Skwerl

Yup!! Those are really hard to find!! Great book, hold onto that!! But yeah, I'm annoyed that CGC calls these "Multi-Pack Editions." Back in the day, we'd all call them Whitmans, casually, because most of the copies we found/had came out of Whitman bags, but we* knew they weren't ONLY found in Whitman bags. Somewhere over the years, that truth was lost and even hardcore/respected collectors (and now CGC) often mislabel them. What that is is a first print direct variant. When Marvel direct variant print runs were at their lowest, near day one. Edit: In this case, by "we," I really mean the old heads at my local comic store in Philly who knew their stuff, and my contacts in print/distro. Most collectors I'd meet outside of that world (and since) generally considered all "diamond box" Marvels reprints/"Whitmans," as I alluded to earlier. And when I first saw that going on, that's when I decided to start investigating/researching/collecting them. It seems as time has gone on, the misconception has actually spread faster and wider than the truth. Probably because of the internet.

I suppose anything is possible, but from what I was told, I don't think a comp copy is likely. There certainly could be some out there (and I'll be sure and ask if I ever run into anyone who worked on the book), but this was found in a long box of modern comics filled by a particular local collector that I know of, who sold it to my buddy for next to nothing. My buddy didn't want to alert the collector and so I'm respecting that decision and not outing him or approaching him. But if that collector bought this comic individually, I can't imagine that not he nor the seller would call out its significance and keep it out of a long box of junk. I feel like it's far more likely he bought a bunch of Wal-Mart packs or something, and didn't realize that it was anything special as he flipped through looking for known ratios or whatever. I could be totally wrong, but that's my instinct.

Oh, yeah, it's Nebula #3 inside.

Hah. Oh, right. I took the pic in my house, which is basically a 1977 bachelor pad decorated by me & my flaming lesbian bff.

Yup! Never made it to any distributors as far as I know. Didn't think it was even printed until today. My best guess is that some got thrown into Wal-Mart packs or something? Can't imagine any other way someone could have it and not know what they had.

So, this is interesting. Not my copy, but it's my photo. A friend of mine bought a long box of random modern comics and found this in it. Of course I told him to get it graded; regardless of the grade, it would be presumably authenticated, and the only one on the census. Anyone ever hear of this issue popping up anywhere?

Oh, quick note on this: There definitely were mutlipacks with newsstand editions, as Whitman wasn't the only multipack game in town. Marvel had their own multipacks too distributed through Curtis and/or the ID network. On the other thread, someone posted a Marvel multipack containing a newsstand edition of ASM #186, side by side with a Whitman multipack with a direct edition of the same issue.

It's been awhile since I checked this thread, but someone pointed me to it in a discussion about "mutlipack editions" in the "Ask CGC" thread and urged me to post my knowledge here to contribute to the discussion. I grew up in print shops and comic book stores, so the ins & outs of printing and distribution of comics has always fascinated me, and I've sort of majored in 1977 specifically (mostly because I'm also a Star Wars fan), and I've been obsessing over some of these topics for decades. I'm in my 40s now, so I wasn't there in the late 70s, but in the 80s I talked to people who were. Here's the Ask CGC thread: Whitman's parent company Western printed a lot of comics, but they did not print Marvel comics. They did not have a license to. All Marvel comics were printed on the same printing presses, which I believe were always at World Color Press. In a sec, I'll post an editorial printed by Marvel in the early 80s that stated they all came from the same printing presses. There is not really any such thing as a "multipack variant." This statement has been a little controversial, and I've got no ego here and would happy to be proven wrong (okay, it would be really embarrassing, but I would try and take the L with grace). But I would simply challenge anyone to show three versions of a particular Marvel comic that had a third version besides newsstand (Curtis insignia), and direct (no Curtis insignia). There would have been no reason to print a third version specifically for multipacks which were just a way to dump excess (as in already printed) inventory at a discount. Important things to note, which has made this challenge tricky: The presence of the barcode is not really the defining characteristic of a newsstand edition, but rather it's the Curtis insignia. Curtis distributed to newsstands, and they put some numbers and their mark on the books they distributed. Direct editions went out through other means (I believe this was typically Sea Gate distribution, as World Color did not distribute), and those did not have the Curtis insignia. I think it's common knowledge at this point why bar codes started going away on direct editions: Retailers were returning unsold direct editions for the higher newsstand wholesale prices, and also some retailers were trying to scan the barcodes on the comics in the multipacks rather than the ones on the multipacks themselves. But that's a rabbit hole in and of itself. For now suffice to say that transition didn't happen overnight at once across all titles. Okay, so this is from Marvel Team-Up #108 (1981), but I've seen it in other issues from around that time, when collectors first started asking what was up with the diamond boxes: Note that Marvel confirms that there were just two versions, and that they were printed "on the same presses." Which further proves that Western/Whitman didn't print Marvel comics (they never had a license to and you won't actually find a Whitman logo on any Marvel books besides a few oddball examples such as the treasury editions and Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali, etc.). And now, the debate that is opened up on the "Ask CGC" thread was whether or not the smaller diamond box shown here is different than the larger diamond boxes on the so-called "multipack variants." My position is that they're the same thing; the design just evolved in 1978/1979 for aesthetic reasons. But that's an open debate, I'll admit. Now, on that other thread, as we got into questions of who exactly got what versions, many pointed out examples of mistakes. There was the design of things, the intent, and then you had the reality of a lot of cokeheads working on tight deadlines, and there were lots of anomalies, and "bugs" in 1977, which was sort of the 1.0 release of Marvel direct editions. There were some direct editions printed with the Curtis insignia accidentally. Newsstand editions popped up in comic book shops (this happened even into the 80s). I would not be at all shocked to find multipacks with newsstand editions post-1977. It's sort of the same as finding retailer variants in Wal-Mart packs today. Anything lying around could go into them. This is a big reason why I try to focus my "arguments" on the things that couldn't have been occasionally messed up: That a) there was simply never a third version printed of a Marvel comic for multipacks; If comic stores existed in 1977-1979 (they did of course), and any of them got Marvel comics through a distributor other than Curtis/ID, then they got Marvel comics without the Curtis symbol on them. There was only ever newsstand, and direct edition, and "multipack edition" is a misnomer. And 2) Whitman didn't print Marvels, they only got their hands on Marvel inventory that was printed not by their parent company Western, who printed the DC and Dell/GK stuff. Which was confirmed by Marvel who literally said they came from the same presses in that Marvel editorial I posted. So "whitman reprint / whitman edition" is a misnomer as well. So that's the hill I'm on: No such thing as Marvel "Whitman reprints" or "Whitman editions," and no such thing as "multipack edition;" Those were all just early direct editions, printed by Marvel, on the same presses that printed the newsstand inventory that went to Curtis/ID. But I'm not posting this to "be right on the internet," I'm just a nerd who loves this stuff and would love to learn more if I'm off on anything. Hope something here is helpful for anyone else on that same journey.

I mean, I know they're direct editions. Marvel has said they're direct editions. (I suppose the debate is whether the "big diamonds" are something different than the "smaller diamonds" that Marvel was using by the time they answered the question, but I say they're not.) I'm just using that as evidence that direct editions went out through means other than multipacks. As for reprints going out via subscription, I can only guess when the original recipient signed up, but if it was after the movie came out, issues #1 and #2 would have been 2nd or 3rd printings. Movie came out right after the #2 first printing hit streets. Yup, heartbreaking, but I heard of this sort of thing happening awhile back when I was collecting every single variant of the early Star Wars run (partly to confirm some of the things I've claimed here which were theories at the time); First print direct editions of Star Wars #2-4 are really rare, especially in high grade. They were treated as reprints but they weren't. Lots of people just took it for granted that the diamond meant Whitman reprint. For years. Mostly because every reprint of Star Wars issues they ever saw had the big weird diamond box. What's really interesting (and proves how messy things were), is that your LCS got their hands on newsstands. I can only imagine who would have went around who for that. Yup! There were definitely tons of examples of mistakes which makes it hard to definitively prove some things, such as who got what. This is a big reason why I try to focus my "argument" on the things that couldn't have been occasionally messed up: That a) there was simply never a third version printed of a Marvel comic for multipacks; If comic stores existed in 1977-1979 (they did of course), and any of them got Marvel comics through a distributor other than Curtis, then they got Marvel comics without the Curtis symbol on them. There was only ever newsstand, and direct edition, and "multipack edition" is a misnomer. And 2) Whitman didn't print Marvels, they only got their hands on Marvel inventory that was printed not by their parent company Western, who printed the DC and Dell/GK stuff. Which was confirmed by Marvel who literally said they came from the same presses in that Marvel editorial I posted. So "whitman reprint / whitman edition" is a misnomer as well.

Oh, I didn't get that's what you were doing, haha. Whoops.

One other little thing that has chewed at my brain for decades... I have newsstand issues that I bought off comic book stores' shelves as late as the mid-1980s that got there via direct distribution. This is a bit outside of the focus of this thread that I've already shamelessly hijacked, but I'm pretty sure that if someone in a warehouse was short on direct inventory but had an excess of newsstand inventory, or vice versa... they probably wouldn't have been fired for sliding a pallet across an invisible line to get through the day. For whatever that's worth.

These are very good questions! I had shot my hands/keyboard off on a response full of theories at first, but then I took a step back to check some facts, and here's an edited version with as much speculation filtered out as I can manage... I'll think on your question(s) here and see what I can remember and/or dig up, but my gut instict is that there was more than one reason and more than a few factors behind these inconsistencies. And a big reason I say that is that when I've talked to people that were there, they describe a pretty hectic scenario involving lots of cokeheads working on tight deadlines. The transition didn't happen overnight, mistakes were made (there are direct versions that accidentally ran with the Curtis insignia for example), and not every title followed suit right away or across the board. Some titles just didn't get direct versions for "reasons." For example, Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu, Curtis distributed exclusively. It's almost unthinkable now, but X-Men actually sold pretty terribly until the very late 1970s. Many issues that were put out in the 1970s were reprints of previous stories thrown together at literally the last hour (the #1 reason for this being that someone in the supply chain missed a deadline, so a substitution had to be made). Another thing that was happening then is that some of the first speciality comic book shops wouldn't necessarily sell the titles they got right away. So they'd report low sales when in reality the comics simply hadn't gone up on the shelf in the first place, until after their sales were reported; this happened most notoriously with Howard the Duck. Also, 1977 of all years was by far the most hectic. Think of 1977 as direct versions 1.0; there were a lot of bugs. It's pretty common knowledge now and has been already pointed out in this thread that retailers were scanning the wrong barcodes in the multipacks, others were returning unsold direct inventory for the higher newsstand wholesale rate, and all of the other things that had to be learned the hard way in a turbulent summer (throw the release of frickin' Star Wars into it just for fun) leading ultimately to no UPCs, Spidey heads, etc. What I admit I'm a little unclear on still is the nitty gritty details of the arrangements between Marvel, Whitman, and Western. Whitman was a subsidiary of Western. Whitman accounted for less than half of Western's revenue, as Western also did lots of commercial printing and had its own board game operation that was much bigger than comics in and of itself. I've read and I've been told that Whitman didn't have a license to print Marvel titles; I believe all Marvel titles were printed by World Color Press while Western printed DC and Dell / Gold Key. But they obviously distributed Marvel titles too through Whitman, and I'm not sure how exactly that inventory would have (at least in Marvel's case) flowed from World Color to Whitman under the roof of Western, a direct competitor. To ask it more directly, "direct" circulation was from who to who? World Color to Whitman? World Color to another distributor (such as Sea Gate) that stores could order from? Both? That front is where I'm still seeking some answers. But to speak to your theory a bit, I'm all but certain that it wasn't Western/Whitman that was printing or not printing Marvel titles based on sales. Those calls would have logically come from Marvel, though obviously informed a great deal by what Whitman was selling or not selling, but presumably also based on what was happening through third-party distrubutors, since World Color didn't distribute and Western didn't print Marvel. Complicated stuff, ha. I'm loving this dicussion, though, and happy to be challenged on what I'm pretty darn sure I know, but not necessarily 100.0% right on. I'll take a big fat L as graciously as I possibly can the day someone shows me a third version of a Marvel comic that was for direct distribution either specifically for multipacks or specifically not for multipacks, or if someone can absolutely confirm that Whitman was the only multipack game in town (that appears to be debunked pretty definitively by your post above), or if someone can absolutely confirm that multipacks were the only form of direct distribution in 1977-1979 (I mean, we know there were comic book stores, but it doesn't break spacetime to imagine them all ordering newsstand copies through Curtis for the first few years; extremely unlikely but theoretically in the ballpark of plausible). But I grew up in print shops and comic book stores and I've been obsessing over this stuff since 1988 or so. And hey, it's still fascinating.

