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Zonker

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Posts posted by Zonker

  1. Mark Evanier & Steve Sherman certainly were no Stan Lees.  :sorry:

    "Many of our other readers are no better off than you."
    "You can hardly expect to understand everything by the end of the second issue."
    "No one ever said comic books were easy to understand."

    If Stan were plugging this, he'd be congratulating us all on how intelligent we were to be following this saga, a work of unparalleled genius in the annals of literary masterpieces.  And inviting us discerning readers to write in with our own theories as to what was going on or what would be happening next, in order to share how very smart we were with our fellow sophisticated comics connoisseurs.  :Rocket:

  2. On 4/24/2024 at 11:09 AM, Dr. Balls said:

    I do have one question for Dune fans: why was most of the pronunciations of the names changed, while some stayed the same: i.e., "Har-Cone-Nen" was the old way of saying it, now to "Hark-En-En", or Duke "Lee-toe" is now Duke "Let-Oh" but some, like Muad'Dib stayed the same. That was a very disjointed part of both movies coming from a longtime fan of the first film - was there some clarification that Frank Herbet had specific ways of pronouncing names that got ignored on the 1983 film?

    I think part of what made Frank Herbert's novel such a sensation upon original publication was its degree of world-building, never before seen in a science fiction novel (though Tolkien's Lord of the Rings previously had accomplished a similar feat in an epic fantasy setting).  Herbert included a glossary of his made-up and borrowed terms, but without a pronunciation guide (at least not in the editions I have).  I would imagine Villeneuve's movies reflect the subsequent fan consensus, or perhaps even Herbert's later instructions, since Villeneuve has always been an extreme fan of the work, in a way that David Lynch never really was.  I'm guessing "Maud'Dib" sounds the same in both versions because it is almost the only way one could pronounce it in English, whereas the others are a bit more ambiguous, and so-- luck of the draw-- the different creators took different approaches.  

     

  3. Well, $2.25 shipped for mid-grade copies is more than I'd want to pay for that run, but you're right, we are spoiled collecting here in North America!  :grin:

    So I'm guessing that's a pretty good deal for you considering other buying options.  Also, I'm assuming you like the idea of getting a big stack at once instead of the "thrill of the hunt" chasing down individual books over time, always looking for the best price.  If that's you, then I'd say go for it.  You might not have an equivalent opportunity to get so many at once.

    Do you know other collectors of American comics in the EU?  If so, selling the duplicates becomes interesting, as you could undercut most eBay sellers by not having as high a shipping cost for your European buyers.  And you're probably aware some people are willing to pay more for the newsstand versions, although I think that is generally a high-grade phenomenon.  

    Good Luck!  

  4. Quote

    95 to 261 and i have an agreement with him, i could get all that stuff for 3$ each 

    I'm a big JLA fan, but assuming we're talking about mid-grade books, $3 each works for #95-120 or so, but is too steep for most of what comes later.  Particularly after #200, those books I would expect the seller to throw in for free to close the deal.  Shipping of course will be a concern.  I'm confident you could piece together a similar run for much less than an average $3 per book, but shipping costs to Europe might mean you wind up spending more with multiple sellers, multiple shipments.   

  5. I've always been impressed that Kirby found something fairly original to do with Superman: explore his loneliness as such a powerful being living among the rest of us mere mortals.  We had seen before some angst associated with him being the last surviving Kryptonian, but not so much about Superman just wanting to pal around with other super-beings, no matter where they're from. It was good to see Kirby get the chance to follow up on this thread later in his  Jimmy Olsen run (#147's "A Superman in Super-Town") 

  6. I don't have that issue, but I do have a copy of the Standard Catalog, which pulls data from those circ statements.

    stdGuide.thumb.jpeg.b98ad12311b7bf9b4895d86acf6cfdfd.jpeg

    If I understand their methodology correctly, they apply the average Total Paid Circulation found in a particular comic to the previous year's issues.  So, I believe the way to interpret this is that the WFC #302 statement indicated the then-most-recent Total Paid Circulation was 88,928, and the editors of the Catalog then applied that number to the entries for WFC #287-298.

    wfc_circ.thumb.jpeg.b97e097da762ab7ba2dbe1bca7785661.jpeg

  7. On the subject of what was selling in the early 1970s... this article was just reprinted on the 13th Dimension website (originally published in Back Issue Magazine #100).  Not a scientific survey at all, just the anecdotal observations by Bob Rozakis of the summer in 1973 he spent driving the DC Comicmobile, a short-lived experiment to sell comics out in the suburbs of NYC.  Think of it as a focus-group survey, and of course limited to only DCs.   I suspect his clientele skewed a bit younger than typical readers, as he mentions often being mistaken for the neighborhood ice cream truck!

    Among his observations:

    • Dinosaurs on the covers sold!
    • Guys riding motorcycles on the covers sold!
    • Giant-anythings on the covers sold!
    • For the supernatural-themed comics, girls went for the "scarier" looking covers, while boys preferred the "gross" covers.

    comicmobile.png.8ec574a9d3f6936f81750234f3546d1a.png

  8. On 3/28/2024 at 5:26 PM, Prince Namor said:

    That and the 25 cent price change really kicked them in the butt on sales of the entire line. I know hindsight is 20/20, but here they had a rival publisher who had grown in sales slowly over the course of the last 10 years and the wya they approached it was to add reprints and nearly double the price on all their books? 

