Malacoda

Down to 37 now out of about 500 possibles. (For any recent joinees, these are UK-distributed US Marvel comics between Apr 69 - July 71 where we are trying to find cover stamped issues). Hulk 116, 137 ASM 76, 79, 94 Avengers 65, 70,72 Xmen 56, 58 DD 54, 58,59, 62,69 Iron Man 15, 21,22 Captain Marvel 13 Sub Mariner 20,23 Surfer 15, 16, 17 Chamber of Darkness 6,7,8 & Monsters on the Prowl 9 Where Monsters Dwell 3,4,5,6,7 Amazing Adventures 3 Astonishing Tales 2,3,4 An interesting point: I learnt a while back that World's distribution deal was negotiated wholly with Marvel - it was not through Curtis. The fact that Marvel's arrangement with T&P was so different (PV's vs returns) to DC's also strongly suggests that IND had nothing to do with it. I was interested to see if the three months where the US distribution handed over from IND to Curtis had any impact on the exportation to T&P (Aug 69 - last full IND, Sept - split between the two, Oct - first full Curtis). It has no impact on this unique PV+CS distribution phase. In fact Aug & Oct we have 100% - a CS for every PV - and only one missing in Sept). This supports the idea (or certainly offers no contradiction) that the US distributors played no role in the exportation to the UK. Similarly, I am convinced the length of the 3rd hiatus was due to the handover from ECP to WCP which again suggests that the exportation to the UK was direct from the printers. Also, given what we know of the distributor system - that the US distributors effectively bought (SOR) the comics from the publishers rather than merely distributed for them - it would make no sense for IND or Curtis to have been involved in the distribution of the UK-bound comics as their only role would have been in the shipping to Newark which was part of the printing deal anyway. I mention this because I know you're all as fascinated by distribution as me. Now, as to the tyre pressure in the delivery trucks....

Superb. I actually mis-spelt the spelling mistake.

And this one might be the winner. Firstly, you can't have midsts unless you're in the middle of more than one thing. Secondly, words ending in O acquire an 'e' in the plural which tells you how to pronounce them....so comman-doze, not comman-doss. This gets dropped when the word already ends in two vowels (zoos, studios, etc), although this rule is very unevenly observed with some words always acquiring the E and some never acquiring it. Thirdly, of course, the American army didn't actually have commandoes (or commandos) at all, so it's no wonder the Howlers spelt it wrongly, they didn't actually know which army they were in.

Tunrs otu htere's quit a feu of htese.... I realise baddies do a lot of trash talk, but horhead seems a bit personal

OK, come on Marvel, let's try again..... DOH!

I like the way we all spot 'Moribus' immediately, but that one could have sat there for years without anyone noticing. Good spot.

I love the way it sits right under the 25 as well. A slam dunk by Ethel.

Despite being distracted by Jonah, Spidey is not too busy to audition for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Also, I know this is just me, but another one of the 7th wave turned up last night.

Steve, what actually is the price on those and do they all have the same number in the box above?

More the opposite, perhaps? The T&P copies of Avengers #25 were UKPV's, so God knows how this fits in. Note also the numbering above the price which maybe indicates that stamps were just made like that?

Good shout. People think moribund means dead, but it actually means on the point of death, which is perfect for a living vampire.

Brilliant. And it's on the US and UK variants too, shame really. If only the pence version had it, it would pretty much end the 'which got printed first' debate. At some point, it seems to have been retconned.

I love this too. Although Luke Cage's 'Sweet Christmas' always made me smile too.

