had a couple of big guys in suits visit him in his office. They placed copies of the specially marked books that had been shipped to the alledged affidavit returns distributor on his desk, and explained to him that they knew exactly how these books came to be different from the rest of the print run, and why he did it. They then suggested, very politely, that he never try such a marking process ever again. I have no doubt in my mind that this powerful publishing executive was terrified of ever crossing these very dangerous people ever again. He was warning me off of revealing my information not only to protect me, but also to protect himself. In looking at the comics in the warehouse, I couldn't help but notice that the issues stopped at about 1979, right about the time of the FBI probe. When I asked, the seller told me that his father had made arrangements to pick up large quantities of comics every week from a certain very large East Coast newsstand distributor (who shall remain nameless...), and that this arrangement had been in place for decades. Given that there were quite substantial stacks of single issues in the deal, and that other boxes were completely full of issues that were mixed up, but that all came out in the same month, it seemed highly likely to me that these books were the fruits of some sort of affidavit return arrangement. Even more disturbing, I saw many instances where there were entire unopened case lots of certain issues of comics, where the distributor obviously never even put the books out for sale. I eventually discovered that the highest number of a single issue in the warehouse was 14,000 copies of one 12 cent cover price Marvel comic."

We can see proof of it. I've posted it here. It was talked about even at the time. It doesn't matter. Marvel Zombie's have been programmed to ignore facts and stick to their programming no matter what. Here the enormously respected Joe Brancatelli, talks about the market in an article from 1979 (you may have seen his editorial's in the Warren Magazine's of the day)... Joe Brancatelli spoke about affidavit fraud and stolen artwork decades before anyone else would, because the rest of the hobby was too busy making money off of it to give it any traction. They didn't want it talked about. In the same way we today see people finding ways to bust open CGC slabs and switch the comics inside, people were finding unethical and illegal ways to make money off of comics back in the 70's as well.

It was. Spider-man had a very popular cartoon series (the exceptional 1967-68 series) that ran through... I think 1971 and then made it's rounds on after school kids TV reruns (which is where I first saw it). But yeah, when Superman got a movie made in 1978, no one was like "How can that be? Spider-man is so much more popular!). No one in the mainstream cared about the sales of Marvel Comics. Superman was the much better known hero because he had a 30 year head start and had been in TV and cartoons throughout his time. And even in comics for 1978, Superman's title still wasn't far off Marvel's best, Spider-man in terms of sales 223,222 to 258,156. Much of the 'Marvel changed the course of comic history' is hyperbole... what we actually see in the real world of what happened is much different.

Good question. Maybe in the fanzines is the answer. In 1970-71, Marvel put out more new books - with actual NEW MATERIAL in it (that actually stuck around for a bit) than they had since the Atlas years, and most of it was spearheaded by Thomas. Not sure how fans would know that, but... Conan the Barbarian - Captain Marvel's New Look - Astonishing Tales - Amazing Adventures - Savage Tales (listed as Associate Editor) - Kull - Marvel Spotlight (Werewolf by Night) - Marvel Premiere (Warlock) - Marvel Feature (Defenders) - New stories, some new characters, some revamped characters.... Stan meanwhile was still bringing out junk like reprints of Petey, Chili, Homer the Happy Ghost, Lil Kids, Harvey... (There's SOME reasoning behind it - I mean, Rawhide Kid in the 1971 Statement showed 204,000 copies per month! As far as creativity though... pretty much bankrupt.) Reprint annuals... FF was getting lame... ASM lame...

I loved those reprints. It was all we had back in the day. But I don't think they did it just to save costs... they HAD no one who could do the work. Thomas brought in more fan boy writers like himself, but those guys couldn't save Marvel and the artists they had to work with either got tired of the crappy work environment and poor pay or just couldn't deal with the Marvel Method of doing all the work and not get credit for the writing. John Buscema, Gene Colan, Herb Trimpe - great artists... not good writers. Marvel could've kept Barry Windsor Smith, but... they treated that guy like such . Mike Ploog wasn't enough of a storyteller himself, and saw the pay just didn't compare to what he could make elsewhere. Jim Starlin WAS an artist/writer and was one of the few that DID manage to create some worthy material. But really... until Marvel found an influx of creative people more inspired by Kirby, than Lee... who were artist/writers themselves... in particular Byrne and Miller... Marvel floundered. The gap between Kirby leaving and the arrival of Miller and Byrne shows itself hugely in the sales. (Sales went up for those two, as well as Claremont and, to some degree Simonson. At a certain point, Byrne was one of the few that could go to ANY book and raise its sales).

It's a bit stronger than a theory, but... I suppose Neal would support it a great deal because he's seen there is no shortage of copies of any of those books of his that he's signed over the years that supposedly 'didn't sell' at the time they came out. This has always been a pretty shady business, especially back in those days, and the idea that once publishers no longer required the torn off logo from an unsold book, but simply a note saying, "Yep, this is how many we didn't sell!" from the newsstand... that someone WOULDN'T take advantage of that... Look at the 1971 Fan Awards: Kirby in the Top Three of the Favorite Artist, WRITER, and Editor with New Gods also finishing #3 as Favorite Comic Neal Adams and Barry Smith as #1 and 2, Favorite Artist - Conan and Green Lantern #1 and #2 Favorite Comic Denny O'Neil Favorite Writer Stan Lee is favorite editor and yet none of his work is listed... Hmmm Favorite Comic book story - 2 of them are Conan, 2 are GL/GA, and the other is Adams story in Avengers #93... Favorite Comic Character... Conan and Green Arrow #1 and #2 And yet... they didn't sell???

And it's KIRBY'S books who are being accepted by the college crowd. This article is VERY positive about Kirby's new books and spends a great deal of time talking about them... this is someone who hasn't been indoctrinated by the Marvel/Lee Zombie hype, but rather excited by what he sees with his own eyes... and what he sees is Kirby's magic. No talk of the dialogue being off or any of that nonsense... in fact, students at Yale are reading transcripts over the radio of New Gods...

Here's an interesting article from the New York Times in mid 1971... it's very revealing the thoughts and perspectives at the time vs how they've been altered. 1. Goodman is NEGATIVE about sales while Infantino is positive! This is just before DC dumb 25 cent price mistake... 2. 'LEE's antiheroes' Sub-Mariner, Captain America... those are NOT Lee's creations... 3. He 'came to Timely Comics with some scripts and was hired by editors Joe Simon and Jack Kirby'. Ha ha ha. Look at Lee tell a blatant lie to try and give himself some credibility. Sick. 4. DC's 'relevance' in social issues in comics is given just as much mention, if not MORE (because let;s face it - it was written better) than Marvel... Marvel just tooted their own horn about it more for the next 50 years. And...

So what DID make Marvel the #1 publisher in 1972, despite all of those falling sales numbers...? In 1970, 49.3% of Marvel's line was REPRINTS. In 1971, 43.5%. Reprints consisting of mainly Kirby's work and Ditko and Romita - the FF and ASM were reprinted monthly, the X-men became all reprints, Sgt. Fury became all reprints, the Horror books all reprints, the Westerns all reprints, the Humor all reprints, the Romance all reprints... The House of Ideas? HE now worked at DC Comics. Lee had NOTHING. He was busy rewriting history in his 'History of Marvel Comics' book while the entire line was falling apart. He would go to Hollywood and spend 30 years NOT making any headway into Movies, while DC's Superman and Batman would give us 8 movies and even started work on a Batman reboot by the time someone ELSE at Marvel finally got a Spider-man movie made... WHO saved comics???

You also had the 1967 Spider-man Cartoon (considered one of the best they ever made) which ran from September 1967 until June 1970 and the 1967-68 Fantastic Four Cartoon. These were the two books that were Marvel's most successful comics and obviously benefitted from the Saturday Morning Cartoon exposure, but for very obvious reasons (to promote LEE as his own brand) they are downplayed as being a part of that success. Again... when they stopped doing the Cartoons, it coincided with the comic book numbers going DOWN. Smilin' Stan is still writing and swinging with the youngsters on the campus 'scene', but... sales are DOWN.

Stan Lee would do his first college speaking appearance in 1964, but wouldn't really step it up until 1966 after the cartoons came out and he put on a toupee and got a tan to hide his liver spots. He was in showbiz now! For the life of me, I can't see any proof that he increased the amount of college readers with his campus appearances. Wasn't he speaking to the already converted? As his appearances increased in 1970-72, sales of the comics actually went DOWN. I suspect the old Marvel stop motion Cartoons from 1966 did more to increase the overall awareness of the line of comics than anything Stan did on Campus. And that was because of how exciting the ART was - using Kirby's actual artwork. In the spread sheet below, you can see how a couple lies from Lee are exposed... a) that comics were dead in 1960... far from it as Dell, Archie and especially DC were still selling big numbers (NOT WW2 numbers, but still bigger than we'd see for another 30 years).... b) that Marvel rose on it's own in the mid-60's... again untrue, as the whole comic publishing business rose during those middle years, and then EXPLODED after the Batman TV show brought even more awareness to the books.... and c) that Marvel became more successful in the 70's.... what??? It's pretty easy to see how numbers went DOWN once Kirby left Marvel. Lee was still writing FF and ASM, but those books PLUMMETED. By the time Lee jumped ship midway through 1972, the FF was down 100,000 copies a month and the ASM 80,000+ copies a month (it seriously missed Romita's much under valued writing and art on the book). The price increases didn't help, but those are some serious drops in sales. Cancellations of Nick Fury, Silver Surfer (Kirby ideas, no longer held together by Kirby), Sub-Mariner (would hold out until 1974)... by the end of the decade, the Marvel line of comics was a mess... So what DID make Marvel the #1 publisher in 1972, despite all of those falling sales numbers...? (continued...)

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964 Avengers #8 - Letters Page

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964 Avengers #8 - Ayers embellishment on this is... quite good... Part TWO:

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1964 Avengers #8 - Lee, Kirby, Ayers, Rosen - Lee comparing himself to Victor Hugo, despite the fact that he never did or would write a literary book. He couldn't produce a comic book script, much less write a book. And yet, people still think of him as a writer. "The glory which is built upon a lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance. ... How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and how hard it is to undo that work again!" - Autobiographical dictation, 2 December 1906. Published in Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 2 (University of California Press, 2013) Meanwhile, thankfully we still have Kirby on the Avengers, and he produces one of their greatest villains... Part ONE:

ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER 1973 Mister Miracle #17 - Letters Page

ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER 1973 Mister Miracle #17 (with ADs) - Written, Drawn and Edited by Jack Kirby (lettered and inked by Mike Royer) Cover by Jack Kirby (inks by Mike Royer) Part TWO:

ON NEWSSTANDS SEPTEMBER 1973 Mister Miracle #17 (with ADs) - Written, Drawn and Edited by Jack Kirby (lettered and inked by Mike Royer) Cover by Jack Kirby (inks by Mike Royer) Part ONE:

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1973 Mister Miracle #16 - Letters

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1973 Mister Miracle #16 (with ADs) - Written, Drawn and Edited by Jack Kirby (lettered and inked by Mike Royer) Cover by Jack Kirby (inks by Mike Royer) Part TWO:

ON NEWSSTANDS JULY 1973 Mister Miracle #16 (with ADs) - Written, Drawn and Edited by Jack Kirby (lettered and inked by Mike Royer) Cover by Jack Kirby (inks by Mike Royer) I think the other thing that may have work against Kirby was the bi-monthly nature of his titles. When New Gods, Forever People and Mister Miracle all went to 25 cents and then on top of that, were bi-monthly.... yes, we got Kirby every month, but those following a specific storyline in one of the books had to wait 60 days... DC was no stranger to bi-monthly or staggered publishing... even their bigger stars like Batman in his own mag, who come out 10 times a year... but those stories were all one-shots. Marvel had made it's name by creating the endless storyline, soap opera, connected tale and that was made for a monthly release... Kamandi would come out monthly and be his longest running DC book... Part ONE: