whitman question ?

[RockMyAmadeus]

I didn't see where you specified anything about the "time", just a statement that "those large-format comics were never included in Whitman packs and could be used as definitive proof", which is why I ask proof of what?

 

 

Here's a short primer: The only timeline that under dispute here is the 1976-early-79 period, where I and others say it was Whitman producing comics in 3-packs, while others state that *some* *select* LCS dealers also received these as "Direct Copies".

 

While still others state that EVERY comic store that was buying through a Direct Market distributor received these.

 

(thumbs u

 

After May/June 1979, the true Direct Market copies emerged and the entire market changed. So any comic or 3-pack found after May (or maybe June - we're till working that out) 1979 doesn't enter into the equation. At that point, Whitman would be using the *same* comics as were already printed up for the DM, not ordering them *specifically* for 3-packs.

 

So from 1976 to May 1979, prior to the true DM being started, no "Giant Size" comic was in a Whitman-branded Marvel Whitman 3-pack, at least to my knowledge. After that, it's just generic DM versions, small and large.

 

For the record, I don't think the "entire market" changed at all. Everyone kept on doing what they were doing, with the sole exception being that Marvel expanded and formalized its already extant direct market cover notation program company-wide, and took a couple months to see which format they liked best.. large diamonds, small diamonds, or square price boxes with line through code.

 

Small diamonds, line through code won.

[RockMyAmadeus]

As well, nearly half of the June, 1979 cover dated books have small diamonds (Spidey #193, Conan #99, Hulk #236, etc), just like several of the May, 1979 ones did.

 

I think there were two things going on at this period in time (May-July 1979). The first is a layout change to the Marvel masthead and the second is the expansion of "diamond" issues into all non-Curtis points of distribution.

 

First, the facts: Prior to the Marvel "Still 35-cents" Star Burst graphic, the masthead had the title of the book in a white box above the boxes containing the price and issue number on most issues. When the Star Burst appeared around Oct 1978 the masthead layout changed. The title box vanished and the issue number and CC boxes moved from above the character logo box to the right hand side (for diamond issues they printed the title over the issue and CC boxes and then put the issue number in the diamond). The Star Burst was still large enough to hold a "large" diamond so nobody makes much notice of the fact that the layout had changed. Now when the Star Burst vanishes in May 1979 the issue number box and CC logo flip back to being above the character logo box, but the title box never returns. Now when the diamond is used to mask the CC logo there is less space for it and it becomes a "small" or "slim" diamond for no other reason than that of less space. The size of the diamond is an artifact of this layout change. If Marvel hadn't raised the price and had continued to run the "Still 35-cent" Star Burst until Oct 1979 we wouldn't think twice about the size issue somehow relating to the expansion of "diamond" customers. NOTE: some issues prior to 1979 didn't have a title box and they had "small" diamonds early on, like Tarzan and John Carter.

 

Now here is my theory on what happend (just a theory no real evidence behind it): After the May issue print runs had ended, word came down that all non-newsstand books would be marked the same. Perhaps to lessen the "shock" to subscribers and a majority of comic shop customers, someone decided that the first books in this "expansion" wouldn't get the diamond, just a slash through the UPC barcode lines (so the majority of titles with June cover dates are basically newsstand issues with a slash to denote the difference). Someone (probably in the legal department) noticed this at some point and said, "put the diamond back on those books, the CC logo should not appear on books not distributed by Curtis" (which I think at the time was still a sibling company to Marvel, both being subsidiaries to the same parent company). So the last few June 1979 titles got the diamonds back and all titles got them starting July 1979. And due to the space issue mentioned above, they got "small" diamonds.

 

 

That is true, there exists no other time when the CC logo was combined with a "direct market" UPC code than June, 1979.

 

However...how do you account for the "half n' half" runs of large diamond/star burst May '79 (Marvel Two In One #51, for example) with the small diamond of books like Amazing Spiderman #192?

[RockMyAmadeus]

So from 1976 to May 1979, prior to the true DM being started, no "Giant Size" comic was in a Whitman-branded Marvel Whitman 3-pack, at least to my knowledge. After that, it's just generic DM versions, small and large.

 

I'm not sure what the June 1979 change would have to do with what Western was ordering and bagging. Prior to June 1979 it appears Western was ordering some titles consistently and other titles randomly (which is why I'm behind Western being the driving force for the early diamonds, if Western didn't order it, it probably doesn't exist as an early diamond).

 

This is something I am fully in agreement with, and which I stated in another thread several days ago.

 

If Western didn't order a particular book, there was no need to print (because it cost more) a "separate cover" just for the remainder of the then-fragile and tiny direct market. This is why there are so many "gaps" in several titles. It's not that the direct market didn't receive ANY copies...they just didn't receive "specially marked" copies.

 

But if Western DID order a particular issue, then it follows that the rest of the direct market would receive that specially marked copy, as well, for testing and tracking purposes.

 

Otherwise...the company-wide expansion in May/June/July 1979 makes absolutely no sense.

 

After June 1979 Marvel expanded the diamonds to all non-Curtis dist. points, but I think Western was still picking which titles to bag. So I think the over-size Conan #100 shows that Western didn't care about the size or cover price when they ordered books from Marvel. So I'm not sure why an early over-size diamond would be a shock or surprise and what it would prove other than Western ordered it.

 

This still doesn't explain the small diamonds of the May, 1979 Marvel books, or the two month gap (aside from licensed books Micronauts and Shogun Warriors) followed by the nearly company-wide diamonds, large and small, for 5/79 cover dates.

[gifflefunk]

However...how do you account for the "half n' half" runs of large diamond/star burst May '79 (Marvel Two In One #51, for example) with the small diamond of books like Amazing Spiderman #192?

 

The large vs. small diamond in May is strictly a by-product of the price increase and the Star Burst being removed. The production schedule for books was done in two groups (if I recall correctly), which is why you see some books with the Star Burst, but a 40-cent cover price. If you look at Captain America #233 (newsstand), the "Still 35-cent" price is gone, replaced with a 40-cent price. The Curtis logo is below the price and over on the right hand side the title trick used on the diamond books is now being used to fill in the empty space.

 

All the large diamond issues for May exist because they still had the Star Burst box, i.e. the cover art work had already been done after the price increase. The Star Burst was part of the cover art, not an overlay. Artwork created after the price increase do not have the Star Burst, and due to the masthead changes back in 1978 they get the small diamonds. The size of the diamond is basically an irrelevant data point that occurred because of the Oct 1978 masthead change and the May 1979 price increase.

 

 

[gifflefunk]

Let's see if I've got the positions down:

 

RockMyAmadeus: It's not that the direct market didn't receive ANY copies...they just didn't receive "specially marked" copies. But if Western DID order a particular issue, then it follows that the rest of the direct market would receive that specially marked copy, as well, for testing and tracking purposes.

 

Joe_Collector: Only Western Publishing was getting and selling diamond books in 3-packs prior to June 1979.

 

Gifflefunk: Western Publishing was definitely getting diamond books, however some dealers were also getting diamond books (their claim); the reason could be one of two possible ways: Marvel was testing other avenues before June 1979 OR Western Publishing was acting as a distributor and selling books to their customers (either raw, or if bagged the shop was de-bagging them to sell raw at cover price).

 

Is this a correct summary?

[joe_collector]

I'm not sure what the June 1979 change would have to do with what Western was ordering and bagging

 

Do the math.

 

Large-format books are more expensive to print and ship. If Western/Whitman is the *only* distribution point for these "fat diamonds", then it's pretty obvious why they chose standard size issues for their "special printings" - i.e $$$$. Marvel might even have limited them to standard comics, based on the contract and payments.

 

But once the Direct Market copies started being mass-printed, Whitman would just piggyback on that, and could pick and choose any issue.

[joe_collector]

Is this a correct summary?

 

Pretty well, and while I can understand my position and yours, I don't get the illogic behind automatically assuming that since Whitman produced a comic that *all* the LCS would get it too - there is no 100% linkage between that, as the DM format would just have likely followed the Whitman experiment.

