The Less Blob

"I picked up hundreds of TOS and TTA books from them 3/$1." I am guessing these were the issues that Big Apple comics had in their bins forever in many multiples at $3 each into the early/mid 90s that I eventually cleaned them out of when they had a 50% off sale.

But I think by the 90s those returns might now have been getting fraudulently kept anymore given the data in that Wolverine comic .. 230K returns on a 550K print run ... otherwise I think we'd see a lot more newsstands of these 90s books

ok, looking at the one from volverine above I guess now i remember, RMA would back out the newstand distribution #s by deducting the comichron/diamond data ... so for the book pictured above, the newsstand sales were horrible ... 200K+ unsold on a 550K print-run. How many of the 550K went to comic shops? You might be talking 200K newsstand returns vs. 100K sales ?? and 250K to shops? And I am guessing by the mid 90s those newsstand returns were getting pulped, otherwise we would see huge numbers of newsies out there.

No, I am almost certain the ones in the 80s give a split, unless I am merging the comochron data and newsstand data in my head from some analysis RMA did for some book. Now I have to look..

I understand. DC built an interesting character with Jonah Hex and he lasted a while. Marvel had their guys. Some of these other westerns seem so bland and generic. I've never read the Billy the Kids, maybe they put some effort into them.

I assume Charlton's Billy the Kid had something gong for it as it lasted a long time. Then again, Battlefield Action started in like 1960 and ended in 1984, but was only 89 issues... some of the 60s ones look decent. I just find it amazing that a company published for so long and seemed like such a mess, but honestly, if they were actually selling 100K++ copies of Billy the Kid, maybe they weren't such a mess, just not a company that made many memorable comics. "The Question", Peacemaker, and Captain Atom seem to be the only characters created by Chalrton that still exist (Blue Beatle was created by another company). Somehow they managed to get licenses for popular cartoons and such in the 70s and for a long time were pretty big on romance comics. It does seem like they were just trying to create cheap product and didn't really have a good idea of the pulse of buyers and trying to create lines of comics people were hooked on like marvel did.

Good golly, I don't keep track, I just remember a batman one I looked at and was horrified that like 65% of the newsstand copies were going unsold

you only own charltons or you've only found them in charltons? they're definitely all over as it is a thing I like to look for when I actually open up an old comic. DC was really having a rough time with unsold copies later in the decade.

I guess a couple of the westerns lasted a long time for charlton and it looks like there may have been 100,000 or so regular fans of billy the kid. Imagine that? 100,000+ regular readers of that 11th tier book

they're all over. it's a fun little hunt. once a year. i assume shad is right that they spread them 12 issues apart. they become much more informative in the 80s when you can see the split between newsstand copies and direct distribution.

which is odd because some of the batman books were ok. with that said I remember my older brother had a friend who read the D.C. books and everyone else was a marvel zombie and they used to give him such grief, like only someone who is ___ would read DC super hero comics. i get it, i'd rather buy this than some superman family book for sure: if you look at a lot of the superman and batman books around then, so much are filler with one off, non super powered villians ... they wanted batman to be a crime fighter, so he was dealing with a lot of regular crime/playing detective. meanwhile, nearly every week spiderman was doing battle with some bad arse dudes/dudettes in one of his titles. but given the quantity of these late 70s DC super hero books out in the market, i suspect those unsold newsstand copies got sucked back into the market and not pulped, inhabiting 5 for $1 boxes for years to come.

It makes sense that this would catch on when the direct market did. Minis might be a hard sell to newsstands. Frankly, all second and third tier titles would seem to have been tough sells.

I don't think the charltons got pulped. I see plenty of the same issue, maybe with a paint or ink splash on the top. I guess they got sold to someone. Some of the war titles in the 70s and 80s were so generic and cruddy I can't imagine who bought them. The monster stuff was ok. It is a shame they were so lame. Even good books like e-man and doomssday+1 failed.

I got a 46 too, just not a slab I feel like 74 is just pushing the cleavage too hard. Not subtle.

I bought 3 copies of 56 today. crazy. the price seemed right and it has been my second favorite.