Haha, yeah, thanks, I have seen that. I'm a pretty big Whitman enthusiast, and also a big fan of early direct versions. Everything I've said in this thread applies only to Marvel stuff, because that was a much more self-contained situation as Marvel didn't allow Whitman to print any Marvel titles (aside from stuff like treasury editions, Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali, etc.). When you get into Whitman printings of DC and Gold Key stuff, you're talking about multiple companies all doing whatever the heck they wanted to do, haha. That's a much bigger mess that I applaud others for trying to untangle, but my hill is just that Marvel "multipack / whitman" variants are nothing more than Marvel direct editions between 1977-1979 before they simply made the diamond smaller.

Actually, I need to add a little nitpicky thing; it will eat at me if I don't. I used some terms a little too casually. It wasn't just that Marvel had newsstand copies for "their" bags per se. It was that those bags (the "Marvel" ones on the left) were presumably distributed through Curtis rather than Western. Multipacks were a way to dump excess inventory at a combo discount. So what I should have said earlier to be more accurate is that Whitman (through Western Distro) multipacks only had direct. But any multipacks distributed by Curtis would have had newsstand copies.

Both from Marvel Team-Up #108, 1981 Ahh!! Okay, fair play! I actually have seen these, these were from 1978. So I'll concede that newsstand editions did occasionally show up in multipacks! Something to point out here: The first one came from Marvel, who would have had newsstand inventory on hand. The one on the right came from Whitman, who only had direct inventory. Whitman bags existed, yes, no one disputes that. But the Marvel comics inside were all published by Marvel, and indistinguishable from the versions that appeared outside of packs. Some people look at these images and think that the diamond box versions were made specifically for Whitman multipacks since that's what they have while the Marvel ones are "normal." But it was just direct inventory put into the packs. There would have never been any point to printing a third variant of any Marvel issue just to put into multipacks. Incidentally, just to defend the hill I'm on here a little further: You won't find any other versions of ASM #186 than these two. You won't find a direct version that looks different from the one in the multipack. There was only direct and newsstand, and to call the one on the right a "multipack variant" implies that there was something else on direct racks. There wasn't.

Sooo, yeah. Multipack editions aren't a thing and CGC needs to stop with that. 😉 Just newsstand and direct. All Marvel, no Whitman Marvels. Titles actually published by Whitman will have a big Whitman logo on the cover without exception. Once direct editions existed, only direct editions went into multipacks, but they also went everywhere else that wasn't serviced by Curtis.

Oh, and here's more, Marvel explaining the diamonds; this appeared in the back of a few different issues in the late 70s / early 80s after people asked. Had nothing to do with multipacks:

Here's something handy... a little while ago a friend pulled so-called "multipack" editions out of Marvel subscription mailers. Somewhere I have a photo of a comic book rack with "multipack" variants on it outside of packs. They're all just direct editions. Direct sales, subscriptions, multipacks all had the same versions.

Thanks!

I've been trying to figure out what to do with a copy of ASM Annual #1 I have with no back cover. I'd like to have it graded, but it obviously might be worth some additional investment/conservation ahead of the submission. I'm pretty familiar with how coverless comics are graded, but I'm less clear on cases where only half the cover is missing, and not sure if the back cover is deemed "less crucial" than the front cover, from an objective grading standpoint. Speaking generally, and assuming the comic is pretty low grade (say a 2.0 or so if the back cover wasn't missing), what might I be looking at in the following possible scenarios: Sent as-is with back cover missing; Would this be a max 0.5 incomplete? Blue or green? Any chance of 1.0? Back cover married on from another copy; Would this definitely be a green label? Or could it get blue/conserved if a pro conserver handled it? Facsimile (Xeroxed) back cover; Same question, definitely green? Incomplete? What would be my best bet if I wanted a 1.0 (or better) blue label or conserved? Or if that's impossible, 1.0 or better green label? Of course I won't hold anyone at CGC to any theoretical guessing on grades. Just wondering, generally speaking, how these different possible scenarios are handled by CGC in terms of possible grades/labels.

Thanks!

Yeah, that information has been out there for a long time now and is... mostly correct. Does something in there contradict anything I said? It seems to be unsusre of some things I'm sure of, and wrong on a few theories. Such as: Nope, just means it was direct. But it's right on some key points: Absolutely true. (And note that for Marvel packs, Whitman just made the packs, not the comics. Also, Whitman wasn't the only multipack game in town.) Slim / fat diamonds and the "M" don't have a meaning to distribution, those were just cosmetic decisions. Notice you won't see two of the same comic with two of the different "Type 1" / "Type 2" etc. that that page shows. Type 3s were actually a mistake; those comics weren't distributed by Curtis yet they have the CC insignia. Mistakes happened and the transition to prevent bar code scanning didn't happen overnight or evenly. There was only newsstand and direct. No "multipack edition." Multipacks all just had direct editions, at least starting in early 1977ish once they existed.