 

From the distributors and LCS owners I've talked to, there are only 2 possible scenarios.

 

1) Whitman was the sole supplier of "fat diamonds" from 1976 to early-1979.

2) Whitman was the main supplier of "fat diamonds" from 1976 to early-1979, but a limited number of test stores were also sent these books.

 

There is absolutely no possibility that these fat diamond comics were mass-distributed to the DM during that period. I have emails/comments from 20+ old dealers I met on eBay/online and none of them received these copies (only newsstand), and just a few remotely remember getting some (and not all), although as gifflefunk states, these could have been unbagged or from a secondary source.

[gifflefunk]

Do the math.

 

The cost to add a diamond mask would be the same regardless of the size of the issue. So the only additional cost would be due to the size of issue.

 

Now if size was a cost issue then how does that explain the Conan 3-Pack with issues 98, 99 and 100? The Western printed price on the bag was still $1.09 even though a 60-cent oversize issue was included. Did Western just eat the difference if Marvel charged Western more for the oversize issue? Why would Western order a large size issue in that case?

 

 

[shadroch]

If there is a three pack that featured Conan 98,99,100, that would seem to open a whole other discussion. Did Marvel or Whitman hold the copies of 98 for two months, and the copies of 99 for a month before assembling them, or did Marvel/World Press do a special printing of these three books at the same time?

In the late 1980s, Marvel had a policy that it would reprint any title if they had enough demand for it- I believe the threshold was 20,000 copies. This is what lead to the New England comics/GI Joe Fiasco.

[gifflefunk]

There were at least two types of 3-packs, books from various titles (mixed packs) and books from the same title (theme packs). Theme packs got a special bag promoting the title, like Star Wars, Shogun Warriors, Tarzan, Conan, Incredible Hulk, etc, and would contain 3 books from that title, usually consecutive issues. The mixed packs just said "Comics" (early packs) or "Super Heroes" across the top (later packs) and were usually books from the same month, but not always.

 

In the case of early Star Wars packs there were very distinct groupings of issues, but later packs had staggered issues. One pack might be issues 23-25, another pack might be 25-27 and yet another pack might be issues 26-28. This seems to indicate that Western was trying to move the later inventory in 1979 faster than the earlier inventory from 1977.

 

Based on my correspondence with a former employee at World Color in regard to diamond issues, he stated they were all published at the same time as the regular newsstand issues. And his information seems to indicate that Western Publishing would just warehouse their orders of Marvel books and then create 3-packs from this warehoused inventory. Which seems to give reason to why there are some gaps in the early diamond runs. If Western's inventory wasn't low enough, they didn't order books from Marvel for that month.

 

The only reprinted books that I'm aware of are marked "Reprint" or "Second Print" somewhere on the book.

[joe_collector]

Now if size was a cost issue then how does that explain the Conan 3-Pack with issues 98, 99 and 100? The Western printed price on the bag was still $1.09 even though a 60-cent oversize issue was included. Did Western just eat the difference if Marvel charged Western more for the oversize issue? Why would Western order a large size issue in that case?

 

No idea, maybe it was a mistake, or Marvel decided at the last moment to make Conan 100 a large-size issue? Either way, it doesn't matter, as at that point Whitman/Western was NOT the one specifically ordering issues for their 3-packs, but instead was the minnow piggybacking on the whale of a DM market.

 

There is no way Whitman would have specifically ordered a large-format comic prior to the real DM editions, which is the point of this whole debate, and why What-If would have been a good defining point for the true DM formation.

 

But what your example does prove is that the true DM editions were in full production as of July 1979.

[RockMyAmadeus]

However...how do you account for the "half n' half" runs of large diamond/star burst May '79 (Marvel Two In One #51, for example) with the small diamond of books like Amazing Spiderman #192?

 

The large vs. small diamond in May is strictly a by-product of the price increase and the Star Burst being removed. The production schedule for books was done in two groups (if I recall correctly), which is why you see some books with the Star Burst, but a 40-cent cover price. If you look at Captain America #233 (newsstand), the "Still 35-cent" price is gone, replaced with a 40-cent price. The Curtis logo is below the price and over on the right hand side the title trick used on the diamond books is now being used to fill in the empty space.

 

All the large diamond issues for May exist because they still had the Star Burst box, i.e. the cover art work had already been done after the price increase. The Star Burst was part of the cover art, not an overlay. Artwork created after the price increase do not have the Star Burst, and due to the masthead changes back in 1978 they get the small diamonds. The size of the diamond is basically an irrelevant data point that occurred because of the Oct 1978 masthead change and the May 1979 price increase.

 

 

Not the question I was arguing, but ok. It should be self-evident that those were done because of the price change, and that the "large diamond" 40 centers were finished before the change (and include both newsstand AND "direct market" type copies, with differences) while the "small diamond" was only used that month on the "direct market" books done AFTER the price change was official, while the newsstands for THOSE books are the regular square price box that there had been for years. Sorry if I wasn't clearer.

 

What I meant was...how do you account for the difference, if these were just continuations of the Whitman orders, rather than the official start of the company wide direct market program at Marvel?

 

Because, for May 1979 (and for no other month in Marvel history), there are four distinctly different cover formats. Not only were there the two different "Direct Market" versions, but there was also, for the first, last, and only time, two different newsstand versions (examples: Marvel Two In One #51 & Daredevil #158 vs. FF #206.)

 

WHY the starburst newsstands for some of the newsstand books, when starburst newsstands exist for no other book printed...?

 

My answer is simple: after a two month gap, Marvel was officially launching the Direct Market cover notation program, having tested it for two years, and was trying out which format they liked best.

 

There's even a 5TH version, if you count the lack of a CC symbol on Amazing Spiderman #192!

[joe_collector]

Have you looked at these from a weekly point of view, and do the changes match up on a timeline?

 

If so, then it's just another example of Marvel changing things mid-month, like the "picture frames" - books at the start of Dec 1972 have the PF format, while later books did not. So sometime in mid-Dec 1972, a decision was made.

 

Marvel has done this on other occasions, and I don't see the big conspiracy. I find it incredibly difficult to imagine Marvel "testing" multiple cover designs out over a single month. They were a pretty simple company back then - look at their "pricing resistance research" in 1976 and 77.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Let's see if I've got the positions down:

 

RockMyAmadeus: It's not that the direct market didn't receive ANY copies...they just didn't receive "specially marked" copies. But if Western DID order a particular issue, then it follows that the rest of the direct market would receive that specially marked copy, as well, for testing and tracking purposes.

 

Gifflefunk: Western Publishing was definitely getting diamond books, however some dealers were also getting diamond books (their claim); the reason could be one of two possible ways: Marvel was testing other avenues before June 1979 OR Western Publishing was acting as a distributor and selling books to their customers (either raw, or if bagged the shop was de-bagging them to sell raw at cover price).

 

Is this a correct summary?

 

Our two positions are not contradictory, except insofar as you state it was "some" dealers, and I say it was "all"...if Marvel was sending out diamond books to all DM distributors, and not just Western, then it follows that anyone ordering from those distributors would receive diamond copies.

 

If Marvel was ONLY sending them out to Western, and Western was the sole and only distributor for these books, then it is entirely correct to call them "Whitman" variants.

 

But I have seen little to indicate that comics specialty stores were ordering comics from Western, or that Western was distributing comics in any meanigful way to those stores. Western's target distribution, from the late 60's to the 80's, were large retailers like K-Mart, Wal-Mart, etc.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Have you looked at these from a weekly point of view, and do the changes match up on a timeline?

 

If so, then it's just another example of Marvel changing things mid-month, like the "picture frames" - books at the start of Dec 1972 have the PF format, while later books did not. So sometime in mid-Dec 1972, a decision was made.

 

Marvel has done this on other occasions, and I don't see the big conspiracy. I find it incredibly difficult to imagine Marvel "testing" multiple cover designs out over a single month. They were a pretty simple company back then - look at their "pricing resistance research" in 1976 and 77.

 

Who said there was a big conspiracy...?

 

The fact is, Marvel produced four different cover formats for May, 1979, then three for June, 1979, then two for July, 1979. They saw what they liked, and whoever made the decision, made it.

