Zonker

NOW SOLD! Lot of 4 Flash comics near the end of the Silver Age run A few issues surrounding the death of the Reverse Flash.

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

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.

NOW SOLD! First 3 issues of the Green Lantern / Green Arrow revival, by Denny O'Neil & Mike Grell

NOW SOLD! Millennium Edition reprints of Detective #27, #38 and All-Star Comics #8: First appearances of Batman, Robin & Wonder Woman

More than misleading, I'm afraid. There are more than 100 copies of #19 in the CGC census alone, so their 1966 claim was probably off by 20x or more at the time.

And yet... A couple of years later, they tried it again! 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! 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.

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.

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

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

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:

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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.

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.

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?

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.

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?

That is an interesting premise! I'm trying to think of an example of any single creator at DC in the 1940s or 1950s being employed and credited as a full cartoonist (responsible for creating all the words + pictures). I'm drawing a blank. So I imagine Schwartz wouldn't really know what to do with a Kirby in 1961. I believe Schwartz would have been of the mindset that you need to have a full script approved by editorial before the artist starts drawing, otherwise how can editorial be sure the artist isn't drawing something the company would not buy and will not publish? On the other hand, Schwartz was a savvy guy, and looking around at the shoestring operation that was Timely Comics circa 1960, he might also have made a virtue of necessity and just let Kirby & Ditko do their thing. Stan Lee would have probably been fine at DC in 1960, being able to draw upon their much deeper bench of comics scripters. Whether he would have been sufficiently motivated to work with the likes of Bob Haney or Gardner Fox to make their dialogue sound more like how young people actually were speaking in the 1960s is an open question. I could see him doing that to try to make his books stand out from the crowd, and to establish his own identity within the DC editorial ranks. But I could also see Stan or his bosses take the opinion that extensively re-writing that amount of dialogue was more than was expected by someone being paid only as an editor.

All Zonker's Current eBay Listings Here 6 JLAs with George Perez artwork: #192-197 From 1981: a six issue run of the classic "satellite era" Justice League of America. Each comic is written by Gerry Conway while George Perez provides the art for each of the covers and contributes to the penciling of each interior story. Average condition of this lot is Fine / Very Fine. In this lot you get: Justice League of America #192 "Quest for Genesis" This is the first chapter of the two-part "True Origin" of the Red Tornado, tying the android's creation into the events of Justice League of America #17, a full 18 years earlier! Interior artwork by George Perez and John Beatty. Justice League of America #193 "Secret of Genesis," the second half of the Red Tornado origin. Perez & Beatty continue with the interior art. Plus an insert featuring the first appearance of the All-Star Squadron, prior to issue #1 of their ongoing series, as written by Roy Thomas and drawn by the team of Rich Buckler and Jerry Ordway. Justice League of America #194 “Destiny is a Stacked Deck” has artwork by Perez & Beatty. Justice League of America #195 "Target on Two Worlds" begins the annual crossover between the Justice League of America and the Justice Society of America, this time taking on the Secret Society of Super-Villains. Interior artwork by the team of George Perez and John Beatty. Also includes a great centerfold pinup by Perez of the entire memberships of the JLA & JSA. Justice League of America #196 "Countdown to Crisis!" is part 2 of the JLA/JSA team-up, and this time features interior art by George Perez and Romeo Tanghal. Justice League of America #197: "Crisis in Limbo!" completes the 3-part JLA/JSA team-up, and has interior artwork by George Perez, Keith Pollard and Romeo Tanghal. The letters column includes a letter from Todd McFarlane, several years before his first professionally-published artwork.

Not so amazing. FACT*: Reading Stan Lee comics promotes sperm production. FACT*: Reading those other comics leads to ED. * Coulda gone the other way, but this is Stan's thread, after all