UPC boxes on Bronze-age comics

[Metarog]

This post is really two-fold. I did a little research on when those UPC boxes started to appear on comics and then found an oddity in how they were phased in on DCs.

 

Anyway here are the facts:

 

Charlton was the first publisher to start putting UPC boxes on their comics. The vast majority of Charltons had them on October 1975 with only a few exceptions (Ghostly Haunts #46 being one).

 

Marvel started putting them in June 1976 straight across all titles.

 

Archie had them in all their titles starting in September 1976.

 

Gold Key had them starting in July 1977.

 

Harvey started in August 1978.

 

Now DC is really strange. They put UPCs in exactly 8 titles dated March 1976, none of the rest of the titles that month had them and no titles for April 1976 had them! It was May 1976 when all titles had UPCs. 5 of the titles that had UPCs in March where bi-monthly and 3 were monthly. I don't think any of them were really big sellers though. The issues are:

Ghosts #46

OAOW #290

Weird Western Tales #33

Joker #6

Kamandi #39

Tarzan Family #62

Blitzkrieg #2

1st Issue Special #12

 

My question is why did DC do it this way?

Did they test UPCs in these issues to see how sales would be with them on there?

Did DC have some leeway on holding back the UPCs if sales where significantly affected?

 

I know this is probably of little interest to most but maybe somebody has some info regarding the introduction of the UPCs in comics. Thanks.

[shiverbones]

i find that interesting because ghosts #46 is more difficult to find than 40-45, 47-50.

[Metarog]

Hmmm, is that so... are any of the other comics on that March 1976 list tougher to find than others around that date? Maybe all these had low print runs. Just a thought.

[shadroch]

I believe Marvel books were dated several weeks ahead of DC, so that the books Marvel shipped in the beginning of the month had the same month as DC but from the middle on,they were dated a month ahead of time.An example would be the Batman and Spiderman books that each shipped in the first week of the month would have the same mont listes on the cover,while the JLA and Avengers books that shipped the fourth weeks were dated one month apart.I don't remember the books that shipped each week,I'm just using examples. Also,I believe several DC titles were shipping eight times a year,as oppossed to monthly.