bababooey

16 hours ago, Spider-Variant said:

The mysterious case of the Amazing Spider-Man 139 original art board.

If you look at every original art board from ASM 139, you will notice something interesting (well, to my easily intrigued butt).  Ross wrote issue 136 in pencil on every one.  Oh that's easy, he just messed up the 139 and 136.  Well, except he also put MAY on everyone too.  ASM 139 had a cover date of Dec. 1974, which means the on the stands date was around 9/10/74, which means the schedule date should have been August, not MAY.  But for ASM 136, with a cover date of Sept. 1974 and an on the stands date of 6/74, a May schedule date would have made perfect sense.  So much so, that the original artwork for ASM 136 has the May schedule date on it (I have only seen one page from ASM 136 though).

So why the hell was Ross penciling ASM 136 and MAY on the artboards for ASM 139.  Obviously ASM 136 would have shipped 3 months earlier.    Did he just pencil too many artboards for ASM 136 and used them on ASM 139.  I even wondered if the story in ASM 139 was originally intended to start after the end of ASM 135, but there would be too many things that wouldn't line up, like why would Peter be looking for an apartment (if ASM 136, 137, 138 all didn't happen or were going to happen later).

I don't know and no one probably ever will.    Just a cool chance to show Ross's Grizzly though.

 

Didn't Marvel go through a period of time when they wanted artists to create their two page double page spreads on one to save money?   It's described in this HA auction Listing .  

Maybe during this era Marvel was stamping 'amazing spiderman' AND putting the issue number on the blank art boards.  It wouldn't be that surprising for these artists to just use their supplies and not use it in order. 

3 hours ago, KPR Comics said:

No idea if I correctly did the poll

I suppose it would help if you clarified what FMV means:

Latest documented sale price

An avg of the last handful of sales

30 day avg

90 day avg

Bad as can.

Alright, let's do this year with publisher data from Comichron ASM v2 #24

Oct00: ASM #465 (24) = 50,200...#14 for the month

Sep00: ASM #464 (23) = 49,300...#18 for the month

Aug00: ASM #463 (22) = 49,900...#13 for the month

Jul00: ASM #462 (21) = 51,900...#14 for the month

Jun00: ASM #461 (20) = 53,500...#12 for the month

May00: ASM #460 (19) = 53,000...#12 for the month

Apr00: ASM #459 (18) = 53,200...#16 for the month

Msr00: ASM #458 (17) = 54,100...#14 for the month

Feb00: ASM #457 (16) = 53,200...#15 for the month

Jan00: ASM #456 (15) = 56,400...#13 for the month

Dec99: ASM #455 (14) = 61,900...#11 for the month

Nov99: ASM #454 (13) = 58,900...#13 for the month

Oct99: ASM #453 (12) = 62,000...#11 for the month

Now I'll concede that the second year of the ASM reboot was probably Marvel's best newsstand title...but we're at approximately 50/50 on each version sold in 2000.  Juice it up with 5% intl and 7K in subs and the direct editions sold just might reach 60% of total copies sold but all the charts show 95 direct/5 newsstand in 2000. 

1 hour ago, valiantman said:

Yes, it can be true that newsstands were printed in higher numbers in 1983 and yes, it can also be true that 38 years later, there are nowhere near as many high CGC grade 1983 newsstands in the market, for Amazing Spider-Man #238.

Those are both reasonable things to accept when all the available data matches.

Not liking the answer doesn't change it.

I'm confused, just what is your graphic showing as the "50/50" point ?

Is your graphic demonstrating that more direct copies were PRINTED as of 1986?

Is your graphic demonstrating that more direct copies were sold vs. copies of newsstand copies sold^?  (not returned)

OR 

Is it something not based on number of copies printed or sold and simply based on your assessment of the current number of copies that survived, were graded by CGC and then listed and sold on ebay?

It's hard to respond when your reasoning seems unrelated to production and sales.  Some clarity on what your thought process was when you felt a need to create it, I was always under the impression it was "sold newsstands" vs direct copies....it'd be nice to settle that before we move on to nose picking stationary store clerks & 8 year old boys folding the comics in half to fit them in their back pocket.

5 minutes ago, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

And why do those charts stop at 2013?

DC still had Newsstand until August of 2017.. 

Or are we just dismissing those 4 years ?

Marvel stopped newsstand distribution at the end of 2013.  We aren't dismissing those 4 years I think we're dismissing DC. 

I think someone fairly reliable posted that DC's statemrnts were garbage data but that could be true for some of the Marvel stuff...

8 hours ago, Angel of Death said:

Why does it matter?

3 hours ago, valiantman said:

The online discussion of newsstand before my "X" graph was "Newsstands are rarer!" being proclaimed across all ages.  

