Get Marwood & I

I still say it was aliens, Rich. I've been reading about them in that erroneous Startling Stories.

Changing the subject for a second, I bought a copy of Startling Stories on eBay the other week as it had a cover stamp that fits in with some of my Miller research elsewhere. It turned up today, the wrong copy, without the stamp. Drrrr Anyway, it turns out that the wrong copy has the most fantastic stamp of its own which, while of no use to my Miller probings, is notable for the strength with which it was applied: You wouldn't mess with whoever was responsible for that, would you

Afternoon I haven't forgotten about this thread, if anyone was wondering, and still have a good number of issues to work through when I get some free time. In the meantime, I spotted this pulp while scouring online for more Pictorial Romances and found it very reminiscent of the early Streamline versions: Sure enough, it's one of theirs: Curtain Road Olive Baxter sounds quintessentially English, doesn't she. The author of "Journey into Danger" and "etc." would you believe. The "etc." made me smile, suggesting somewhat that they couldn't really be bothered. "Yeah, you know - Olive Baxter. Her that done that book. And them other ones" Anyway, it's something to read later. I'll report back on Olive's story telling proficiency later.....

There's some juicy stuff in the Miller history too. And Gold's. All at it, they were, the lucky beggars

Nicely done Rich, I knew that would get you going. It's cool when it all fits, isn't it. Do you think Ethel liked being called love? "I'm not your love, ya cheeky bugger" I can hear her saying, suppressing her actual delight.

Have you read this Rich? There's a nice T&P write up in it which touches on some of our recent discussion points. 1993 @Malacoda

I'd imagine so, yes. I'm not an expert but I would imagine the potential causes of this effect are finite and few, and an obstruction seems a reasonable guess to me. And the fact that it seems to be fairly uncommon - yours is the only copy I can see online currently - indicates that whatever it was, it was spotted early (or manifested late) in the print run. Someone with experience will surely chime in to contradict all that any minute now....

It's quite a clean line, so perhaps an obstruction on the printing plate?

Make your mind up....

@Prince Namormight be interested in this, and have a considered view.

Hurry up. The boys can't wait....

Repaired that for you. ....and I still haven't posted my 100 post Charlton distribution opus yet. Can the world take it!

I like his stamp style

Why would you want / need to know? From the point you've taken them in, checked them to paperwork, and sorted them in preparation for distribution, why would you need to refer to them - the stamp numbers - again? Can you think of a reason? I receive six consecutive issues in one batch / shipment. I stamp them all with the same number. I file the issues in slots, for onward sequential, date driven distribution. Why do I ever need to refer to the stamp number again from that point?

Hey, we do it together, and battle through the data. It's really hard to keep all this in your head, or in one handy reference document. It's a tree with a thousand branches. It doesn't surprise me that we need to pause and recap every once in a while. Fun though, isn't it.

Not 8p, but 8d - and what a whopper! Size of it!

Certainly that is my recollection from the 1960s. I'm not even sure if there was a sale-or-return policy then, let alone stripping the racks of last months issues to make room for the new stuff (as happened with weekly UK comics like The Dandy, Valiant etc). Like rings on a tree older issues remained hidden behind newer ones. But the coloured comics were so popular with my generation in the 1960s that most things sold and didn't need to be returned. Your recollection seems to match the evidence, such that it is. It may have been that the older ones weren't hiding behind the newer ones because they hadn't sold - they may have all been delivered together. And were then, as you say, snapped up eagerly regardless.

I don't think this stamp was T&P's. I have it on a number of publishers books that they did not distribute. I haven't finished that investigation yet, but it's linked to Harvey.

Here's a further thought. If the DC comics were indeed returns, then it stands to reason that T&P would receive a mix of issue numbers, likely out of date sequence, in each shipment. The tables I put together show that clearly and it is a logical outcome of a returns process from a country the size of the USA. So T&P would need to consider how they moved those books on. Would they, say, send those six consecutive Action issues to the newsagents? Surely not. Collectors would have noted that, wouldn't they? So they would need a way of restoring the books to some sort of issue / calendar order before releasing them sequentially into the wild. A numbered stamp might help them do that.... But of course as our table above shows, there's no way that the stamp number was used to separate different dated books as they are all the same number for six consecutive issues! So what were T&P doing? How did they manage the inevitable bunching, and how did they restore calendar order deliveries to UK outlets when they were handling and stamping millions of comics? Or, are all our collector memories inaccurate, and the shops in those days were indeed full of out of sequence, bunched up comics?

The middle of 1965, Robot. It fluctuates by title, but May-Aug seem to be the cross over months as far as I can gather. Batman 171/172 example below:

I often note that things change and assumptions for one period don't always fit another. You can see why I stopped here at the 18th cycle, for Action: If we apply our 'stamp numbers match a sequential delivery pattern' theory here, six consecutive issues of Action turned up in the UK at the same time. The theory holds in the early cycles, but falls apart somewhat as it progresses if we match it to collector recollections. There is still a vague pattern though, even in those three slots - we start with #379, move on to #380-385, then #384-388. That's still a progressive escalation in issue numbers. But no collector recalls 6 issues of Action on sale, do they? So what were T&P doing if all those books did arrive together? And how late does that make some of them? Incidentally, the 18th cycle would be 139 stamps from the first 6 stamp in the first cycle - around eleven years if each stamp represents a monthly shipment. Cover dates are early 1970 at this point - around eleven years after the 1959 start. Still a match!

Let me recap on the exercise I did Rich. I created a set of folders in which to capture the analysis: In the folder numbered 4 above, I created folders for all the DC titles for which I could find a T&P stamped copy during what would become the first four 1-9 cycle window: There are 1,969 images captured in those 54 folders: So the sample is large - here is one folder's content to illustrate: I then plotted all 1,900+ comic examples on this table: As you can see, it's really hard to read now as there are so many examples added. Multiples of the same book with the same stamp are shown in brackets. If we believe that each consecutive stamp represents one shipment, likely to be monthly, then that's around 30 months of activity tabled there (the first cycle's 1-5 stamps weren't used it seems, they came in at stamp 6. This makes sense, as the stamps were already in use for other publications (I have many examples) so the DC comics likely slotted into an existing stamping arrangement). If you look you'll see I have added the 'Majority Cover Dates' at the top of each number. We go from a majority of Nov '59 cover dates (the first 6 stamp) up to majority Jan '62 for the ninth stamp of the fourth cycle. So we have 31 sequential stamps straddling 27 calendar cover months. Quite close to monthly, but not exact. There are some February books in that last slot too though, which nudges 28 calendar / cover months vs what we believe are 31 sequential shipments. As for bunching, if I zoom in on the fourth cycle - potentially two years into the process - we still see it: It does appear to me though, that the sequential numbered stamps do indeed more or less match the sequence of a monthly calendar. If so, that blows any suggestion that the 1-9 stamps represent regional / alternate stamping teams / locations, as we would not see these patterns if that were the case. The pattern is there, told to us by the comics and my painstaking plotting. I did an exercise for a handful of DC titles and carried them on. Here is the 8th cycle, with added Marvel: If anything, the bunching is more pronounced now. But the pattern remains calendar / cover date sequential overall. Action Comics bunch, but still are progressively escalating by issue numbers in this helicopter view. We even see a clear starting point for the price change to 10d. I haven't updated the table for a while - I have a bunch of additional examples to add in a folder - but if we return to the purpose of my review: Everything in this post was told to us by the comics. They were stamped to a clear and obvious sequential pattern. We can't say what the actual calendar date was against each of those plotted number groups. Look how many Action Comics turned up in stamp 4 of the eighth cycle - three consecutive issues worth. So does that mean that 3 issues went on sale in the UK, from that shipment? There are still many issues with this that do not match collector recollections. But the pattern is there to see, and clear. The actual live dates to which they relate though, and so much else is still up in the air.

My Marwood sense is tingling! Well, it would if I had any. Cents that is

I was being facetious Rich. Happy Birthday Spidey!

I'd have to dig the exact date out of the files, I'm on my tablet now, but it was when they changed from the big ones: