Malacoda

Whoa, there, cowboy. Firstly, so did Marvel / T&P. From 1961 - 1969 it flips back & forth between PV's and CS's and in that whole period there are only TWO issues that are ND (let's leave the 66'ers out of this for the moment....unless you want another ticket for my 3 day seminar on the 66'ers. Lunch provided.). Secondly, we're talking about the 69-71 dual pricing era, which I don't think is all over the place. It looks to me like whatever they were doing was pretty consistent, it's just that we can't figure out what the Hell it was.

But are they US shop (i.e. retailers) stamps, or are regional or local wholesalers?

I agree. I think I'm using Returns in the Statement of Ownership sense, i.e anything that wasn't sold, which doesn't necessarily mean it spent 2 months soaked in the snow at Mort's News Stand in Poughkeepsie before it was squelched back to Sparta. Also, the Statements of Ownership define returns as 'copies not distributed' which is quite a telling phrase, isn't it? Have you ever noticed how, when wholesalers turn up a whole box of Spider Woman #1 or whatever, it's always called a 'warehouse find'. I think that's exactly what it is. Also, to Gary's point, if these were actually returns from newsstands there is no way that so many of them would be in the condition they seem to have arrived in. Some these are still in beautiful condition now and really do not look like they spent a month being mauled on a spinner rack in the US before spending another month of sticky fingers here in the UK.

The statements of ownership present their own box of delights. I wouldn’t get too hung up on the specific numbers, especially for Charlton. Didn’t Giordano specifically say they just made them up? Either they're nonsense (in which case, surely it's a bit iffy supplying nonsense circulation data to the post office when then you have to reconcile it to the IRS?) or else they're broadly correct, in which case, as you say, what the Hell were they doing printing & shipping hundreds of thousands comics that they knew (by that point) were never going to sell? However, if you look at, for example ASM for the late 60's, the sales figures are 62% - 67% which is kind of consistent with numbers we've heard elsewhere. So maybe, at least for Marvel, they were true?

In both cases, I'm sure they were driven to the warehouses in Leicester and Manchester respectively. I know that from World (Pemberton's) they were sent to the Circulation Dept which was its own warehouse directly in the container lorries where they were checked against the manifest, batched up and dispatched. I think we know the same is true of T&P (unless every newsagent in the country had his own set of T&P stamps). From there they were sent to local wholesalers who in turn distributed them with other publications to the newsagents. On the US side, part of WCP's strength with the pool shipping was that because they printed just about everything and sent it all out en masse, it made life really easy for the local wholesalers half of whose job was done for them.

The whole point of containerisation is a door-to-door system without unloading in warehouses, so they would sit on the docks for a period of time as the containers were craned out of the cargo hull, but then they'd be taken straight onwards without being unloaded. I don't know if they had fully gone onto containerisation by this point. The ballast thing suggests not to me. As you say, a lot of unknowns here.

Each press at Sparta was capable of printing 32 page comics at a rate of 11 per second. The covers were printed by a separate process in huge runs together (actually different publishers printed together.....imagine!). I agree the UKPV's were clearly a completely separate run but Sparta were capable of printing a month's worth of Marvel comics (2.6m) in 3 days and nights (and they ran day and night) on one press. Again, I need to see all this in more & verified detail, but I think asking whether the PV covers were printed first or last is like asking if they were printed in the morning or the afternoon.

This question of where (and it must have been multiple points) a return was returned from is key. There were presumably loads that never got distributed from Sparta, some that stopped at regional distribution centres, some that stopped at local wholesalers, and maybe some that made it to the newsvendors that never actually made it onto to newsstand (with limited display space, and potential bad weather, you'd only put one of each one out, I assume). I need to do more research on this.

Indeed. It's very interesting that T&P had a dual 1/- and 5p stamp created, but only used it for one month, and then went over to decimal stamps 5 months ahead of the decimal deadline. You'd think it would have been a great advantage to have both prices on things in late '70 early '71. And they had it. So why didn't they use it?

Thanks. I'm still nowhere on the scale of your years of research & achievement but it's fun taking a swing at it. Also, I have noticed that it makes for a far better dialogue to state wild conjecture with ill-advised certainty and have you guys knee-cap me. That last page was pure gold. Right, better see if I can salvage anything from the tatters of that last one....

Part Three: Conclusion. I contend that up to Feb 68, ECP couldn’t print or distribute Marvel comics fast enough, possibly not in great enough quantities, possibly not to great enough quality and definitely could not distribute and take returns fast enough to ship returns with PV’s. More importantly, I don’t think they wanted to. They wanted to get entirely away from comic books, not find creative ways of expanding further into it. However World Color in Sparta could print more, better, faster, cheaper, send them out quicker and get them back quicker. Imagine the pile of PV’s, way head of their cover date, waiting to be sent to the UK, when the trucks full of returns from newsstands OF EXACTLY THE SAME COMICS came back to be pulped. How long would it take you to put 2 and 2 together? So you call the Del Boys at T&P, who, of course are always up for a cheap deal and they can easily stamp the cents copies. For reasons we don’t understand, the PV’s continue to be printed with shillings long after decimalisation, but T&P change to decimal stamps as soon as they can (possibly because it will give them a longer shelf life, post decimalisation, and they can be re-distributed as seaside specials). This answers Gary’s question of why 1/- PV’s and 5p stamps exist simultaneously and it also answers Steve’s question: why were the stamps at 5p when the first PV decimal price was 6p? Because these pre-date the decimal PV’s. They date from when the price of a comic was a shilling which was 5p and they couldn’t mix and match the prices beyond that because a shilling was 5p, but 6d was not 6p. The only thing I can’t figure is this: we know after a certain point that the comics weren’t sent back. The covers were torn off and only the covers were sent back. Do we know that was 100%? Does that alone knacker this theory? Note: it occurred to me that World, as the printers, might only have been involved in the outward delivery, however: (1) this period of PV + CS started when IND were the distributor. If the change from ECP to WCP was not the catalyst, then why did IND not do this years earlier? (2) This change started after the 3rd hiatus when IND were the distributor, and then carried on, completely unchanged when Curtis took over. Even cover date month Sept 1969, when half the titles were distributed by IND and half by Curtis, features PV’s and CS’s for both distributors, so they are demonstrably not a part of this. (3) If comics & magazines were returned to be pulped, they must have been picked up by Sparta’s distribution chain because….where else were they going back to? Madison Avenue?

Part Two: Back to the first theory. My refutation of Steve’s point is, of course, brilliant, with only one slight caveat: it’s bollocks. My point does demonstrate that they were not distributed later, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they weren’t returns. And Steve’s point about 6p is the answer to Gary’s question. Deep breath, everyone. Marvel comics were released in the US 3 months ahead of cover date to preserve the shelf life, so that, with thousands of miles to travel by road & rail, they would arrive with plenty of shelf life left. But then, a month later, a new batch would be printed and dispatched in the same time frame as the last lot. So however long it took to get a month's comics to the corners of the country, unless multiple months were piling up in the spinners (we know some lingered, but not all), remainders must have all been taken off display long before the cover date. And returned. Unless 3 months comics were continually piled up everywhere. (Note: in the Senate hearings, the point was made that vendors had to retain comics for 3 months and could not return them before the cover date had expired, but that is the only place I’ve seen that). We know that British editions (US Marvels bound for the UK, be they PV's or CS's) were sold in the UK newsagents as cover dated and we kind of know that they weren't shipped much before this i.e. they hung around for weeks in the States rather than being shipped over and hung around here. We know this because later the comics shops would start importing them way ahead of the high street by flying them in. This would have been pointless if they were all sitting in warehouses in the UK at the docks 2 months early anyway. We also know that the Atlantic crossing took 20 days max. We also know that the CS’s were all stamped here (meaning both the cents ones of which there were PV’s and the ones of which there weren’t). This means there’s a timeframe in which cents issues could be distributed to US newsstands, sit there for a month, be returned, and be shipped to the UK with that same cover month’s issues in plenty of time to be on shelf at the newsagents. But if that’s the case, why did it suddenly start only after the 3rd hiatus? Assuming this was previously logistically impossible (rather than just nobody thought of it) ….what changed? The size of print runs might have been a factor, but as these were returns, that doesn’t seem logical. The speed of the print runs would have to have got much faster. The speed to market (and possibly return FROM market) would have to have got a lot faster. The source (and possible return destination) would have to have got a lot more central (or distribution a LOT faster) The frequency of distribution (and therefore returns) would have to have got a lot higher. In other words possibly more comics, definitely produced faster, distributed faster and returns brought back quicker. Now ask yourself what changed during the 3rd hiatus such that, when the PV’s came back, it was suddenly possible to include a load of cents returns with the PV’s. This has nothing to do with Cadence or Curtis, it’s the flip from Eastern Color Press to World Color. After 1955, all of the new investments ECP made, particularly presses and plant, were not for comic book production as they sought to move away from it. By contrast, at the same time, WCP (Sparta) were investing in new web printing technology and creating pool shipping, which made them the cheapest wholesale distributor of comic books and magazines in the industry. WCP had far cheaper distribution, enabling them to send comics out, and presumably get them back in, much quicker. According to Chuck Rozanski, despite World’s massive technical superiority, it was actually their distribution that gave them a near monopoly. Sparta is located a thousand miles west (i.e. a thousand miles more central) than Waterbury. WCP did not, it seems, do more print runs. Both ECP & WCP did 2 Marvel print runs / distributions per month in the first and second weeks of the month, but Sparta ran 24 hours per day in 4 shifts and each press could produce 40,000 comic books per hour, so I suspect their production was much faster within those 2 weeks. Another issue is quality. ECP used cheaper paper and processing, causing the famous chipping. Unsold returns to Sparta would have been in much better condition.

Back to the possibility of these Marvel 69-71 CS’s being returns. Part One: The story so far: In response to my initial posting, Steve made the point: “notice how the later shilling priced UKPVs have 5p on their 15c cousin copies. That implies that they were distributed later than their sequential UKPVs, which makes sense if they were US returns.” To which I replied: “I don't think this is so. I think the opposite is borne out. And actually decimalisation gives us a weirdly specific line in the sand.” And then I went on to demonstrate (brilliantly) that the CS’s which also had PV’s must have been stamped at the same time as the ones that were only CS’s and therefore they were demonstrably distributed at the same time. That being the cover month. Gary then makes the point: “I too struggle to see the 5p stamps as being returns, as I postulated earlier - The first stamp with 5p was Aug 1970, if they were imported post decimalisation that’s 7 or 8 months backlog - that wouldn’t have happened would it? especially if these had already been on sale as UKPVs? The question remains why do 5p stamps and 1/- UKPVs exist simultaneously.” And somewhere else, I think Steve makes the point that when decimal PV’s were introduced, there was the whole 8p/6p cokc up with the 52 pagers and then it settled down to 6p normal size. So why, when the shilling copies were stamped, were they stamped at 5p, which was never the price of Marvel comics in decimal money, it started at 6p? Got all that? Right, here’s tonight’s episode…..

Clearly, I've overplayed my hand with the suspense on this one....

Thanks for checking, Gary. I think these stragglers are going to be a real slow burn. But I have a new question for everyone about this PV+CS question. I looked at the timing and had a real lightbulb moment. I will return after I've thought it through (and ramped everyone up to almost unbearable levels of tension, obviously.....)

That 117 looks like a 'Seaside Special'. Great catch, though. Just for clarity, I don't think these are ones that won't turn up. I think they will. Certainly the MU ones, maybe not the horror ones. I think this is also interesting (for me, anyway), in that it doesn’t change from IND to Curtis. I’ve always wanted to know if T&P’s deal was with Marvel directly or via IND. Everything suggests to me it was direct and the fact that this strange 28 month period of both CS and PV went straight through the handover from IND to Curtis without changing lends weight to that. Well, I’m not sure it lends any weight to it, but if it had ceased abruptly when IND handed over to Curtis, that would certainly have confirmed the opposite. To your point about stock being recycled, indeed. As you know, I started this project a year ago then had to park it and then resumed. It's amazing how many comics are still on sale a year later (with the same picture!) or on sale again with a different vendor making it look like more available than it is.

OK Gents, here's the seek & destroy list. If anyone has any scans or copies in their collection of the titles below with cover stamps, please ping up a scan: Thor 164, 169. Hulk 116, 137, 138. FF 91, 102, 109. ASM 76, 79, 88, 94 95 Avengers 65, 69, 70, 72, 86, 87, 89 Xmen 56, 58, 60, 62, 64 DD 54, 58, 59, 62, 69 IM 15, 21, 22 Captain Marvel 13, 14, 21 Subby 17, 20, 22, 23, 32 Surfer 15, 16, 17 Chamber of Darkness 6,7,8 Monsters on the Prowl 9, 10, 11 Where Monsters Dwell 3,4,5,6,7 Amazing Adventures 3 Astonishing Tales 2,3,4 Bearing in mind that we're talking about a 28 month period with up to 23 titles per month, that's a pretty skinny list. Each time I search for the main titles (Thor to Subby) I usually find one or two more, but the last 6 haven't moved for a month, so definite bonus points if you have any of those. Thanks again to Gary for his help with this. Also, I've called Cap 117 as Non D, but happy to be proven wrong. If this does exist, it's only as a CS, so it's not part of the CS+PV list above. There's only ever about 3 or 4 of these on ebay in the UK, which suggests to me they were all brought in by dealers.

That was my thought, given that there were a couple of 2/- comics that month which would have required stamping on all copies (i.e. there would have been cents copies with the PV's and cents copies with the cents copies), so the 2/- stamp would have been to hand. More interesting thought: given that it's taken me a month to find one of these (whereas I found 214 other PV+CS comics relatively easily) and that there were correctly priced PV's of Hulk 115 presumably either previously or simultaneously released, do we think that maybe the whole batch were accidentally stamped 2/- meaning virtually no one bought one of the cents copies, which is why they are so tough to find now? Incidentally, the body count for these 28 months now stands at: CS only & CS+PV & ND = 87% PV only = 13%. I draw ever closer to saying that there was a CS for every PV and that the deal between T&P and Marvel changed either due to Cadence or Sparta or both.

