John Jackson Miller

Didn't intend to step into anyone else's dispute here — just a niche topic I try to add something to when it's raised. Have a nice weekend!

While my first decade of collecting the filings was really about finding them, the last fifteen years, as the hunt for the rare ones slowed things down, have been more about forensic accounting. About developing other sources of data for comparison to determine the accuracy of any given publisher at any given time. And certainly it does vary — Marvel's reports range from bulletproof to messy in the editorial chaos of the late 1970s, and even clockwork Archie made blunders now and again. And that's where statistical tools come in handy. We don't throw out all the baseball stats because players are on steroids; rather, the universe of statistics tells us who's probably on steroids, and where we should be putting our asterisks. To be clear, I do include what editors have told me — and others — in what I look at. But it's just one more type of evidence that needs to be tested. When leaked material with other internal numbers mirror what the Statement cites, the question then becomes whether the editor knew the information, or just was passing on hearsay. What I've found generally is they just printed what they were sent, but I try to keep my eyes open. Believe me, my final reporting of this material will make clear where all the hazards are, and how many grains of salt are required with each report!

Respectfully, this is untrue. I've collected all of them, have compared them with internal numbers from several publishers, including Marvel and National/DC — and I've compared them as well with the Audit Bureau of Circulation's audits. Not the publishers' assertions to the ABC, but rather the actual audits where the auditors visited the companies involved. And in the later Diamond Exclusive era, they're definitely accurate, because I have records on everything that shipped in North America. The vast majority of figures are valid and reliable — and internally consistent across time, without the randomness you'd see if they were fabricated by what was, in reality, an ever-changing group of people who had no record of what they'd reported before. My detailed research into this matter in the 1960-64 period found that the Statement numbers were on average a little high — less than 5% — because they didn't have returns yet on some of the issues being reported on. Again, consistent with what you'd expect. The "pure fiction" remark, I expect, relates to a Giordano interview where he said during his tenure at Charlton "we just made them up." I looked into that for my site years ago and determined that the years before his time were more reliable. It's also worth noting the paperwork on these things came from the business offices, so the editors tended not to do anything more than send them to be typeset. That was certainly the case with the ones I ran as a magazine editor. I'd agree there were definitely some approximations — and simple errors — but the more reliable publishers were a lot more solid. (The forms were also, of course, a federal filing, which the better publishers took seriously because postal permits were so expensive and dear and worth keeping. In the early years, the Statement forms actually had to go to a notary public!) I've done the work on this, and I expect to show it in a lot more detail in the future. But I have online an FAQ on postal statements, which touches on a lot of this.

I've tweeted on this already here, but the printings were created to order for Whitman and ceased to exist when Whitman's order ended, so the term is a reasonable one, regardless of whether anyone else — other bagged jobbers or comics shops — were ever sold copies out of the run. That said, it's great that CGC has separated out the two eras, as it helps people with the history a little. The Direct Market was becoming a big deal in 1977, but it didn't rate its own printing yet. But a large order from a firm that sold into department stores did nudge Marvel to do something.

The article conflates a few of Diamond's several Memphis-area locations, and makes it sound worse than it is. "New Memphis" is actually not in Memphis, but in Olive Branch, Mississippi — 75,000 square feet opened in 2015 to supplement the main 700,000-foot facility, also in Olive Branch. The history of the Memphis-area locations is a bit complicated: Diamond started with 225,000 feet at Holmes Road in Memphis in 2001, putting the overflow into the 47,500-foot Raines Road facility in 2005. In 2008 they decamped to a giant facility at Olive Branch, a suburb over the Mississippi line. "New Memphis" has been Diamond's name for its second Olive Branch facility, which in 2015 gave it room to consolidate all its backlist into the main site. With no DC backlist there, obviously the second location's materials fit into the space it left behind. So it's likely no statement about the shape of the business. The second site was small and they have the room now at the mother ship. (I also know these places well: I grew up so close to the Memphis airport that our street was called Boeingshire!)

Kirk asked me what I could find out about this in my files. I expect they would have been ordered by DC, who would have gone to the printer (either Ronald’s or World Color Press, at that point) and had them change out the black plate with paste-ups of the mall logos. The malls likely could not have done it themselves, nor, probably, could an outside jobber. Whoever it was had access to DC’s negatives at the printer. I have looked through all the issues in that timeframe for Amazing Heroes, Comics Buyer’s Guide, and Capital City’s Internal Correspondence – and found no mention of this promotion. However, I consider it is likely it was connected in some manner with Superman’s 50th anniversary celebration, which DC sponsored many festivities and special products (including commemorative coins) around. Most events were focused on February 29, 1988, but the celebration extended to the International Superman Exposition in Cleveland on June 16. (Adventures #443 would have hit direct market stands in late April.) As issues to promote goes, it’s kind of a peculiar choice -- and in fact, what was supposed to be in the book changed right before its release. In this timeframe, DC was throwing all its Direct Market promo efforts into making Action Comics Weekly a success — ultimately, a futile effort. As originally scheduled, #443 would have actually been a middle chapter of a trilogy of issues, the others being Superman #20 and #21. But then John Byrne quit, and DC quickly shuffled a 30-page Jerry Ordway story into #443. My guess – and it is only a guess – is that the books were part of some 50th anniversary year promotion, and that Adventures of Superman was selected because it was a more logical choice for the mass market than Action Comics Weekly, which wouldn’t have been just about Superman. The fact that they’re nonreturnable suggests they weren’t sold by Waldenbooks, but rather offered in some manner by mall management. That’s all I was able to find on this during a cursory search; I’m certain someone with DC would be able to contribute more.

I got a nice batch of photos from a reader of a Books-A-Million newsstand with returnable copies, taken in early September (it would seem). Everything squares up with the list as we have it; nothing later than an August 16 title. The August 16 theory plus Harley Quinn #26 is getting stronger all the time.

The Captain suggested to me that the 8/16 Direct Market issues might have been the true cutoff and that the 8/23 shipping newsstand Harley Quinn #26 may have been a fluke, since none of the other books of that week have been found. I checked the Diamond shipping lists, and voila, Harley Quinn was supposed to be an 8/16 book in the DM and shipped a week late. Strong case forming here... ********** SHIPPING UPDATES ' 07/31/2017 ********** VENDOR/TITLE ITEM CODE OLD DATE NEW DATE Harley Quinn #26 Std./Var. JUN170287 / JUN170288 08/16/17 08/23/17

Just did, and indeed they do. Thanks. I'm too accustomed to trying to give eBay as much detail as possible to zero in!

Yes, my article is here -- http://blog.comichron.com/2018/02/end-of-era-last-dc-newsstand-issues.html -- and it was a note from Cpt Kirk earlier in the week that inspired me to call DC. If I'd seen this thread I could have saved some searching online! Note that while Ski gave me a end date for newsstand titles -- August 29 in comic shops specifically -- it is not ironclad that some of these last issues exist, so continued checking should be the order of the day. I will start checking this thread to see what's found.