CGC has some misunderstandings about Marvel "multipack editions." Nerdsplain ahead. I'm (ahem) an elder collector with a background in printing and distribution, and I know beyond a shadow of doubt that there weren't any Marvel comics printed specifically for multipacks. The "diamond boxes" were designed when Marvel started doing direct distribution in 1976-1977 and needed versions wth the Curtis (CC) insignia (Curtis distributed to newsstands and wanted their mark on the books), and others without (Curtis did not want their mark on books they didn't distrubute). The only reason Marvel went through the considerable trouble of printing two different versions of each release is because of that situation with Curtis. They had no reason to complicate things further than that for multipacks, which after all, were only created as a way of moving more existing (as in already printed) stock! There would have been no point in printing an additional variant for the packs. At first the direct versions had UPC codes and diamonds, and then (with some turbulence) evolved to no UPC codes, UPC codes with lines through them, and then to things like the famous Spidey head. They initially removed the UPC codes from direct versions for two reasons. One, retailers were scanning the comics' UPC codes through the multipacks, rather than the UPC code on the multipack. Two, some retailers were returning discounted direct stock for the full newsstand price. That had to stop. Almost all multipacks contained direct editions for the reasons just mentioned. But before 1976 there were only newsstand editions. That's why OP has a multipack from 1967 with newsstand editions in it. In any case, the bottom line is that for any given Marvel title/issue/printing, there is no more than two versions: Newsstand, and direct. There is no such thing as a third "multipack edition." There were some runs that got pretty messy. Star Wars was a great example in 1977. Issue #1 first print was only available in newsstand. Issue #2 first print had a newsstand and a direct (diamond box, with UPC). Then the movie was released, and it was a frenzy. Issue #1 got a second and then a third print, both direct and newsstand editions of each, as did issue #2, and then issues #3 and #4 and on. Before issue #5, the first prints were 30¢, but then later prints were 35¢. And then complicating matters even further, Marvel tested 35¢ prices out on a small number of those first prints (and some other titles in 1977) in a couple specific markets, hence valuable "price variants." And anyway, big chunks of those secondary print runs went into multipacks that sold well everywhere of course. Places that didn't carry comics were happy to order some Star Wars comics multipacks. To a lot of collectors, these are the go-to example for "multipack editions" and "whitman reprints" but these are both misnomers. The diamond box issues are all simply early Marvel direct editions. Many are reprints. But issues #2 on do have first prints with diamond boxes. This has become an insane tangent, but the TL;DR is that each specific printing of each issue has only two versions at most: Direct and newsstand. Okay, fine, the exception is a few of the first prints with the 35¢ price variant. Incidentally, Whitman only ever had a deal to print DC comics. There is literally no such thing as a Whitman marvel comic, with just a couple of very unique exceptions; the oversized Marvel Star Wars Treasury editions for example. There are, however, Whitman editions of DC titles. And Whitman proudly slapped their logo on the cover as they did with anything they printed. If CGC thinks I'm wrong about any of this I can point to information Marvel themselves published in the 1970s and early 1980s explaining this, and I can share evidence of so-called "multipack editions" being sold outside of multipacks, both on racks and via subscriptions, as well as evidence of multipacks containing regular direct editions and newsstand editions. Happy to help, if CGC cares to straighten this out.

Oh wow, great to know this. This is going to save me some money!

Nah, not true in my experience. Almost all of my 2010s+ moderns come back 9.8 these days, with some 9.6s and an occasional 9.4. All that's really changed over the past few years is I've gotten better at grading. And I've got a great presser. I regularly get $1k+ books back at 9.8. Just got 9.8s on my nicest Edge of Spider-Verse #2 and Marvel Super-Heroes #8. Books I submit from 2020-2022 I hardly even doubt will get a 9.8 anymore. I just don't send in the ones that I can tell will grade lower, now that my eyes are trained. No bribery or backdoor deals involved. Also, keep in mind that CGC can and will charge you more if a valuable book grades so high as to bust out of the pricing tier you selected and paid for originally. So they literally have less than zero incentive to withhold the grade. Not saying CGC doesn't occasionally make mistakes, nor that they haven't been known to overgrade certain plastic double-stapled abominations, but they definitely give plenty of 9.8s to 9.8 books. Even valuable ones.