 

I don't see why this would be difficult to imagine Marvel doing.

[joe_collector]

Our two positions are not contradictory, except insofar as you state it was "some" dealers, and I say it was "all"..

 

Sorry, but this position is totally unsupportable, as no dealer I've spoken to received more than a few Diamond books (and again, from potentially dubious sources), and the vast majority received none.

 

There are only two possible scenarios:

 

1) All fat diamonds are Whitman 3-pack books.

2) Most fat diamonds are Whitman 3-pack books, but some are "test DM books" sent to *select* LCSs.

 

I can't say for certain which one it is, but I can say that it was not a distributor-wide change in 1976. I don't think any dealer, even Sulipa, would agree with your stance.

[RockMyAmadeus]

Our two positions are not contradictory, except insofar as you state it was "some" dealers, and I say it was "all"..

 

Sorry, but this position is totally unsupportable, as no dealer I've spoken to received more than a few Diamond books (and again, from potentially dubious sources), and the vast majority received none.

 

There are only two possible scenarios:

 

1) All fat diamonds are Whitman 3-pack books.

2) Most fat diamonds are Whitman 3-pack books, but some are "test DM books" sent to *select* LCSs.

 

I can't say for certain which one it is, but I can say that it was not a distributor-wide change in 1976. I don't think any dealer, even Sulipa, would agree with your stance.

 

Alright...I can concede that. It fits in better with my test model theory anyways.

 

 

[fastballspecial]

As well, nearly half of the June, 1979 cover dated books have small diamonds (Spidey #193, Conan #99, Hulk #236, etc), just like several of the May, 1979 ones did.

 

I think there were two things going on at this period in time (May-July 1979). The first is a layout change to the Marvel masthead and the second is the expansion of "diamond" issues into all non-Curtis points of distribution.

 

First, the facts: Prior to the Marvel "Still 35-cents" Star Burst graphic, the masthead had the title of the book in a white box above the boxes containing the price and issue number on most issues. When the Star Burst appeared around Oct 1978 the masthead layout changed. The title box vanished and the issue number and CC boxes moved from above the character logo box to the right hand side (for diamond issues they printed the title over the issue and CC boxes and then put the issue number in the diamond). The Star Burst was still large enough to hold a "large" diamond so nobody makes much notice of the fact that the layout had changed. Now when the Star Burst vanishes in May 1979 the issue number box and CC logo flip back to being above the character logo box, but the title box never returns. Now when the diamond is used to mask the CC logo there is less space for it and it becomes a "small" or "slim" diamond for no other reason than that of less space. The size of the diamond is an artifact of this layout change. If Marvel hadn't raised the price and had continued to run the "Still 35-cent" Star Burst until Oct 1979 we wouldn't think twice about the size issue somehow relating to the expansion of "diamond" customers. NOTE: some issues prior to 1979 didn't have a title box and they had "small" diamonds early on, like Tarzan and John Carter.

 

Now here is my theory on what happend (just a theory no real evidence behind it): After the May issue print runs had ended, word came down that all non-newsstand books would be marked the same. Perhaps to lessen the "shock" to subscribers and a majority of comic shop customers, someone decided that the first books in this "expansion" wouldn't get the diamond, just a slash through the UPC barcode lines (so the majority of titles with June cover dates are basically newsstand issues with a slash to denote the difference). Someone (probably in the legal department) noticed this at some point and said, "put the diamond back on those books, the CC logo should not appear on books not distributed by Curtis" (which I think at the time was still a sibling company to Marvel, both being subsidiaries to the same parent company). So the last few June 1979 titles got the diamonds back and all titles got them starting July 1979. And due to the space issue mentioned above, they got "small" diamonds.

 

Ah the Star Bursts My Favorite. Love hearing about them I still grab every bursted X-men 118 I can find. IM 118 will finally help that set now.

[marino1]

thanks for all the input. looking back im almost sure the #192 was in a 3 pack i bought on ebay in the early 2000s with 193 and 194. does anybody know if the 3 packs would all have the same upc or would they be different?