Zonker

Thanks everyone! Glad to do it. Good suggestion, jbud73. (Get your books yet?)

I remember my angst when normal comics rose from 20 cents to 25 cents. Before, a single quarter could get ya the book and pay the sales tax. With a 25 cent price you had to scrounge around for a couple of pennies extra. And the first time I bought one of those Dollar Comics (probably the WF 247) the sales clerk at the bookstore cluck-clucked "I can't believe you have to pay a dollar for a comic book."

Now check out the 1975 data, when the wheels fell off for both HoM and Unexpected. What did they have in common? They both adopted the 100 Page format for that outrageous price of 50 cents (soon to be 60 cents). Their brethern kept the 20 cent price going, and overtook the founding books of DC Bronze Horror. I know the issues reported don't line up perfectly with the 100-pagers. Two possible reasons for this: 1) there may be some ambiguity about which exact issues are referred to in the Statements of Ownership, Management & Circulation (does average paid circulation refer to the previous years' cover dates or on-sale dates?? ) or 2) it was a delayed reaction as the newstands found that the 100-pagers didn't sell, and they cut orders on subsequent issues. Then they tried again in 1977 with the Dollar Comic experiment on HoM in the low 250s. I guess DC publisher Jennette Kahn had to repeat Carmine Infantino's mistakes instead of learning from them.

1967 H o Mystery 165-171 158,500 1968 H o Mystery 172-177 156,350 Unexpected 105-110 165,195 1969 H o Mystery 178-183 173,206 Unexpected 111-116 155,110 1970 H o Mystery 184-189 180,642 Unexpected 117-122 159,390 1971 H o Mystery 190-197 187,408 Unexpected 123-130 178,578 1972 H o Mystery 198-209 175,134 Unexpected 131-142 168,430 Witching Hour 18-26 168,005 H o Secrets 96-102 168,256 1973 H o Mystery 210-220 178,025 Unexpected 143-153 164,344 Witching Hour 27-37 163,156 H o Secrets 103-114 160,154 1974 H o Mystery 221-228 174,504 Unexpected 154-160 175,016 Witching Hour 38-49 175,787 H o Secrets 115-126 161,190 1975 H o Mystery 229-238 146,000 Unexpected 161-170 141,000 Witching Hour 50-60 188,000 Ghosts (DC) 34 - 44 186,000 1976 H o Mystery 239-248 124,000 Unexpected 171-176 131,000 Witching Hour 61-66 134,000 H o Secrets 137-142 116,000 Ghosts (DC) 45 - 50 135,000 1977 H o Mystery 249-255 109,191 Unexpected 177-182 131,315 Witching Hour 67-75 115,151 H o Secrets 143-148 118,766 Ghosts (DC) 51 - 59 114,734 1978 H o Mystery 256-263 75,650 1979 H o Mystery 264-275 85,569 Ghost Rider 34 - 39 135,107 1980 H o Mystery 276-287 88,876 Ghost Rider 40- 51 132,129 Ghosts (DC) 84 - 95 95,317 1981 H o Mystery 288-299 86,962 Ghost Rider 52 - 63 121,227 Ghosts (DC) 96 - 107 87,537 Unexpected 206-217 83,000

I think it got covered in an early issue of the Two Morrows mag Comic Book Artist . We may have discussed it on here, I'll see if I can find & bump the thread.

Wait till I get around to keying in the 1967-1977 data. House of Mystery took a beating thanks I believe to all the jerking-around with the higher-priced formats: First the 100 Page Super Specs, then the Dollar Comic experiment. Sure, we love those books as collectors, but most of the readership was apparently scared off by the higher cover price.

Well, here's the other problem, the Ghost Rider numbers only start at 1979, when the DC horror anthology books were on their way out: 1979 H o Mystery 264-275 85,569 Ghost Rider 34 - 39 135,107 1980 H o Mystery 276-287 88,876 Ghost Rider 40- 51 132,129 Ghosts (DC) 84 - 95 95,317 1981 H o Mystery 288-299 86,962 Ghost Rider 52 -63 121,227 Ghosts (DC) 96-107 87,537 Unexpected 206-217 83,000

I just keyed in a boatload of data, but lost DSL connection before saving! I'll eventually retype as a text file, then cut & paste here. The problem is the Standard catalog has no data for ToD, Frankenstein, WbN, etc. The closest they come is Ghost Rider.

Joe Orlando returned to drawing covers in the late 1970s, but unfortunately most of these were less than inspired from this former EC Comics great. I think by the 1970s Orlando was much more valuable as an editor than as an illustrator. But this is one of my favorite late-period Orlandos. It also harkens back to the genre diversity that you could find in the late-1960s House of Mystery-- that occasional Gil Kane or Wally Wood sword & sorcery story mixed in to the anthology.

First copy of this creepy Kaluta masterpiece I've ever owned. Shame about the upper right hand corner...

