andyborehol

Love that All-Star Batman & Robin! I’m a little surprised that Frank Miller’s “I’m the g*****n Batman” stuff wasn’t considered to be too edgy for the newsstand market.

This is from the main Wikipedia page for The Smurfs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Smurfs): "In Spanish, they are called "Pitufos", a term invented by Miguel Agustí who was the head of the Spanish magazine Strong which first published the cartoon in Spanish." Sounds like Strong #1 is indeed the first Spanish appearance, because as we all know, Wikipedia is a 100% infallible source of information. Nice book, and an interesting topic! I was never a big fan of the Smurfs as a kid and before your post I honestly thought that they were created by someone at Hanna-Barbera in the early 1980s...very interesting to learn that they were actually created in Belgium for a comic in the late '50s.

As someone who's been collecting Wolverine newsstands for a while and has acquired MOST of what's on your list I wish you the best of luck! A few thoughts/tips from my own experience: I was able to pick up roughly 90-95% of V2 and V3 within the first 6 months of trying by just dollar-bin diving (granted, I started back in 2015 or 2016 and newsstands get a lot more attention now than they did at that time). If you're patient and not super-picky about condition, you shouldn't need to break the bank to finish these runs. There are both "recalled" and "corrected" newsstand editions of V2 #131. However, unlike their direct counterparts the barcodes are completely identical -- if you're a completionist who wants both, you'll need to actually check the page where the accidental ethnic slur is printed. I'm 99.99% sure that V3 #74 was never sold as a newsstand edition. In 6-7 years of looking I have never seen a picture of a copy, let alone seen one for sale. If you look at some of the databases that capture publication dates, #73 was actually published before #72 (I recall reading somewhere that Steve McNiven got delayed while working on the final issue of the "Old Man Logan" storyline) and then #75 was a pretty significant issue from a cross-company storyline perspective as the title began to star Daken as part of the "Dark Reign" story...it stands to reason that the various timing issues forced #74 onto the newsstand chopping block. Obviously, there's a chance that I'm wrong -- if anyone has a copy PLEASE post a picture of it (and then sell it to me )! V4 is by far the most difficult and frustrating run to collect. Some issues can be found in newsstand editions in spades, while for some others I own the one and only copy I have seen come up for sale since I began looking. There are actually 2 issues from this run that I STILL don't own after several years of looking, although unlike V3 #74 I don't have a reason to think that they don't exist. V5 is the final "adjective-less" title that had newsstand editions, and the last issue published on the newsstand that I have seen is #10. I'm fairly certain that #11 has a January 2014 cover date and Marvel stopped publishing newsies at the end of 2013. The last newsstand issue of "Savage Wolverine" is also #10 (same logic as the last bullet). Happy hunting!

A couple of eBay pickups from last week! The fact that Wolverine appears to be playing leap-frog with a buxom lady on both covers is sheer coincidence!

Picked these up at a flea market today for a buck a piece!

I come across newsstand editions of this particular issue pretty frequently and more often than not they are stickered. To date I have found 3 different variations of the sticker.

I've had a very busy week on eBay...still have some more on the way!

While browsing the magazine boxes at an LCS I came across some early 80's retailer items that gave brief synopses of upcoming titles, similar to Previews or Comic Shop News. They are printed on a single piece of 17"x11" piece of paper that is folded once, so ultimately they're 8.5"x11" and fit in a magazine-size bag and board. The store was charging $20 each for these which seemed pretty hefty for what these are, but I couldn't resist the one that has a Wolverine drawing by Frank Miller on the cover which I'm fairy certain I have never seen published anywhere else. A couple of weeks later I went back to the store and picked up two others, the covers of which have pencil art by Bill Sienkiewicz from UXM #159 and Walt Simonson from the X-Men/Teen Titans crossover. There were two others that I did not buy which had Fantastic Four-related covers. Does anybody have any info on these? I haven't been able to find any info via Google and nothing even remotely similar on eBay...ultimately I would love to see a full cover gallery of these, if one exists somewhere. BTW, my phone's camera is making some strange color adjustments due to the lighting situation in my living room...the Sienkiewicz one is on white paper but the Frank Miller one is on pink paper and the Simonson one is on canary yellow.

Here's some French books that I just picked up...a few minor keys, plus Wolverine #79 which was the first comic that I ever bought back in 1994!

Had a similar experience yesterday at a Half Price Books location that I rarely visit because it's way on the other side of town from me...I don't think I've ever found this many modern newsies in one stop before! What actually upsets me a little bit is the fact that the price stickers are all dated "8/21", which makes me think that if I had made the trek a few months ago I would have found a lot more. I guess I'm just the type of person who can't ever be happy with what he has.

Also just got this in from eBay…$2.49 price variant!

Picked up a bunch of stuff for between $1-$2 each last week and these are the newsies…I already own a better copy of the UXM 423 price error but I figured that it would pay for everything else that I bought!