Going price for a US Marvel was 1/-. at this point. Going price for a normal length book was NEVER 2/-. So how do we explain this.....

Thanks. It always seemed weird to me that Dez Skinn launched his great Marvel Revolution with Daredevil, Dracula, Conan, Shang-Chi, Skull the Slayer & Godzilla. Then you realise he was just working with whatever was left.

That is an astonishing crease in that comic. That must have been a printing error, which might be the reason for the sixpence re-price.

This is completely off topic, but I thought you might find it interesting. I've been looking at the Transworld reprint titles (what we used to call British Marvel) from 72 to 79 and a couple of things which I already knew really came alive for me. Firstly, it always seemed that Transworld reprinted anything and everything as fast and as much as they could. My favourite reprint title was The Super Heroes because it reprinted initially the Silver Surfer and the X men and later a really delirious, almost wilfully obscure collection of Marvel second stringers, such as The Cat, Doc Savage, Giant Man, The Scarecrow, Bloodstone & The Black Knight. It was a great way for serious UK collectors to get the series they were never going to get in the original, but as a commercial title it was doomed to failure: the strips it printed were ones that had already failed in the States and even if they did catch on in the UK, there was only a limited supply as the source material was a cancelled comic. It seemed like Transworld just re-printed everything. The surprise is that they actually did. With the exception of the Panther run in Jungle Action, Transworld took a swing at every single Marvel title printed from 1961 to 1975 (meaning the shared MU, not romance & westerns). They didn’t get through every issue of every one, but they gave it a good try. I never realised this because so many of them were back up strips in the comics I didn’t read: Kazar, Gulliver Jones, Doc Doom, Warlock & Captain Marvel in POTA, Werewolf by Night, Man Thing & Ghost Rider in Dracula Lives, Kull in Conan, and Star Lord, Warlock, Micronauts, Deathlok and Guardians of the Galaxy in Star Wars. Literally everything was tapped to one extent or another except Jungle Action and The Frankenstein Monster (although I was sure this was reprinted in Drac?). The second surprise was this: we know that the reason Stan asked Dez Skinn to revamp British Marvel was because Marvel UK was running out of content, but I didn’t realise that it actually hit the buffers. I knew POTA and Drac had exhausted their material early on because they only had a 29 issue head start with Drac and POTA was reprinted from the bi-monthly magazine, not a comic, so they ran out almost immediately (and created original content for the UK comic which was then re-used for the US magazine). However, the marquee titles were getting close to the end as well. Avengers was 85% depleted, Daredevil 82%, Transworld had burned through 16 years of Fantastic Four in 6 years & 4 months, so they were 5 months away from running out, but Hulk was even nearer. MWOM finished in Jan 1979, at which point it was reprinting Hulk from December 1978. Even given the different lengths in production schedules, MWOM would have tapped Hulk out completely within one more month. The record would have been set by Rampage Weekly: if they hadn’t changed the format in June 78, Rampage would have printed the entire run of Defenders (up to that point) in 14 months, running it out even before Dez Skinn’s Revolution. I knew both of these things were true, but I’m astonished by how true they are. BTW, this is complete coincidence, but, as you know, World were prevented from distributing US titles which were UK masthead or lead features. Avengers was NON D from #121 to #152, and then became distributed again from #153. The last Marvel UK issue of Super Spider Man (#310) reprinted Avengers #152. So the reprints eventually covered the exact period it was Non D. If you’d bought the US originals when they were available and the UK reprints when they weren’t, you’d have an exactly full set of Avengers. Also, can anyone please advise, which would taste worst...a harvest of terror or a harvest of fear?

MT 32 would definitely be an upset if it turned up, but MGC 32 shares that 13/4 release date, so there actually should be stamps of it, but like yourself, I ain't seen one yet

But it's actually only the GS reprint titles that have that delay. The normal size ones (Where Creatures Roam, Where Monsters Dwell, Where Behemoth's Belch, Where Dinosaurs Fart) were all the usual 3 month delay. Hey Gary, do you have a stamp of Marvel's Greatest Comics 32 or Marvel Tales 32? I have these down as probable Non D.

It wasn't a halving of the PV's, it was a halving of output, full stop. I suspect it had more to do with the massive overreach in November. They tried to jump to 52 pages in November which clearly was unviable, but they also produced GS annuals for Iron Man, Sgt Fury, Xmen, Millie the Model, Mad About Millie and they launched Marvel Spotlight. They went from 26 normal size titles in Sept, down to 15 normal size titles in October, then back up to 25 titles in November, of which 22 were giant sized. Some of this was just the ups & downs of the bi-monthly / erratic publication schedule, but I can’t believe it’s a coincidence that titles like Thor, Avengers & Daredevil skipped one month in the midst of years of regular publication and it happened to be the month before they doubled in size.