Here is a frequently-posted image, but I've come to really appreciate Nick Cardy's run of 52-page Unexpected covers. Great Morticia Adams homage!

Here's a Dominguez cover I was happy to pick up-- I seem to recall at least the foreground image of the guy and the grasping hand from DC house ads back in the 1970s. (I think the ad may have clipped the kids in the background out). My memory of the cover image is the guy had a monster hand that seemed to be taking him over-- but now in the context of the complete cover, it is clear he is strangling someone as the kids look on, and the hand is the hand of his victim.

Now for books I've never previously owned: I credit this thread for introducing me to the cover art of Luis Dominguez. I had noted the trademark "LD" signature on books previously (the snake cover of Phantom Stranger #25 comes to mind), but never really knew who it was until learning about him on here. Thanks Sterling & Shiver!

Another upgrade: My previous copy had that horrible miscut on the right hand side-- this is one of the nicest QP copies I've seen of this book:

Here's an upgrade to replace my otherwise-nice copy with the blown staple:

You betcha! Glad the Weird War #1 found a good home!

Hey, I'm all for lightening up. It's just a buzz-kill sometimes to have these 10-centers looked at critically from middle-aged 21st-century eyes. I don't really come here for that, I get plenty of that kind of critical thinking in real life. Besides, most comics would be such easy targets if that's what we're all about. Instead, I'd rather appreciate them for what they tried to be, looking from the point of view of the 8 to 11 year olds many of us were when comics first became cool for us. Just a thought.

Exactly. Silver Surfer...dude... so you're saying you're more sophisticated than the target audience for these late-1950's comics? We Get That. Congratulations.

HoM between the 100 Page Super Spectaculars and Dollar Comics, say the 240s, was pretty lame. Remember the 'surfer cover?' the 'whaler cover?'

Alex Nino, maybe?

Inspired, I did my own bit of research off of the GCD: The Atom transitioned from Anderson inks to Greene over a few issues (they split inking duties on the 2 stories in each. By #14 Greene inked them all) Issue 10 December-January 1964 Issue 11 February-March 1964 Issue 13 June-July 1964 Green Lantern flash-cut from Giella inks to Greene in the space of one issue Issue 28 April 1964 Issue 29 June 1964 Likewise, Flash made the move in a single issue's time Issue 166 December 1966 Issue 167 February 1967 JLA had a several issue transition between Bernard Sachs' last (43) and Greene's first (47) Issue 43 March 1966 Issue 44 May 1966 Issue 45 June 1966 Issue 46 August 1966 Detective Comics made the transition thusly Issue 357 November 1966 Infantino/Giella Issue 358 December 1966 Moldoff (ghosting for Bob Kane) / Giella Issue 359 January 1967 Infantino/Greene So, it looks like there were two distinct waves of Sid Greene taking over: First in 1964, when Julie Schwartz took over editing Batman, he put Joe Giella on both Detective Comics and Batman. For Batman, Giella inked pencils of "Bob Kane" really Moldoff, replacing long-time inker Charles Paris. On Detective, Infantino and Moldoff alternated issues, all inked by Giella at first. Greene was likely available to pick up the slack, as the last Star Rovers strip I've seen referenced is from 1964. (Makes sense, as Schwartz dropped editing the sf mags to make time for Batman) Then as Scrooge researched, in 1966 Giella picks up the comic strip gig, and hands the remaining books, Flash and Detective, over to Greene as well. Now the question is did Sid Greene work himself into an early grave taking on all that work? By my count in 1966 he is inking -Atom -GL -JLA -Detective ... and apparently it was only Gil Kane starting to ink his own pencils on GL that allowed Greene to pick up the Flash early in 1967. Fun Stuff!

I don't think so, that was mainly a writers' purge affecting Gardner Fox, Arnold Drake, perhaps John Broome. And Giella certainly continued working for DC well in to the 1970s. Giella today is drawing one of the daily strips (Mary Worth?) Maybe he got a short-lived ghost-artist gig in the mid-1960s? Or maybe editor Schwartz just thought Greene was a better inker, and once Star Rovers was discontinued, Greene became available? Anyone know?

The name of the MIS series was "Star Rovers." Sid Greene suddenly became the inker for almost all of Schwartz's super-hero titles along about 1966 or so, including JLA over Sekowsky (replacing Bernard Sachs), Flash over Infantino (replacing Giella), Green Lantern over Gil Kane (replacing Giella), Atom over Kane (replacing Murphy Anderson), and Batman in Detective over Infantino (replacing Giella again.) In the case of Anderson, it probably had to do with workload, since he was pencilling and inking Hawkman, plus helping out on a boatload of covers. In the case of Giella, it is a mystery, since Giella certainly did not retire, and was a mainstay at DC well in to the 1970s. In fact, on JLA, the progression was Sekowsky/Sachs to Sekowsky/Greene to Dillin/Greene to Dillin/Giella.

I kind of like this one. This one was pretty good too!