kenaran

I've noticed about 1-3 a year pop up on ebay the past couple of years. Mostly either obvious flaws, or poor photography. I did notice one in a local shop near me at a FCB sale last year, that one was low grade, I left it.

They basically needed a way to differentiate the newsstands from the directs to prevent refund fraud. The direct market barcodes started at some point in the early nineties (1993?). My memories are a bit hazy as I was still in grade school in the eighties, may need an assist here. As I recall it most smaller shops (read as comic shops) didn't have barcode scanners until the late eighties / early nineties. Just a simple cash register, or even a pocket calculator. I mostly follow DC, for them it feels like any book that had a newsstand just left the box and filled it with something (text, promo, art) for the direct edition.

There are a number of websites that get into this. The basic gist; The first group of 5 digits is for the publisher The second group of 5 digits is for the title Then things diverge for newsstand/direct. For newsstand there are 2 digits which are unique to the issue for a given calendar year. (last two of issue number, month number, counting up from first issue in January, that sort of thing) For direct, once they started having UPC codes, its an extra 5 digits. The general rule is that the first 3 are for the issue #, then 1 digit for the cover #, then 1 digit for the printing #. On some books with high cover or printing counts it starts getting a bit muddled. Newsstands were returnable for a partial refund. Not fully up on it but I think they could just return the cover. On pre-direct market it may have even been just the upper 1/4 of the cover with the title/issue# (plenty of those on ebay). Directs were not returnable, but were a bit cheaper up front. Edit: by cost, I mean cost or refund to the retailer.

AoS 444, works a bit better as a direct.

I did not know about the possible B&N possible connection, that's good to know! I have a few of these blanks, but it's more of a passive thing while wading through cheap bins. There have been a few side conversations in other threads. Once upon a time I did dig into it a bit, someone had mentioned it was just the DC published issues, and I came to that conclusion as well.

I've always considered these to fall into the same category as the DCU logo variants. That places them as originally sold in some sort of multi-pack. Most, but not all of the DCU's have no printing info in the incedentia (de facto first print). These would probably follow suit and be mostly or entirely be first prints. The blank boxes should only be on the issues that DC published (probably half of them). DC and marvel had subtly different UPC formatting in that era, so if you're interested you can research it with an image search (fonts, barcode size, that sort of thing).

As I'm re-watching Doom Patrol... I'll have to say the power of Narration.

I can't say about California or Kentucky. In my region I've had to go in to the Post Office a few times this year for what ended up being mis-delivered packages. The first time, 3 comics shipped from different sellers all went to an address over a mile from my house all on different days. Most recently received a notice to lift a hold to deliver (there was no hold), turned out there was a hold on the address it was delivered to (that one took close to a month to sort out, I had to go to 4 different offices, was told it's gone, then it showed up). The USPS at least around me have been working their people 12+hours days for years. I'm shocked anythings getting delivered. Here's hoping it's just lost and they can find it.

I come across these in the cheap bins from time to time. Always makes me pause for a moment to pick my jaw back up. Warning, avert your eyes!!! (also, Batman using guns)

Hadn't seen these posted yet. Also both in the super suit!!!

I've got one or two of these, but that was 20 or more years ago, certainly not recent. It could be a scam. You can always check your my ebay page to see if there is anything more official there. Payment method would be another scam indicator. My current peeve with ebay is related to receiving offers on things I looked at (possibly twice), but didn't put in my watchlist.

Hi @Cpt Kirk I checked and neither of my copies of 215 Newstand contain the insert. However I will point out that the 215 Newstand IS part of a rare subset. Much like 205 it's has a Newstand variant cover.

...And the rest of the haul. Most I've bought from HPB in one purchase in years!!!!

HPB was VERY kind to me today. Got the last three to finish off this set. Death of Superman Redux, unfortunately a fitting end to this incarnation of Superman (ie a confused mess).

Contender for my best HPB find today!!!! Yes that bag was what it was in, yes the tanning is from that issue, and yes I did pay $4 !!!! Felt really good, the last two weeks had really beat me up, >50 hours of OT, I hadn't had a day off in nearly 3 weeks. Did a couple of HPB's just as a low impact way to blow off steam, boy did I ever. This was the only DCU I saw. One of the stores implemented a new policy of min price $1.99 on comics, I'm guessing that'll last until they get a huge pile in back.