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Zonker

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  1. We might wonder if what was really subsidizing the business was the illegal price fixing DC's parent company was engaged in, that led them in 1971 to re-brand their entertainment businesses as Warner Communications? On July 21, 1967, Kinney National expanded by acquiring National Periodical Publications, more commonly, but not yet officially, called DC Comics Due to a financial scandal involving price fixing in its parking operations,[7] Kinney National spun off its non-entertainment assets in September 1971 as the National Kinney Corporation, and renamed the remaining Kinney National Company as Warner Communications Inc. on February 10, 1972.
  2. 6 DCs by Golden Age creators working in the Bronze Age Black Orchid written by Sheldon Mayer Prez & Champion Sports produced by Joe Simon The Avenger in Justice Inc with Jack Kirby art Manhunter written & drawn by Jack Kirby Sandman #1 by Simon & Kirby
  3. Good stuff! Most of my Marvel Silver Age insight is second hand, but it might be interesting to share this observation from Douglas Wolk's book All the Marvels:
  4. Since I was the one who de-railed us by bringing up affidavit fraud, let me point out I did so in the context of discussing the cancellation of a Marvel title (Adams X-Men) that neither Stan nor Jack had anything to do with! Lots of fallacies I think in the subsequent arguments- Some cite cancellation of the various more experimental titles in the 1968-1974 period as evidence that readers of the time rejected them, and that they must not have been very good. Affidavit fraud is brought up just to point out that official sales figures of that time might not always correspond to the actual popularity of a title. Not as proof of any kind of conspiracy against Kirby (or Adams or Barry Smith). The slabbed comics census from 50 years later probably tells us more about the relative value of Silver/Bronze Age Marvels versus DC. Overstreet, eBay, GPA, comics conventions I think all bear out that Marvels command higher prices than their DC counterparts. There simply are more collectors of Stan Lee era Marvels than DCs, so prices are driven up, and so it is more cost-effective now to slab those Marvel comics. Even the harshest criticisms of Stan (starting with the original Funky Flashman parody) acknowledge his genius in promoting Marvel Comics. And particularly, the high-grade census numbers tell us more about number of collectors or speculators during the period of original publication, rather than the number of actual readers picking each issue up off the spinner racks every month. What I think is impossible to know is how many of those speculators bought their pristine copies through official channels (therefore recorded as a sale) versus through backdoor operations (therefore lost as a sale by the publisher).
  5. As strange as it seems now, I've read there was a concern back then about having DC's top 2 heroes "overexposed." It somewhat followed the earlier thinking from the Golden Age All-Star Comics that once a JSA member had his own solo book, he dropped out of the JSA and became an honorary member. Or in the case of Wonder Woman, became the team's secretary. But I guess if you really believed it was too much of a good thing to have Superman and Batman appearing everywhere, then you certainly didn't want some other editor (JLA editor Schwartz) to "steal" your readers, if you are Superman editor Weisinger or Batman editor Schiff.
  6. No offense intended. Should have said I was speaking for myself. At that age (11-12) I personally was desperate to grow up and be taken seriously. Probably eldest child syndrome run amok.
  7. Yeah, that would not be credible. Infantino went out of his way personally to court Kirby to come over to DC. It was in Infantino's interest for Kirby's books to succeed, and in doing so, demonstrate Infantino's executive-level business acumen.
  8. I have a theory that in addition to all the other points made above (including the dynamic storytelling abilities of Kirby/Ditko/Lee), Stan Lee flattered his audience, talking to them as if they were perhaps more sophisticated than they were. So, the fact that Stan was out there talking to college audiences might not have done anything to increase the actual readership of the college age crowd, but I suspect it did a lot to increase the brand loyalty of his middle-school readers, who at that age desperately wanted to avoid the appearance of reading stuff that was too kiddish.
  9. But the problem we are pointing out is what the publishers could count as "selling enough" was a bogus number (at least as the people who were at DC at the time have been telling the story): Over at DC, the editors apparently have no idea what’s really selling. D ick Giordano tells this story: - Irwin Donnenfeld told Bob Beerbohm in an article published in Comic Book Artist #6: - In that same issue, Neal Adams says to Beerbohm:
  10. There is plenty of evidence for affidavit fraud (MH2 being the existence-proof). Where it gets more speculative is the suggestion that Adams / Kirby / Barry Smith books were disproportionally targeted by the practice, and if so, whether that made the difference between commercial success versus premature cancellation (or near-cancellation, in the case of Conan). Personally, I believe it is credible that such a thing happened. When I got into collecting in the mid-1970s, collecting the "good artists" work (interiors, not covers) was much more of a thing than it is now. And, if Roy Thomas is to be believed, Conan the Barbarian only really became commercially successful about the time when Gil Kane was filling in for Barry Smith. It makes sense that if you were hoarding recent issues to sell at marked-up prices, you would focus on those issues then likely to be in demand by those fanatics willing to pay more than cover price for a comic book.
  11. There is of course the theory-- promoted perhaps not surprisingly by Neal Adams himself-- that fan-favorite titles, like supposedly the Adams/Thomas X-Men, were victims of affidavit fraud. Copies would fall off the truck before ever reaching the newsstand and be sold through a back door to aspiring comic book dealers. Often used as a partial explanation for the commercial failure of the original X-Men, Deadman, GL/GA, Kirby's Fourth World, and the near-cancellation of the BWS Conan run.
  12. This is interesting. Do we think that they didn't know the end was coming as issue #17 went to the printers? Or by the "next few months" did they just mean the 2 months until the next issue was to be published?
  13. Maybe. But what came to mind for me was another Jesus allusion- the northern Galilean ("Can anything good come out of Galilee?") starting his ministry up there, and knowing that once he travels south to Jerusalem-- the center of conventional temple-Judaism-- the endgame truly begins, one which he cannot really control. Saw it last night with my son, and it was a 10/10 for us both. It now makes me want to re-read Dune Messiah after 40+ years. I remember strongly disliking the sequel at the time because I didn't appreciate what Herbert was doing to Paul, not understanding that was the author's entire point for the character.
  14. Carmine had some storytelling chops. I recall he was heavily involved in plotting the Deadman and Bat Lash stories (despite not drawing them). Maybe Stan Lee and Carmine Infantino would have "invented" the Marvel Method at DC?