I suspect a big part of the reason that T&P got hammered so badly by the OP branch in the years after Fred left was the lack of a barn. Fred was a very canny operator. In addition to being the Grand High Wiz of a Wiz at his local Handshake Club, he employed at least 3 senior ex-coppers in key roles. One of whom was actually in charge of the 'obscene publications'. He rented a barn in Oadby, which was actually quite central but had been part of a farm. Whilst all the socially acceptable product was stored at East Street, the higher-altitude publications were stored at the barn. This meant that when the police swooped, the only stuff confiscated was the stuff that was meant to be (though I strongly suspect that (a) there was a phone call before any raid to say 'clear the barn, just leave us a couple of palettes to find' or (b) having pinched the whole lot and flagged it for destruction, it was accidentally loaded back onto T&P trucks rather than the ones marked Acme Incinerators). Later, when everything decamped to Thurmaston, this rather useful separation of business interests disappeared, leading to hundreds of thousands of publications being confiscated in the early 70's when Robert Mark took over as Top Cop and rather unreasonably set about purging the Sweeney and the Dirty Squad, leading to some genuine enforcement of...oh, what's it called? Oh yes....the law. In their dying years, Warner Commnications UK tried to bring back Fred's solution. They introduced the GBD (General Book Distributors) imprint to separate off everything bound for the spice rack. The T&P warehouse in Thurmaston actually became the GBD warehouse, but focussing the raids into one place didn't convince Warner's back in the States that having a UK subsidiary that was constantly being raided for porn was a good look when you were running Bugs & Daffy as wholesome competitors to Mickey & Goofy. And that was the end of that. Should've bought a barn.

It would make a lot of sense for that relationship between David Gold and Marvel to pre-exist anyway. We think about Goldstar having the relationship with Marvel for Deadly Hands of Kung Fu and the B&W magazines in the 70's, but of course it would make plenty of sense if Gold had a relationship with Goodman not for Marvel but for Magazine Management. If you know what I mean....

Wallop !!!!!!>>>>.

Ooo, can I play? Cool little moment here in the summer of 1965 when both stamps appear to be in play, or does it just prove there were Marvel stragglers like DC? As there surely must have been. BTW, ASM #26 has a letter from Steve Gerber in which he proposes bringing Patsy & Millie into the shared MU so he got there ahead of Engelhart! (yes, I know, FF Annual #3)

Given that T&P were making up batches of comics, plus other goods, to be sent to the regional warehouses where they would be picked up by the regional sales managers, I would imagine it had to be done in a staggered system. If the regional sales managers from Scotland, Wales, Cornwall etc were heading to their local warehouses, I'd imagine getting the batches ready took precedence over stamping every single one of the comics before any got sent out. If they'd done it that way (waited until Ethel had every comic stamped by title) then most of the comics would have spent most of their shelf life piled up at Oadby. If you work out the logistics of stacking over a million comics in an 85ft by 200ft warehouse, there's not enough room to swing an ink stamp. When T&P started back in the forties, they did the whole country with 8 vans working centrally out of Oadby. Keeping the vans full and moving in a geographically logical schedule must have been the absolute top priority. That said, I think the DC comics were always going to span a price increase. due to them being returns. I would be very surprised if there aren't a few that flip either side of the 10d to 1/- increase as well.

It's a more interesting question relating to Marvel (which went cents + stamp at this point), but I'm sure this was a very sudden price change to reflect an import tax rise. Obviously, DC comics came over in multiple months because they were returns, so the first issues of this arrived while it was 9d and subsequent issues got smacked with the 10d stamp. It's possible, given that the tax increase was announced very suddenly, that they're even from opposite ends of the same batch. The tax went live 11th November, so given that this is an August cd issue, you can see how the first returns that rocked up maybe Sept, def Oct & early Nov, would have been stamped 9d and anything making its weary way back across the US and then migrating to Leicester would be a 10d-er.

Superb. Is that a thing or did you just make that up?

No, I was intrigued by something in this thread, so decided to read it all (usually picking up a 5 year old threads is a dauntingly huge read, but thank God, as you say, no one likes DC). Is it bad manners to respond to a 5 year old post? Is it like quoting someone out of context?

Although....

As discussed on the Distribution thread, these might indicate the PV's were imported and distributed on a regular monthly basis and the stamped cents copies were returns from retailers and/or wholesalers which rocked up sporadically in the months afterwards.

Indeed. I want to say that chipping was resolved when printing moved away from ECP to Sparta (which is why you get Marvel chipping and not DC chipping) but I actually think it improved a lot during ECP's time - which I suspect had more to do with better paper than sharper blades. I think it gets better over a long period of time. Whilst I've seen some grim edges on silver age comics, there's some pre-hero Marvels you could use to grate cheddar.