Here’s a bunch of stuff that I found this weekend while hunting in some stores that are a little bit outside of my usual travel radius:

With the recent discussion about when certain publishers ended their newsstand distribution I thought it would be fun to highlight these...Marvel's characters actually made a brief return to the newsstand in 2017-2018, but only as part of a strange deal with Archie comics. Archie published a monthly digest-format title called "Marvel Comics Digest" that reprinted something like 10-12 different comics with a focus on a different character or team each month. This arrangement between Marvel and Archie lasted for less than a year and the series was cancelled after 8 issues. Issue #4 focused on the X-Men, with content ranging from early Lee/Kirby issues up through some oddball stuff from the early 2010's (Despite the cover, Giant-Size X-Men #1 is not included). Here is the US newsstand edition as well as a Canadian price variant:

Japanese version of Giant-Size X-men #1:

That’s a beaut! It’s crazy to think that US comic franchises were already being exported to South America before the end of WWII. Are the interior pages just translated American material or are they original content?

German “museum” edition with a “publisher’s proof” number! I’ll confess that I laughed for wayyyy too long when I first found it because I couldn’t stop thinking about the Venture Brothers episode where they kept talking about a guy who had “PP” on his belt.

Just got a big early Claremont X-men collection in from Spain. Many are in rough condition, but the price was right and I LOVE Spanish books from this era that have original covers like the last 5 do.

Just got this and now I’m only 7 issues away from a complete UXM newsstand run from #500 up. Although it may only be 6 issues...out of curiosity, has anyone here confirmed that #534.1 was released in the newsstand market?

Correct, the direct editions have either the Cho cover over top of the Adams cover or vice versa. The newsstand edition is just the Cho cover.

Don't know about the others, but I can verify that King-Size Hulk is a price variant (and probably the only time I've ever seen something with $6.99 cover price, newsstand or otherwise - just seems like an odd number). I think it's an undervalued book in general as it includes full reprints of IH 180 & 181. Nice find!

This is awesome! I signed up for this board a few years ago but hadn't really been inspired to participate until I stumbled across this thread...it's cool to see how many passionate newsstand collectors there are out there. About 5 or 6 years ago I realized that I had collected a copy of just about every US Wolverine and X-Men-related comic that had ever been printed. This actually made me quite sad..I felt like I no longer had anything to "hunt" for. One day shortly thereafter I was flipping through a dollar bin at my local Half Price Books and found high-grade newsstand copies of Wolverine #154 & 155. I already owned the direct editions but knowing that those issues can fetch a few bucks I scooped them up, thinking that I would sell or trade them. When I got them home it dawned on me -- newsies give me a reason to rebuild my entire collection from scratch! Since then I have acquired complete newsstand runs of Wolverine vol. 1 (1982) & vol. 2 (1988), a near complete run of vol. 3 (2003) [I'm fairly certain that issue #74 from this run was not printed for the newsstand market], and I'm just missing a handful of issues from vol. 4 (2010) and vol. 5 (2013). Also have complete newsstand runs of Wolverine: Origins, Wolverine: Weapon X, all of the issues of Marvel Comics Presents that feature the ol' Canucklehead plus a bunch of other minis & one-shots. I'm currently working on Uncanny X-Men (roughly 80% complete) and some other titles where Wolvie features heavily like New Avengers and Uncanny X-Force. In all I have over 1,400 books that I could share in this thread, but I'll limit myself to just some of the more unusual/interesting ones for now: Iron Fist/Wolverine: The Return of K'un Lun #1-3 - For some bizarre reason, Marvel decided to re-brand these issues for the newsstand market as "Avengers Universe" #4-6. This is certainly not the only example of Marvel doing newsstand re-branding (I'm sure that the Daredevil, vol. 2 "Marvel Universe" variants are pretty well known to those of you interested in this topic) but it strikes me as particularly odd in this case when you consider that neither Iron Fist nor Wolverine had ever been an Avenger at this point. I also suspect that the general public would have been more eager to buy a "Wolverine" comic than an "Avengers" comic in the year 2000...maybe the Marvel marketing department was trying to test that theory? In any case, there is a 4th issue in this series but I have never seen a newsstand copy (a.k.a. Avengers Universe #7) -- if it exists and you've got one I would love to see it here. Wolverine/Punisher: Revelation #1-4 - This mini-series is unique because it's the only example I'm aware of where Marvel did 2nd newsstand printings. The series originally came out in 1999 and was released in both the direct and newsstand markets, then in spring 2001 they did a 2nd printing for the newsstand market ONLY. The 2nd printings are easily identifiable because they don't have the issue numbers on the cover (yet another strange choice by Marvel) and also the UPCs have a 3-to-4 letter month code on the side, whereas the first printings do not. Wolverine: Origins #6 - The newsstand edition of this issue actually says "Direct Edition"...likely just an oversight during printing. The only way to tell them apart is the shape of the UPC itself. Wolverine: Origins #9 - The first 10 issues of this series had "50/50" variants in the direct market, meaning that there are variant covers with approximately the same print run as the "standard" cover. For just this one issue Marvel used what had been labeled as the "variant" cover for the newsstand market and even left the words "Variant Edition" in the corner! Wolverine Saga (2009) and All-New Wolverine Saga - In the direct market, these were both free giveaways to promote some newly rebooted Wolverine-related titles. When they went on the newsstands, Marvel charged $3.99 for them. Part of me wants to say that newsstand customers were treated like suckers, but then I remembered that several years after the fact I probably paid more than $3.99 each to acquire these...so I ask you, who's the real sucker here?