Can we all agree that Marvel Whitmans are not a thing? 2 2

[Get Marwood & I]

2 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

34 minutes ago, OtherEric said:

I was mentioning this over in another thread; but the term we're really looking for is "state", not "printing".  Distinct variants from within the same print run are different states.  It also can be used when there are known to be more print runs than actual variations in the books, so when 2 or more print runs are indistinguishable they're a single state.

Is that a printers / industry term then Eric, state?

...seems it is:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(printmaking)

Thanks Eric, not heard that one before. 

[OtherEric]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

...seems it is:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_(printmaking)

Thanks Eric, not heard that one before. 

I first encountered it while collecting early editions of the Oz books.  It really seems to fit what we're looking at here best.

[paqart]

So these aren't Whitman's? I picked them up in a group of 35 comics, all of which appeared to be Whitman's. Most had "Whitman" printed on the cover, even the DCs. The Marvels did not, but the cover features of these issues match the "Whitmans" on the Mile High site.

[Warlord]

36 minutes ago, paqart said:

So these aren't Whitman's? I picked them up in a group of 35 comics, all of which appeared to be Whitman's. Most had "Whitman" printed on the cover, even the DCs. The Marvels did not, but the cover features of these issues match the "Whitmans" on the Mile High site.

Some will say yes they are, some will say they aren't.  I'm going with yes they are. 

Nice copies, I need upgrades of some of those if you decide to part with any!

[Brock]

43 minutes ago, paqart said:

So these aren't Whitman's? I picked them up in a group of 35 comics, all of which appeared to be Whitman's. Most had "Whitman" printed on the cover, even the DCs. The Marvels did not, but the cover features of these issues match the "Whitmans" on the Mile High site.

Here’s the TL;DR version.

DC Whitmans have a Whitman logo on the cover. Gold Key/Western Whitmans have a Whitman logo on the cover.

Marvel Whitmans in that sense do exist, with a Whitman logo on the cover, but only for a handful of treasury editions.

The debate is about the Diamond variants you are showing.

One camp (including Mile High) say they are Whitman variants, because they were only distributed by Whitman. There is no firm evidence for this assertion.

The other camp says they are not Whitman variants, because they were distributed by multiple companies, possibly including but not limited to Whitman. There is no firm evidence for this assertion.

Hope that helps...

[Warlord]

38 minutes ago, Brock said:

Here’s the TL;DR version.

DC Whitmans have a Whitman logo on the cover. Gold Key/Western Whitmans have a Whitman logo on the cover.

Marvel Whitmans in that sense do exist, with a Whitman logo on the cover, but only for a handful of treasury editions.

The debate is about the Diamond variants you are showing.

One camp (including Mile High) say they are Whitman variants, because they were only distributed by Whitman. There is no firm evidence for this assertion.

The other camp says they are not Whitman variants, because they were distributed by multiple companies, possibly including but not limited to Whitman. There is no firm evidence for this assertion.

Hope that helps...

Good summary!  

Regarding the "only distributed by Whitman" phase, I would highlight that there exists ample evidence that comics such as these were distributed by Whitman, for instance the sealed multipacks and catalog/advertising etc.  However it's harder to prove the negative that they were NOT sold to other distributors.

[Brock]

15 hours ago, Warlord said:

 I would highlight that there exists ample evidence that comics such as these were distributed by Whitman, for instance the sealed multipacks and catalog/advertising etc.

I’m with you, but I might amend this slightly to say that there exists ample evidence that SOME comics such as these were distributed by Whitman. I’m not sure we can confidently say that ALL issues with a Diamond variant were distributed by Whitman.

By this, I mean we might find an ad or an existing three-pack showing that Star Wars #13 (to choose a random example) was distributed by Whitman. This does not serve as evidence, however, that a Diamond version of Star Wars #14 was ALSO distributed by Whitman.

The suspicion of the second (non-Whitman) camp is that Diamond variants were prepared for several (all?) non-returnable distribution channels, but that the actual distribution of individual issues by channel may have varied from month to month.

[Randall Dowling]

On 7/5/2020 at 4:32 PM, paqart said:

So these aren't Whitman's? I picked them up in a group of 35 comics, all of which appeared to be Whitman's. Most had "Whitman" printed on the cover, even the DCs. The Marvels did not, but the cover features of these issues match the "Whitmans" on the Mile High site.

These.  Are.  All.  Whitmans.

Anyone that says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.  And they are different than the direct market editions that would be sold to comic book stores with a skinny diamond for the price.  It's really not that complicated.  These all came out of 3 packs and were not sold in stores separately.

Edited July 6, 2020 by Randall Dowling
Additional information

[Brock]

3 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

These.  Are.  All.  Whitmans.

Anyone that says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.  And they are different than the direct market editions that would be sold to comic book stores with a skinny diamond for the price.  It's really not that complicated.  These all came out of 3 packs and were not sold in stores separately.

I’m certainly open to this possibility.

I’m interested in hearing, though, how you have solved this longstanding question that has prompted debate among comics historians for a number of years now. Can you share your evidence?

[OtherEric]

12 hours ago, Brock said:

I’m with you, but I might amend this slightly to say that there exists ample evidence that SOME comics such as these were distributed by Whitman. I’m not sure we can confidently say that ALL issues with a Diamond variant were distributed by Whitman.

