Albert Tatlock

On 11/2/2023 at 2:05 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

There are other stamp types that crop up here and there, with various levels of interest attached, but those four above, which encompass the full stamping era, are the only UK distribution stamps worth writing about in my book. 

What's your book called?

Where can I rush out and buy it from? ISBN number?

Reading this stuff online is fine, but nothing beats the impact of the printed page.

Of course, if the copy I buy is shrink wrapped, I will just not be able to bring myself to desecrate it by tearing off the plastic, so I will not be able to read it until second-hand copies, well thumbed, I doubt not, begin to appear on ebay.

On 10/30/2023 at 6:34 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Can't find it now!

It has Mysteriously Traveled/Travelled, but it can't be far away....................

Gottit!

Page count tallies, 96pp plus covers, meaning the dopes have printed it with a missing page.

So now we have advanced to a known known.

Reading through it, the missing part is fatal to the plot, as the continuity is destroyed.

And the B & W version looks very dull alongside the original.

Half a crown in 1962 would have got you Incredible Hulk # 1, AF # 15 and FF # 2, with enough left over for a Beano.

On 10/30/2023 at 6:17 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Get counting!

Can't find it now!

It has Mysteriously Traveled/Travelled, but it can't be far away....................

On 10/30/2023 at 6:02 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Spot on - it would have to have a full page something else too, to make the page sequencing work. Are there ads anywhere else in the book?

I don't know how this was bound, but is there a corresponding page missing on the other side of the book?

If not, it looks like that's how it was printed.

No ads, a few story pages, but all longer than 1 page.

Square bound, so no evidence of loss elsewhere.

I reckon it is an error in production, but unless we can turn up another copy, we may never know. 

There are known unknowns, blah blah...........

Tales Of The Mysterious Traveler/Traveller (take your pick).

I have recently purchased a copy of the reprint album of this title, which Duncan's site dates to 1962.

The first story, Little Boy Blue, which has 6 pages in the original, has only 5 in the reprint (see attached scans). Page 5 is not present.

I cannot see any signs of a page having been removed, and in any case there would have had to be something on the other side.

I wonder, then, whether the reprint was accidentally produced in an incomplete form.

If anyone here has a copy to compare it with, that would clear it up.

Hope someone can help.

Link below is to the original US version.

https://ditko.blogspot.com/2009/11/unusual-tales-little-boy-blue.html

On 10/25/2023 at 5:24 PM, Malacoda said:

Sorry, you have the go ahead.  

Not so much that it was unknown as new and untested. I don't think ascertaining the cost was by any means the key issue. Keep in mind that this would involved big changes at the other end too.  There is absolutely no way that the warehouse in Thurmaston was built with container facilities.  Not a chance.  I don't have a pic of the warehouse, but this is what Thurmaston looked like. 

Could that be Ethel on the way to lay in more ciggies?

On 10/25/2023 at 5:34 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Ever been there, Albert? @Albert Tatlock

Not yet, but I intend to make a pilgrimage one day, if the Lord spares me long enough

On 10/25/2023 at 4:02 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

And who won the FA Cup in 1979?

This is a very old trick question.

It was Sunderland (I was there).

And Villa won it in '81.

Let us single out just one of the comics under discussion, say JO # 139.

Under the old system, some, possibly a known quantity, possibly an unknown quantity, would have arrived at T & P nearly 6 months after US readers had had the privilege of discovering what was depicted between its covers.

Under the new system, a known quantity would have arrived seemingly 3 months in advance of its companions, the returns from US outlets.

So Fred and his gang would have no further need of fresh supplies of that issue.

Would it have been cost-effective to ask for JO # 139 (cents version) to be weeded out of future return cargoes? Probably not.

Did Fred factor in the late arriving cents returns when placing his UKPV order?

Who will help by posting the minutes of the board meetings at T & P?

Maybe these matters were discussed there at even greater length than we have here.

Or then again, maybe not.

On 10/25/2023 at 12:49 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

A great deal of thought and effort has gone into this, obviously, but I still cannot grasp why T & P would have believed that soliciting UKPVs at that point would have been advantageous, unless it cut the cost of labour involved in the stamping process, but surely that would have been tiny compared to the other costs of running the business, rent and or/rates, record keeping, transport and fuel, and all the rest.

..........but of course they would have got their hands on the books that much sooner than if they had waited for returns, which may not have arrived in the desired quantity.

UKPVs would have been supplied in exactly the quantities ordered, but the original question still remains, why then, and why was it discontinued? Why not roll it out across all titles?

There is a lot to digest in the original post, I will go through it again, slowly and carefully, over my half a mild in t'Rovers this evening, to see if I can tease out the nub of the argument. 

Possibly there are some red herrings in there, but then again, maybe all the pieces of the jigsaw are needed to complete the picture, we shall see.

On 10/25/2023 at 12:33 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

What is your take, Albert? Do you buy this theory?

A great deal of thought and effort has gone into this, obviously, but I still cannot grasp why T & P would have believed that soliciting UKPVs at that point would have been advantageous, unless it cut the cost of labour involved in the stamping process, but surely that would have been tiny compared to the other costs of running the business, rent and or/rates, record keeping, transport and fuel, and all the rest.

On 10/25/2023 at 12:21 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Good, others would take offense I'm sure, but we're about that nonsense in this thread.

I don't take offense, although those across the pond might.

I don't even take offence, it takes more than these musings to offend me.

On 10/25/2023 at 11:56 AM, Malacoda said:

I think this was driven by IND or even Sparta (who were presumably getting an increased print run and a separate job out of it) rather than T&P.  I imagine T&P were definitely interested in (1) reduced costs  (2) reduced aggro (3) a clearer proposition for newsagents (4) clean, freshly minted copies rather than returns and (5) consistent batches of comics every month rather than the random madness we know rocked up......however.......I reckon their super cheap deal on the returns would have been VERY hard to wave goodbye to.  

The UKPV copies were printed because T & P asked for them to be printed, surely, and not because they had been forced to accept them.

Keeping the machine running on cents copies would have saved time.

And T & P could have laid off a few of Ethel's colleagues.

Wonder if they considered going on strike over the threatened redundancies.

On 10/25/2023 at 12:07 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Why wouldn't cents priced copies satisfy that shipping test?

Exacty.

On 10/22/2023 at 12:17 PM, Malacoda said:

Yes, I assumed he was an enterprising individual who bought comics and books from a Brummie distributor like the Golds did in London rather than an actual rep, but maybe that's a more blurred line than I think it is. 

I'm never too sure what Miller's distribution network was like.  They had the comics printed all over the shop (Basingstoke and as far afield as Ireland) but it's been said that they never had a distribution network to compete with the likes of DC Thomson. 

Don't forget that the Pemberton boys were distributing reprint comics too, primarily westerns and other stuff licensed from Dell. 

This was quoted as very early 1950s, the dark ages as far as our research goes.

3 for a shilling is a good discount on the cover price of 6d, and presumably Comic Man would still have room for manouvre, as, according to Ralph Gold, Millers, and presumably their competitors, supplied the trade at 2d per comic.

The drinkers in the hostelry depicted would, in the Coronation year of 1953, have been able to wet their whistles for less than 2 shillings a pint, so 3 comics for the nipper would only mean half a pint or so less down the hatch

And a packet of 10 cigs (although packets of 5 were also available) would cost about the same as a pint.

Nobody back then could have enjoyed their pint without a frequent drag on a (usually untipped) coffin nail.

Junior presumably paid little heed to the nicotine stained edges of his literature of choice.

Yes, the bloke hawking comics round the pub was mentioned by Ralph Gold in his autobiog.

That was in London, but maybe Miller's tentacles extended as far as the watering holes of the Black Country.

