What year did Direct Editions start outselling Newstand editions? 1 1

[dzbad]

The title says it all. 

I know that newsstand editions were able to be sent back to publishers through the Bronze age.  I am guessing this continued through the copper age for a while, but I am sure it got cut off after a while.  I was guessing that at some point in the copper age, in general DC and Marvel started selling more copies to comic book stores than to Newsstands.  I am wondering about when that was. 

I know this is a great collection of veteran collectors.  I am sure people have ideas as well as references.   

[Get Marwood & I]

18 minutes ago, dzbad said:

The title says it all. 

I know that newsstand editions were able to be sent back to publishers through the Bronze age.  I am guessing this continued through the copper age for a while, but I am sure it got cut off after a while.  I was guessing that at some point in the copper age, in general DC and Marvel started selling more copies to comic book stores than to Newsstands.  I am wondering about when that was. 

I know this is a great collection of veteran collectors.  I am sure people have ideas as well as references.   

Hello Dzbad. Lots of threads and discussions on this subject about the place if you look. Here's a good one to start your reading pleasure with. Click on the little grey arrow at the top right of the embedded post below and it will whisk you off to its thread:

On 1/27/2019 at 8:08 PM, valiantman said:

http://valiantman.com/images/direct_newsstand.png

 

[Lazyboy]

1 hour ago, dzbad said:

I know that newsstand editions were able to be sent back to publishers through the Bronze age.  I am guessing this continued through the copper age for a while, but I am sure it got cut off after a while.

The whole point of Newsstand editions was that they were returnable, even if they weren't actually physically returned most of the time. That's how that distribution system, of which comics were ever only a tiny part, has always worked and continues to work.

[shadroch]

I've seen dates ranging from 1985 to 1987. If you are talking about when the total direct market exceeded newsstand sales, it's probably the earlier date but when Marvel or DC did it might be later. During the Indie/B&W craze, that segment was almost exclusively direct.

[valiantman]

Initial numbers from CGC's competitor population report make it pretty clear that the direct market had a significant influence on the newsstand books, perhaps by accident.  

Here's what we know:

1) A regular issue which was available for sale in both direct editions and newsstand editions was available as a direct edition first, all direct editions were non-returnable, so comic shops generally either ordered a perfect amount of direct editions or they had leftover direct editions when the next issue arrived (either as planned backstock or as unplanned extras from the order).

2) Newsstand editions were released two or three weeks after the direct editions, so in the situations where most collectors bought their direct editions in the comic shop, whatever portion of unsold newsstand editions were returned (presumably destroyed, pulped, recycled, or trashed with the covers ripped off).

2A) If comic shops over-ordered their direct editions, there could have been plenty available everywhere, leading to more newsstands being returned.  (This appears it may have happened for Wolverine Limited Series #1 - direct editions seem quite plentiful for a 1982 book.)

So --- just using those two situations --- there will be a point in time where the number of surviving direct editions and surviving newsstand editions is equal.  It might be the mid-1980s or it might even be earlier, since the "still surviving" requirement eliminates a number of newsstand editions printed that were returned/refunded or trashed by non-collectors who bought to read once or twice and toss like other magazines/newspapers.

Let's say, just for the sake of argument that the number of "surviving" books from some year is about 50% direct edition and 50% newsstand.  Even if we could determine the correct year for the 50%/50% split, it would not be true for a specific situation:

3) When direct editions sold out at the comic shop, any popular or instantly-hot book, it is clear that a number of direct market buyers (collectors/retailers) went to newsstands a few weeks later and bought up those freshly-released (already hot) newsstand books.  So, while we might find that about 20% of the surviving copies of Marvel 1984 books are newsstand for just about every issue, we may also find that Amazing Spider-Man #252 from 1984 is about 50% direct and 50% newsstand today.  Amazing Spider-Man #252 was likely a book that sold out at comic shops, and with direct editions gone, the newsstands (a couple weeks later) would have been picked up by direct edition customers who missed out, by retailers who would like to sell newsstands in their shops because they sold out of direct editions, or by collectors who decided to speculate on a "hot book" and purchased multiples of direct and/or newsstand editions.  Instead of a normal number of returned (unsold) newsstands, there could have been very few returns for any "instantly hot" book, and the number of newsstands surviving today could be double the amount for ASM #252 compared to ASM #251, even though they're back-to-back issues of the same title from the same year.

When the direct market collectors/retailers "stepped over to the newsstand market" for instantly hot books, we should expect plenty of newsstands FOR THAT ONE ISSUE to have survived and to even be high grade, since direct market participants knew how to keep and protect their comics.  This looks like it happened with ASM #252 and ASM #361, and we may figure out more as the data grows.

In other words...

 

 

 

TL;DR

We may get an idea of a date when newsstands became less common than direct editions, but ANY issue that was instantly hot as a direct edition probably got scooped up as newsstands, too, causing that one issue to have extra surviving (and even high grade) newsstands compared to the books around it or books of the same date.