If anything, if you are going to look at it from marketing, copper maybe makes sense to start in 78 or 79, when the direct market really started to kick in.

this thread started in 2008, wasn't there a fair amount of simmering on his books for a while? He got the OPG cover a few years ago.

Hey listen, a boardie just unloaded a bunch of these sorts of books at under $1 each..quickly scooped up by folks who will fill in their runs and sell off the rest for $2-$5 a pop, so it isn't like they aren't out there at those prices

And nowadays you have to look everything up or you leave money on the table, potentially (although I guess an auction will take care of that), but you still want to know if you are putting a book that has been nearly worthless for the last 30 years in the lot that is suddenly a $15 book for some dumb reason like Rogue gets a new sweater or something. So many formerly nothing books have popped a bit.

Well I missed out on a lot of goodies, not that I have room for more. You should have titled this thread: "I hate my comics so I will give them away practically free"

This is no longer true. I see plenty of these lots getting $2-$3+ a piece and not necessarily just in the early 200s or with some semi key in there: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Uncanny-X-men-Lot-s-250-251-252-253-254-Marvel-Comics-/363261605720?hash=item5494143758%3Ag%3A8oEAAOSwcsJgA5Np&nma=true&si=BZbpsjZvXBDBh7scMVfgI%2BAabNw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 ($17.99 plus shipping for 5 comics) https://www.ebay.com/itm/Marvel-Comics-Uncanny-X-men-247-248-249-250-251-5-Comic-Book-Lot-/124522369924?hash=item1cfe1c9384%3Ag%3A4GYAAOSwDphfzZC3&nma=true&si=BZbpsjZvXBDBh7scMVfgI%2BAabNw%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557 ($13+s/h for 5 (yes, there's a 248 in there, but nobody cares about that anymore) https://www.ebay.com/itm/UNCANNY-X-MEN-250-251-252-253-254-255-1989-SIX-ISSUE-RUN-LOT-MARVEL-COMICS/164559005493?hash=item26507b2735:g:T6AAAOSw5Dlfyu9L $21.93 + SH for 6 comics Yes, you can find lower results, but I don't think the buck-a-book is true anymore. Some folks here are a bit jaded as to what they think this stuff is worth/what they will pay vs. what actual other humans seem to be paying for them. $2-5 a book isn't so exciting either, but it is more than i paid for any of them.

yeah, outside of CGC books I never rely on grades when running searches to establish a value. frankly, the VGs are probably most likely to actually be VGs (if you get a seller who goes through the analysis to determine something is a VG it often is, more or less) but ebay NM ranges from actual 2.0 - 9.6, so many sellers list everything as NM or VF/NM regardless of the actual grade. (one of the best deals I ever got was a guy who had hundreds of 70s books listed at Fine for $1. This was in the early 2000s. He just called everything Fine. I loaded up on a bunch of books, including Avengers 125 for $1 a pop. When I got the books they were nearly all 9.2-9.6)

MCS gets EBAY NM prices for their VF books... indeed, i just bought a 3.5 slab of an old book for the same price (just about) as a raw 2.5 they just sold ... so it isn't so much that they are overpriced .. just like everyone else, sometimes yes, sometimes no, but the prices seem to reflect strong confidence in the grades

I just bought a catwoman 56 in 9.8. 9.8 moderns is not something I do, normally, this was an impulse buy, but I am very fond of the cover, don't want to spend $200-$300 on a 51, which is probably my favorite, and the price was pretty reasonable. it seems the market is not as fond of that cover as I am. no cleavage.

What is insane? $300? Understand the black cover makes it hard (though there are 50 something on the census), but Hughes was already someone in 2011, this wasn't his first Z cover, were folks not buying 50 copies of these because there wasn't cleavage? I understand catwoman 51, sort of, although he had been doing the covers for a bit maybe there wasn't that momentum yet? I know I wasn't buying 50 copies (or any) even though I noticed the covers, i just figured they wouldn't pop due to speculation on them, but other people are usually more clever than I am about this stuff.