Possibly these were the British reprints from T & P, though. That would have been before T & P began importing the real deal.

On 10/20/2023 at 1:36 PM, Malacoda said:

You're just trying to get me to do this, aren't you?

 

Her whalebone corset is even tighter than Ethel's.

On 10/19/2023 at 12:48 AM, Malacoda said:

It would have been a fun nod to the scandalous (and unaired in the US) episode if C&B had created their Hellfire Club as opponents for the Avengers and not the Xmen. 

And Diana Rigg's first name was Enid.

Maybe she was wise to go with Diana, Enid does not project the appropriate vibe for an Amazonian beater-up of baddies.

Imagine confessing to your fellow hoodlums, to the accompaniment of guffaws, that your black eye and bent nose were inflicted by a slip of a girl by the name of Enid.

On 10/19/2023 at 9:54 PM, themagicrobot said:

There are mad people on UToob that love to colourize black and white stuff.

They can’t comprehend that for us for the first twenty years of our lives the world actually was in black and white.

Don't forget that I myself only existed in black and white until 1969.

Except for my cap, that was grey.

A natty shade of grey, though.

On 10/18/2023 at 9:37 PM, themagicrobot said:

By the way, spot the deliberate mistake..

Was it that Stan was clueless about UK TV and didn’t realise that The Avengers already existed and were secret agents here

Original was in black and white?

On 10/19/2023 at 12:48 AM, Malacoda said:

It would have been a fun nod to the scandalous (and unaired in the US) episode if C&B had created their Hellfire Club as opponents for the Avengers and not the Xmen. 

Original was black and white?

On 10/16/2023 at 10:30 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

There's a T&P / Miller distribution summary here Albert (as well as my summary on page 1 of this thread):

Here's my #1

Another Archie, this one from Miller.

I must confess that I am not up to speed with Archie stuff, so not sure whether this has been featured before.

It is an early T & P stamped example, cover date and indicia date September 1959.

On 10/13/2023 at 1:16 AM, Malacoda said:

I've no idea how I stumbled onto any of these places, but given my mania for comics, I probably asked in every magic shop, junk shop, booksellers, travel agent, launderette, bookmakers, fish and chip shop.... 

That's where you fell down.

Jumble sales, advertised in your local paper, or on the notice boards outside the library, church and so on could have had you jumping for joy if you hit them at the right time and place.

Still worth checking out, just in case.

On 10/12/2023 at 5:53 PM, themagicrobot said:

To discover a DC comic dated before 1963 when I began seriously collecting them in 1965 was like finding an ancient antique even though it was a mere four or five years old. Yet, with their colourful covers they had survived in greater numbers than the originally far more plentiful UK newsprint comics of a similar age.  It was different for the hardback UK Annuals which still exist in reasonable numbers to this day. A relative gave me this 1951 Dandy Annual in 1966. It looked positively prehistoric and it was a window into a long-gone world.

 

 

 

I think that in one's childhood and youth, one's interaction with the wider world is, by necessity, limited.

As the child matures, he will discover other avenues that simply had not occurred to him previously.

Where to search for out of date comics, for example, could be gained then only by experience.

I was aware of a couple of local street markets, but had no idea how to locate any more. A chance overheard conversation between two housewives on my bus back from school alerted me to another, and as soon as I arrived home, I jumped on my bicycle and paid it a visit. This would have been close to, or even after, 5pm, by which time its present-day counterpart would be deserted, but back then the stallholders put in a full shift.

That particular market proved to be a source of many future acquisitions, but I had not the presence of mind to seek out the market superintendent, or even a stallholder, who could with ease have provided me with a list of similar venues.

Eventually, by trial and error, I mastered the knack of hunting down my quarry, but my earlier naivete meant that there were gaps I could not fill until mail-order dealers made their appearance, asking prices far above the shabby, but cornucopian, second-hand outlets. ,