By this, I mean we might find an ad or an existing three-pack showing that Star Wars #13 (to choose a random example) was distributed by Whitman. This does not serve as evidence, however, that a Diamond version of Star Wars #14 was ALSO distributed by Whitman.

The suspicion of the second (non-Whitman) camp is that Diamond variants were prepared for several (all?) non-returnable distribution channels, but that the actual distribution of individual issues by channel may have varied from month to month.

I can verify from personal memory that Star Wars 13-15 came in a single bag, I presume (but don't know for sure) from Whitman.  Both me, and my dad when he was looking for them for me, were careful to find the bags with three Star Wars comics in them for me, and I know they all came in order.  We never found a 1-3 pack, but I definitely got them in 4-6, 7-9, 10-12, 13-15, and 16-18 bags.  Then my subscription started with 21 and we never did find 19-20.  I know now that 19-20 didn't come in bags but my family looked for them nearly a year; they even agreed that they would buy a pack with 19-21 despite me already having the 21.  My family wasn't poor but we were frugal on things like that; getting them to agree to that ahead of time felt like a big concession on that point.

Then a few years later, they ordered some back issues from one of those Mile High ads for my birthday, bringing me almost up to date.  That's where I finally got the 1-3, but Mile High was out of the 19-20 and I didn't find them until around 1985 or 1986 when I first saw a comic book store.  Ironically, I finally found the 19-20 at Golden Age Collectibles in the Pike Place Market in Seattle, which, had I or my parents known it, was actually already there in the 70's.  We actually lived in the same county and got up that way at least once a year.

Sorry for the digression; clearly your example wasn't random to me!

[Lazyboy]

32 minutes ago, Brock said:

4 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

These.  Are.  All.  Whitmans.

Anyone that says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.  And they are different than the direct market editions that would be sold to comic book stores with a skinny diamond for the price.  It's really not that complicated.  These all came out of 3 packs and were not sold in stores separately.

I’m certainly open to this possibility.

I’m interested in hearing, though, how you have solved this longstanding question that has prompted debate among comics historians for a number of years now. Can you share your evidence?

 

 

 

 

[Brock]

Perhaps some visual aids?

These are definitely Whitman packs, with one chosen especially for @OtherEric:

Then there are the ones that might be Whitman packs:

Then there's the ones that probably aren't Whitman packs:

And then, just to make it super confusing, there's the "skinny diamond" Whitman packs that prove that Whitman was equally capable of distributing the non-returnable books designed for other channels:

Edited July 7, 2020 by Brock

[Brock]

17 hours ago, Randall Dowling said:

Anyone that says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.  And they are different than the direct market editions that would be sold to comic book stores with a skinny diamond for the price.  It's really not that complicated.

 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Brock said:

Then there are the ones that might be Whitman packs:

That first one must be a Whitman bag if this one, with the same Spidey logo, is anything to go by?

[Brock]

4 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

That first one must be a Whitman bag if this one, with the same Spidey logo, is anything to go by?

Also, the 99 cent price logo is the same on the Thor and Spider-Man bagged sets as on the Star Wars ones labelled Whitman, and the reinforcement around the hole in the top of the bags looks very similar.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Brock

[bellrules]

6 minutes ago, Brock said:

Also, the 99 cent price logo is the same on the Thor and Spider-Man bagged sets as on the Star Wars ones labelled Whitman, and the reinforcement around the hole in the top of the bags looks very similar.

If you’re going to look at the reinforcement around the hole, (insert joke here) look at these two packs that have the same DC issues. One is clearly a Whitman, the other is not....or is it based on your theory? 

[Warlord]

2 hours ago, Brock said:

 

Then there are the ones that might be Whitman packs:

 

There's no question that the "Comics" and super-hero themed packs are from Whitman.   Probably a majority the superhero themed packs actually include the Whitman logo, as seen in this example that contains the next three Spider-Man issues.

I think the Comic Pacs were Whitman as well, I seem to recall that some of them included prizes that included the Whitman name on them (many prizes weren't Whitman specific but were Marvel or currency, but there were a few) but can't find any pics to confirm this.  Anyone have such pics?

 

 

 

[Warlord]

I don't disagree with anything shown in this chart, seems correct to me.

[bellrules]

48 minutes ago, Warlord said:

I don't disagree with anything shown in this chart, seems correct to me.

I don't think anyone disputes that chart, there are questions in regards to whether the books were only available through those bagged sets.

[Warlord]

8 minutes ago, bellrules said:

I don't think anyone disputes that chart, there are questions in regards to whether the books were only available through those bagged sets.

The question of whether certain packs were Whitman packs was raised just above by Brock.  That chart was part of my response to that post that questioned whether the packs labeled "Comics", Comics Pak, or super-hero themed packs were Whitman packs.

Proving the negative, that no one else distributed these comics, just isn't going to happen absent a clear, iron-clad, date-specific statement from Marvel or Western claiming that Western/Whitman was the sole distributor.  The closest we have, which isn't bad, is Jim Shooter's statement that the fat diamond versions were developed specifically for Western Publishing and its Whitman bagged comics product line.

I haven't seen any evidence that Marvel sent these comics through any distributor other than Western, but if it appeared that would also settle the issue.