The purpose of the "X" graph was only to get the discussion of newsstands to the "next level" information and the point of correction that "Newsstands aren't rarer across all ages!"

 

@bababooey your comments are a good example of "level 3 analysis" and valid, and those straight lines in the "X" graph would have more curves.

"Level 4" analysis would see that "X" graph (with "level 3 curvy lines") different depending on the title being discussed.

"Level 5" analysis would show individual books that don't fit the curve even within a title, like ASM #361, which was hoarded by direct edition buyers (and protected like direct edition bagging/boarding) when they popped up on the newsstands.

"Level 6" a few dozen scatterplots with asterisks and caveats that explain odd situations caused by the closing of bookstore chains and distribution company takeovers/mergers.

"Level 7" etc., etc.

The "X" graph is from newsstand101.com - which isn't a graduate level syllabus, it's an "intro to newsstands" domain - a 101 page - "welcome to the world of newsstands, they aren't always rarer."

The statement that "newsstands are rarer!" (without mentioning the dates) was being repeated so often that the first problem to address was that newsstands were more common when direct started, and less common years later, which meant people needed to understand it was much closer to an "X", not a couple of parallel lines with direct in the common range and newsstand in the rare range.  The "X" graph may imply there's a 0% somewhere, but there isn't a 0 on the chart.  The "X" graph may imply direct edition print runs were higher after the glut of 1993, but it really just says there were "more" direct editions relative to "less" newsstand editions, without an actual number (that isn't a year) anywhere on the chart.

If fixing the misconception of rarer newsstands for the 7 years prior to 1986 was the goal, congratulations!  You've done it at the expense of the 17 plus years after 1986 and beyond.    

I recognize that the chart's original intent but the five year increments on the bottom are clear and the equivalence of the "lessening" on the left/right is also clear. 

The lack of specificity makes its message defensible with the statements you've added above & on your own site....but those caveats don't carry over to places like RARE COMICS who can host your graphic as a stepping stone to their Chucky charts.  Unlike some here I have an appreciation for some of the content on that blog but the data sourcing flaw (chuck) hurts most of the conclusions reached.

You're more than welcome to "level whatever" my raw numbers above to create more clarity for 2004 ASM sales, direct sales vs newsstand copies sold.   Also a minor correction to my previous post ASM was a monthly title (14 issues/ year) at the time NOT 3X per month. 

I would even hypothesize that the 2000/2001 publishers statements are reflective of a secondary tipping point for this title's direct sales vs newsstands.  The direct sales boost ASM enjoyed during the start of JMS' run (v2 #30) doesn't create much change in the publishers copies sold.  Direct sales went from just under 50K to just under 100K in one year, that increase was obviously offset by lost sell-through at newsstands.  Marvel has revisited this post reboot diminishing sales model hundreds of times since but the steadiness of holding a "copies sold" range between 113K and 124K from 2000 through 2004 is indicative of some stability in total sales for the title.  A much larger portion of the copies sold during the Byrne v2 reboot were newsstand issues, in fact I would estimate that there are probably as many copies of some random ASM v2 newsstands as there are direct copies. 

That's 15 years after 1986.

2 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

No, there's nothing rare about Newsstands from that period. If you want a good idea of how absurd the chart is from the article you linked, look here.

By the end of Marvel's newsstand distribution (15 years later), they're relatively rare.

The only way to get clarity from that data is to compare 2004 icv2/Comichron direct sales data to the publishers statement of ownership data you linked to on comichron's site. 

Oct04: ASM #513 = 89,615...#11 for the month

Sep04: ASM #512 = 87,236...#14 for the month

Aug04: ASM #511 = 88,118...#13 for the month

Jul04: ASM #510 = 84,750...#11 for the month

Jun04: ASM #509 = 88,289...#13 for the month

Jun04: ASM #508 = 82,268...#16 for the month

May04: ASM #507 = 81,944...#12 for the month

Apr04: ASM #506 = 83,152...#15 for the month

Mar04: ASM #505 = 83,613...#11 for the month

Feb04: ASM #504 = 84,064...#11 for the month

Jan04: ASM #503 = 87,341...#12 for the month

Dec03: ASM #502 = 90,484...#12 for the month

Nov03: ASM #501 = 94,558...#09 for the month

Oct03: ASM #500 = 148,928...#02 for the month

Sep03: ASM #499 (58) = 92,294...#12 for the month

Aug03: ASM #498 (57) = 93,469...#09 for the month

Aug03: ASM #497 (56) = 92,277...#10 for the month

Jul03: ASM #496 (55) = 95,467...#08 for the month

Jul03: ASM #495 (54) = 95,173...#09 for the month

Jun03: ASM = None

May03: ASM #494 (53) = 95,777...#07 for the month

Apr03: ASM #493 (52) = 96,624...#04 for the month

Mar03: ASM #492 (51) = 96,428...#05 for the month

Feb03: ASM #491 (50) = 100,439...#04 for the month

Jan03: ASM #490 (49) = 90,032...#06 for the month

Generally speaking the direct sales were trending down for the 23 issues shown (ASM was 3x per month) but it's guesswork at best...but here's an attempt,  I'm ballparking direct at 90-100K average sales.

Publishers statements in your link show "printed" at 160K & "Dealer sales" which is both newsstand and direct 115K, subs are all direct (8,500), returns are all newsstand (35,331).  Sell through at retail and returns are misleading and quite useless.   

Using direct sales vs. print run we can estimate that 55-65% of the run was printed for the direct market with no returns, so a 22% print run return rate means that 13-23% of the print run was newsstand copies that were sold in 2004.  So in 2004, production data indicates direct copies are 4 to 5 times more common. 

Nowhere close to the rarity claimed by many, you get in the same ballpark subtracting direct sales from total paid circulation. 

The "direct" number omits non-North American direct sales which would bump up the direct % by about 5% or so for those round earthers who believe in the existence of international markets and stuff 

None of this explains current market lack of availabilty but my general commentary is that the @valiantman "X" graph focusing on 1986 is still terribly misleading because it implies that the "lessening" goes to zero since it mirrors pre '79 direct.   Also the glut of direct copies produced in the early 90's happened 5 years after '86 and the newsstand didn't collapse in '92, it failed to keep pace with the direct market insanity.  I don't believe newsstand sell thru became problematic until later in the 90's with Marvel's financial troubles, price increases etc..etc...

Anyways, that's my contribution to this thread.  

28 minutes ago, Raze said:

I bought a book on ebay and this was the description 

"This book is in approximate 2.0 G condition, has light tan to off-white pages and is unrestored. Cover is attached with tape."

When I inspected the book the cover was split and detached, with the covers being taped back together.

I thought that the cover was being attached to the book with tape. And mentions nothing about it being split. Is this implied?

The seller is top notch and Ive bought from in the past.

Im I being to picky? 

A more accurate description would have been "covers are attached with tape" (meaning: to each other) rather than "cover is..." however I'd probably rather own the book as pictured rather than one with random tape attaching it to the interior....but that's just MY preference. 

46 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

Quote

including his "Weapon X" codename, a huge clue that he is a mutant!:

What does the number 10 have to do with mutants?

Whatever it got retconned into (Weapon X as part of Weapon Plus dating back to super soldiers, Cap as first and whatever else) the Marvel wiki seems to support the fact that Weapon X was even retconned as "mutant" specific. 

I don't know when there's a specific first mention that the 'X' is a roman numeral.  I don't recall it from any of the Byrne X-men run since that was all prior to Wolverine having an origin, assuming we agree that MCP 72-84 stuff was the first Wolverine origin. 

I think the inaccurate ASM 252 designation on the Greek comic was likely to fit into some competitive registry set thing, there may be other census slots for that comic.   While I think census/label accuracy is something that is often misused by sellers I don't think CGC cares about how that data is used, I don't have any issue with the French comic other than minor clean up.  

I don't know how the mechanics of creating the first label for a previously unsubmitted book works but I imagine it's similar to when you try to checkout an unpriced item at the grocery store....the clean up of that data only occurs when someone cares enough to point out a discrepancy AND reaches someone who agrees with the importance of the issue.  

8 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

One hour and 55 minutes

1 minute ago, Dr. Dank said:

Post a pic of the drekiest drek, so I don't get a vacation 

Very cool to see books that were bought on the same day that have been part of a single collection for the last 50 + years.

6 minutes ago, Poekaymon said:

The fact I had to look up Hulk 272 to see what it was shows it's not a key on the level of 361.  That having been said, now that I have seen it, I still prefer it to 361.

Sorry meant 271 for the Rocket Raccoon 1st comic appearance 

2 hours ago, Poekaymon said:

13 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

 No, not even close.

What's your pic for key on the level of 361 with a worse cover?  There's a thread devoted to this very topic in general.  Others have tried, but I have personally not yet seen 361's equal.

In my opinion both Avengers Annual 10 and Hulk 272 were far worse than ASM 361.

5 hours ago, Dr. Dank said:

I've never had a tattoo by the lake 

What a novel idea

Anyone miss that active users in thread/post count function yet?  

5 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

51 minutes ago, bababooey said:

I'm a noine!

noine point noine

I'm a noine!

34 minutes ago, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Some friend Billy Bob is. 

That's what I thought after the FIRST post.