    And yet...

    A couple of years later, they tried it again! doh! The 100 Page Super-Spectaculars were more than double the cover price of a typical Marvel Comic, and mostly reprints.  Lasted a year, and if I recall, further declined sales.

    And then...

    In 1977, they tried it again! :whatthe: :whatthe: The Dollar Comic format was also more than double the cost of a typical Marvel.  But this time it was all-new material. This format survived longer, but eventually was also abandoned.  

  9. On 3/28/2024 at 12:47 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

    During the Silver Age, DC could let the profits from the Superman line (and to a lesser extent, Batman's titles) carry books whose sales were more modest. I wonder what changed by 1973?

    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? hm

    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.

  10. On 3/27/2024 at 12:58 PM, Hepcat said:

    I sent it to Susan Cicconi at the Restoration Lab to see what could be done. Well she returned it free if charge saying nothing could be done about the existence of colour touch but it was no longer visible! Now I'm content with my copy.

     

    Any idea what she did to make it "no longer visible?"

  11. NOW SOLD!

    8 DCs by Golden Age creators working in the Bronze Age

    • Kamandi written & drawn by Jack Kirby
    • Black Orchid in Adventure Comics written by Sheldon Mayer
    • Prez & Champion Sports produced by Joe Simon
    • Captain Marvel in Shazam!  with artwork by C. C. Beck
    • The Avenger in Justice Inc with Jack Kirby art
    • Manhunter written & drawn by Jack Kirby
    • Sandman #1 by Simon & Kirby

    8GAGreats.thumb.jpg.d3041b30d8044d1bd434f2ac0f7cc4cb.jpg

     

  12. (thumbsu 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:

    Quote

    One Silver Age insight he had that was new to me was his identification of the issues on the stands in March 1965 as something of a turning point. There were plenty of crossovers prior to that date, but as of March 1965 the reader becomes aware of actually reading a single story of various characters who could appear in any of the several then-published Marvel Comics.  Wolk's prime example is X-Men villains quitting Magneto's group in one week and then joining the Avengers as heroes in the next week.  And one of the vacancies created in the Avengers is because of a Thor storyline launched that same month in Journey Into Mystery.  And that month's JIM story is itself a bridge between the most recent Daredevil issue and that month's Fantastic Four #39.

     

  13. On 3/15/2024 at 6:02 PM, Zonker said:

    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.  

    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!  lol

    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).  
  14. On 3/18/2024 at 9:39 PM, Phicks said:

    Does anyone know why DC was so reluctant to have Superman and Batman in the JLA or on the cover for the first 30 issues or so?

    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. :screwy:

  15. On 3/18/2024 at 2:34 PM, Hepcat said:

    Maybe so. Hopefully though you're not buying into the conspiracy theory that the first wave of Jack Kirby titles were cancelled because of jealousy or some sort of grudge Carmine Infantino harboured against Jack Kirby. Certain Kirby fan boys have actually advanced this theory and for that reason they dislike Infantino.

    :frown:

    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.  :frown:  

  16. On 3/18/2024 at 11:38 AM, Hepcat said:

     

    I'm interested in how/why Marvel hooked so many youngsters into being part of the Merry Marvel Marching Society back in 1962-66.

    ???

    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.  

  17. On 3/18/2024 at 12:31 PM, Hepcat said:

     

    The reason comic titles were cancelled in the 1960's and 1970's is that they weren't selling enough. And falling off the back of a truck or being stolen somehow in no way constitutes being sold.

     

    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:

     

       Quote
    CBA: How did you know if your books were selling?

    D ick: In those days we didn't have sales figures given to us as we did in later years. Every editor had a cork board with their Books' cover proofs pinned up. Sometime during the night, Carmine or somebody would turn over the cover and write a figure down for that particular title. It wasn't number but a percentage, but we weren't given the print run numbers so we never knew how many we sold. I didn't pay too much attention to the numbers because I had no way of comparing them to anything that made sense to me.

     

    - Irwin Donnenfeld told Bob Beerbohm in an article published in Comic Book Artist #6:

       Quote
    Up until I left in 1968… I spent time with all the wholesalers, and I knew every one of them. My father knew all their fathers… so everywhere around the country, I had an ‘in’ …during my tenure, I maintained a large roving field force who were our reps in all the major markets. These reps made reports every week which went right to me. In the really large markets, we had a man or two who worked inside each wholesaler building, all the time. Based on this feedback, I determined what our print runs should be on every book…While I was at DC, I had control over everything. After I left, Carmine couldn’t do what I did. He wasn’t an owner privy to the levels of information I was able to access. He simply did not know the people I had grown up with in the wholesale market.

     

    - In that same issue, Neal Adams says to Beerbohm:

       Quote
    Nobody knew what the hell was going on after Irwin Donnenfeld left in ’68, what was selling, why it was selling, how it was doing, what the sales really were, they had no idea—and books got cancelled, reputations got hurt, people got hurt…

     

  18. 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.  :screwy: