Brock

Dave Stevens covers and Rocketeer books seem to be doing well at the moment. That’s mostly Copper…

Hey skillz - If you have a read through this thread, you’ll see lots of discussion on exactly this topic. My own opinion (and I could be wrong) is that these fat diamond books were “non-returnable” editions, used in a variety of contexts. In the previous pages, you’ll see reference to them as appearing in Whitman bags, anecdotal recollections of dealers about them being early direct editions, and photos suggesting they were sold on newsstands in the UK. Lots of people call them Whitmans (like CLZ), and CGC calls them “multi-pack editions”. It used to be that collectors called these reprints, though now we know (believe?) better… part of what this thread tries to do (at least occasionally) is throw some fresh light on this topic. We’re definitely learning as we go…

It presents well, but I’m probably at a 7.0.

9.0

6.5

9.0

9.0

8.5

Scans aren’t great, but I’d say 7.5.

9.0

9.4

I think that @bellrules and @Warlord are both quite knowledgeable about three-packs.

I would like to try this again.

Well, here's the latest arrival, courtesy of a seller in Oregon. But there's a story on this one... This is the same copy that sold a couple of months back for $3.25, where the seller wouldn't ship outside of the United States. However, @Sal had reached out to me to let me know that the new owner had also listed the book for auction. In the end, I still got a great deal, and I'm happy to add this one to the collection. What a great community this is!

Thanks, @OtherEric - I've been travelling, and slow on keeping up with things here. It's a beater copy, but I'd be willing to send it to you if I can cover my costs. I will PM you!

Oh, and these, too...

OK, so I'm traveling at the moment in Prince Edward Island, and was inspired by @bellrules success yesterday. And look what I found today:

I bought all @Ron C.'s slabbed Whitmans a couple of years back, and can vouch for him being a stand up seller.

I told you he was the magical Whitman finder... If you say the name of a scarce Whitman issue three times into a mirror, @bellrules will find a copy.

For a data rich discussion of what the comic market actually looks like, check out Brian Hibbs’ regular “Tilting at Windmills” column at comicsbeat.com. His annual dive into bookscan data is eye opening. Our end of the comic market is a tiny fraction of the American comic market, and it’s kind of like we live in a strange alternate universe. In the real comic publishing world, Marvel is a non-entity and though DC is a bigger player, they are both dwarfed by the largest comic publisher in America - Scholastic Books. The biggest and best-selling comic creator in the world is Dav Pilkey, who knocked Raina Telgemeier off that pedestal a couple of years back. Kids are reading comics in record numbers, but they could care less about super-heroes, or about floppies. Dive into a couple of years of his reports, and you’ll have more data than you know what to do with…

Maybe I'll call in @bellrules and @Warlord to see if they can add anything here... Bellrules may be the greatest hunter of rare Whitmans out there. I think he has a time machine, and keeps going back to 1980 to find them.

This is one of the great Whitman mysteries... why are some issues so plentiful and others so scarce? I'm not sure where you are based, but some of us theorize that Western Publishing's U.S. distribution system collapsed in the latter part of 1980, which is why (some?) of the Gold Key and DC Whitmans from this period are a) scarce and b) most commonly found in Canada. Although we know that Whitmans are not reprints, they were warehoused and stored to be bagged in sets and sold at different times. It may also be that the print runs for many Whitmans were set based on past sales and forecast demands for future issues, making for some big swings in print runs. In other words, "the last bagged set of 2 issues of Beagle Boys vs. Uncle Scrooge didn't sell that well, and there are plenty still on shelves, so cut back the number of Whitman variants for #10 and #11 because we don't need so many."

That suggests that they've actually sold a #10 Whitman, so that appears to be confirmation of existence for both.

Thanks @comic_memories.. Do you have any sources or images that you can share that might help us out on this?

Hi @Williamtt (and thanks to @Get Marwood & I for pointing you in our direction) - We'll see who else chimes in as there is lots of Whitman expertise here. I have to start by saying that part of what draws many of us to Whitmans is that there are still a lot of mysteries left to solve. Generally (i.e. rule of thumb), we can say that prior to 1980, Western published its line under the Gold Key label, with many (but not all) issues also published with a Whitman logo. The general consensus is that Whitmans were non-returnable, while Gold Keys were returnable. After about 1980, the Gold Key logo disappears, and everything is Whitman. Our knowledge of which Gold Key issues were also published as Whitmans is spotty. Some online sites don't include unconfirmed issues in their databases (e.g. comicbookpriceguide.com) while other will have some sort of placeholder (e.g. mycomicshop, Grand Comics Database). It's probably best to try to work with photos where possible... That's not foolproof, though. As @Lazyboy has pointed out elsewhere, the images of Beagle Boys vs. Uncle Scrooge #10 and #11 on comicbookrealm.com do appear (at least to my untrained eye) to be fakes or composite images. The CGC census does not help in this regard. CGC normally distinguishes between Gold Key and Whitman editions, but in my experience, many Whitman issues are mis-labelled in different ways, especially with incorrect issue numbers. The Census currently shows BBvsUS #1 with 3 copies (all Gold Key), 2 copies of #5 (1 Gold Key and 1 Whitman) and 1 copy of #7 (a Gold Key), so it doesn't help us at all with 10 and 11. Basically, though, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. In terms of my personal knowledge, I have never seen either book in a Whitman edition. There is some online discussion of #11 (see http://dellcomicfan.blogspot.com/2012/03/rare-whitman-comics-from-aug-to-dec.html, although this also somewhat dated). The author of that blogpost suggests that #11 is the rarest variant of the 8-12/80 period, but this is one in a long list of statements about which is the rarest book from this period. I will point out that back when this post was written, neither Black Hole #4 nor BBvsUS #11 had any copies on the CGC Census. Today, Black Hole #4 has 99 but BBvsUS #11 is still at zero. Nonetheless, the image of #11 that you found online (shared below, so it can be seen in this thread) does look legit to me. In my mind, I would guess that #11 does exist, and that #10 might exist, but that both are very rare.