Edited May 11, 2020 by valiantman

[shadroch]

I pretty much agree with your hypothesis, and will only take issue with part of your first point. At that point of the market, few shops ordered perfectly. Most comic shops that opened in the early 80s were poorly run, and badly managed.  

[valiantman]

8 hours ago, shadroch said:

I pretty much agree with your hypothesis, and will only take issue with part of your first point. At that point of the market, few shops ordered perfectly. Most comic shops that opened in the early 80s were poorly run, and badly managed.  

Would you say that more shops under-ordered - regularly sending direct market customers to the newsstand - or did they usually over-order and end up with unsold non-returnable stock that had to be hauled out when the shops closed?

[shadroch]

At that point in the hobby, almost everyone over-ordered because what you couldn't sell this month for cover would sell next month for a premium.

The only books I can think of that fit what you are describing would be Thor 337, Secret Wars 1 and 8, and ASM 252-254.  The black suited Spidey was a much bigger success than anyone anticipated and stores had already placed ordered for 253 and 254 before 252 came out.

As far as Wolverine 1 goes, I think a lot of shops realized this would be a long term  seller so they ordered many more copies than they thought they could sell in a month.

There was nothing like Previews for retailers to look thru and decide how it would sell. We got a two or three page order sheet that often didn't even list writers or artists on many books.

 

[valiantman]

5 hours ago, shadroch said:

At that point in the hobby, almost everyone over-ordered because what you couldn't sell this month for cover would sell next month for a premium.

The only books I can think of that fit what you are describing would be Thor 337, Secret Wars 1 and 8, and ASM 252-254.  The black suited Spidey was a much bigger success than anyone anticipated and stores had already placed ordered for 253 and 254 before 252 came out.

As far as Wolverine 1 goes, I think a lot of shops realized this would be a long term  seller so they ordered many more copies than they thought they could sell in a month.

There was nothing like Previews for retailers to look thru and decide how it would sell. We got a two or three page order sheet that often didn't even list writers or artists on many books.

 

It's great to have first-hand info to corroborate what's in the census.  If we had waited a hundred years to figure all this out, it would be total guesswork.  As it stands now, 36 years later, we've just got "some" guesswork. 

[dzbad]

I always love a good discussion.  Many thanks to everyone who has been putting in their input on this topic. 

[lou_fine]

On 5/10/2020 at 12:02 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Hello Dzbad. Lots of threads and discussions on this subject about the place if you look. Here's a good one to start your reading pleasure with. Click on the little grey arrow at the top right of the embedded post below and it will whisk you off to its thread:

On 1/27/2019 at 12:08 PM, valiantman said:

http://valiantman.com/images/direct_newsstand.png

 

Well, based upon this graph above, would this suggest that Direct editions should then be rarer for books published prior to the 80's and therefore in theory, should be worth more than their Newsstand counterpart?  

[valiantman]

10 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

On 5/10/2020 at 2:02 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Hello Dzbad. Lots of threads and discussions on this subject about the place if you look. Here's a good one to start your reading pleasure with. Click on the little grey arrow at the top right of the embedded post below and it will whisk you off to its thread:

On 1/27/2019 at 2:08 PM, valiantman said:

http://valiantman.com/images/direct_newsstand.png

 

Well, based upon this graph above, would this suggest that Direct editions should then be rarer for books published prior to the 80's and therefore in theory, should be worth more than their Newsstand counterpart?  

It's a little weird in those first few years of direct edition... the graph is a rough estimate of copies printed 1977ish to 1999ish, but the direct editions were not returnable and survived long after the newsstand unsold books were returned/pulped/destroyed. 

Unless a book was sold out at the comic shop (direct editions), it's unlikely that many additional copies of the newsstand counterparts were bought up and protected by "serious" collectors.  Looking back 20 to 40+ years, the high grade newsstands either represent those rare "non-collectors" who were able to find and keep newsstand in high grade or they are the result of direct editions selling out so the direct edition people (collectors/retailers) bought up the newsstand copies and protected them as if they were direct editions.

A weird situation could have happened if the market was printed around 80% newsstand and 20% direct edition in the early days, if the survival rates were the opposite (that is, if 80% of direct editions survived, but only 20% of newsstands survived), meaning the books could be 50%-50% today even if they started 80%-20%. 

Edited June 12, 2020 by valiantman

[seanfingh]

On 5/11/2020 at 10:38 AM, shadroch said:

At that point in the hobby, almost everyone over-ordered because what you couldn't sell this month for cover would sell next month for a premium.

The only books I can think of that fit what you are describing would be Thor 337, Secret Wars 1 and 8, and ASM 252-254.  The black suited Spidey was a much bigger success than anyone anticipated and stores had already placed ordered for 253 and 254 before 252 came out.

As far as Wolverine 1 goes, I think a lot of shops realized this would be a long term  seller so they ordered many more copies than they thought they could sell in a month.

There was nothing like Previews for retailers to look thru and decide how it would sell. We got a two or three page order sheet that often didn't even list writers or artists on many books.

 

The Death in the Family Batmans are what I think of most for that phenomenon. I went down to a newsstand distributor in downtown Indianapolis to get 429s because I was so ticked about getting shut out of 428.