The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982) 15 15

[Malacoda]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:30 PM, Malacoda said:

Good call.  I could do with the board to myself so I can post a few in a row.  It will take a couple of hours to do this.  

Nighty night 

OK, it took a bit longer than I thought....and my pillow is looking particularly seductive now,,,,,but it will be worth waiting for.  See you tomorrow. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/19/2022 at 3:45 AM, Malacoda said:

OK, it took a bit longer than I thought....and my pillow is looking particularly seductive now,,,,,but it will be worth waiting for.  See you tomorrow. 

I shall nay post until thy have finished 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/18/2022 at 9:41 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

On 1/18/2022 at 9:26 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

And Albert owns everything that does....

If only!

Sorry, that's Kev isn't it  @Kevin.J

[Malacoda]

OK, could I please request that no one post on this thread for the next 15 minutes or so.  I have 10 posts to do and it will be a lot better if they're consecutive. 

Many thanks

[Malacoda]

The 1964 Marvel Hiatus.

Part One: Prologue. 

I’m a fan of Karl Popper. In The Logic of Scientific Discovery, he argues several things of interest to us.  One is that a theory can never actually be proven, but it can be falsified. Another is that in order to be considered scientific, a theory should be predictive i.e. you should be able to make accurate predictions of events based on it.

We’re going to come back to this 2^nd point twice in the torture session that follows.

[Malacoda]

Part Two: The informed Wisdom

1)    There were dock strikes in 1964 which purportedly impacted the delivery of some comics.  
2)    At this point, both Marvel and DC increased the price of their UK comics by one penny. 
3)    Marvel then went on a 10 month PPV hiatus when everything was stamped, initially at 9d then at 10d. No one knows why. 

This raises 8 questions (well, maybe you have more. I have 8).  

1)    There were dock strikes of one size or another practically every year from 1945 to 1972, so what was so special about 1964? The 1964 strikes seem to have left absolutely no imprint on the news cycle still visible today. Other strikes seem to generate far more coverage. So were they really the cause?
2)    If this was just a planned price increase, why didn’t T&P just ask Marvel to start printing 10d on the comics?
3)    There was no actual interruption to printed supply – maybe the dock strikes, but that didn’t affect what was being printed in Connecticut, so T&P actively wanted to receive cents copies so they could have the flexibility to reprice them themselves. Why?
4)    Marvel and DC both changed prices at the same time, so clearly this was not the result of being caught ‘on the hop’ or one following the other.  They changed in lockstep in response to something together, at the same time and by same amount. So what was it?
5)    Despite this, it seems to have caused chaos in both companies.  How is it possible that they knew something was coming but still got caught out by it? 
6)    Having asked Marvel to stop producing 9d pence variants, T&P then stamped the first 7 cents issues distributed with a 9d stamp anyway.  So why didn’t they just get them as 9d PV’s (which they would have been anyway if T&P hadn’t spiked them)? 
7)    3 of the October issues were virtually not imported at all. What happened to them? And why these ones?
8)    Having gone over to stamping, why did it take 11 months to get the PV’s back up & running?

If you feel that’s not the full set of questions, please read on before posting.

Get yourselves a cup of tea and several biscuits, Gentlemen.  This is a 3 pipe problem. 
 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

Part Three:  The Dock Strikes.  

I was going to get into this in some detail, but as people seem to already believe the dock strike had nothing to do with it, let’s just get on with what did…… 
 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

Part Four:  Where do we get the idea that the dock strikes caused it anyway? 

Partly, as Albert said, post hoc ergo propter hoc – ‘there was a dock strike, there were no comics, therefore obviously it was the dock strike’.  I also suspect that this has been ‘remembered’ as the cause by a lot of industry professionals, not least Duncan McAlpine. 
Sgt Fury #11, Avengers #9 and DD#4 (hereafter referred to as the Missing Three) are all incredibly rare in the UK.  This, according to Duncan McAlpine in the case of the second 2, is because of the dock strikes. 

“There was a series of dock strikes in the summer of 1964 which led to the worst distribution period for UK Silver Age Marvel comics. It seems some ships weren't able to unload as much cargo as others and bundles of Marvel comics were among those. Some ships were forced to go straight on to other global destinations such as South Africa and Australia.” 
He goes on to say:
“Cover-dated October 1964, there were extremely limited supplies of Avengers #9 and Journey into Mystery #109. These two are the only two Silver Age UK Marvels with a designation of Very Rare in the UK. Daredevil #4 had very limited distribution and is the only one from this month designated Rare in the UK. X-Men #6 is noticeably Scarce in the UK.”

Xmen #6 is actually cover dated July, so let’s eliminate that immediately. 

Journey into Mystery #109  - my experience is that this is nowhere near as rare as Avengers #9 or DD#4.  It was a PV and you can always find a copy on eBay. I think the reason it’s rare is that it’s the 1st appearance of Magneto outside Xmen, and therefore collected by collectors and speculators alike and very expensive and therefore sought after, but not as rare the other two. 

What would Karl Popper do?  Make a prediction. 

If I’m right, two things will happen:  (1) #109 will be super expensive in the US as well – which has nothing to do with UK distribution and everything to do with Magneto and (2) the ratio between the value of #108, #109 and #110 will be same in the UK as it is in the US.  Again, if UK distribution is the thing causing the UK scarcity, then #109 will be somewhat more expensive vs #108 and #110 in the States, and bonkers more expensive in the UK.  If they turn out the same, or the UK has less of a premium on #109, it will be demonstrable that UK distribution scarcity is not a factor in its value.  

And that’s what we find.  

According to Duncan, #109 is far scarcer than #108 and scarcer than #110 (rare itself, part of the hiatus), but in the US, #109 commands a premium of 70%-85% over #108, whereas in the UK, it’s only 34% - 67%, and in the US  #109 commands a premium of 77% - 92% over #110, whereas in the UK it’s only 34% -48%.  
Of course, this doesn’t definitively prove anything, but if #109 is so super chuffing rare (1) why is that not reflected in the UK prices vs #108 and #110?  and (2) why is it not reflected in the prices compared to the US differentials?
On this basis, I would remove Xmen #6 and JIM #109 from the question, and focus on DD#4 and Avengers #9.  Please note that although Duncan says DD#4 is less rare than the others, on his listing for DD#4 he says:  
“You just try and find a UK pence copy [by which he means a stamp] of Daredevil #4 - impossible!”
So he actually acknowledges it’s rare as rocking horse droppings. 
Another question is, why does he have nothing to say about Sgt Fury #11, which is, IMO, much rarer as a stamp than JIM #109 as a PV?   I have literally never found one of these, the one I have was sent to me by you, Steve, and you’ve spent years amassing these.  I reckon you’d find 10 or 20 JIM #109’s before you found a stamp of SF #11. 

Conclusion:  As Duncan flat out states that the strike was the cause of the rarity, he is clearly at least one factor in the ubiquity of that idea.  He is right about the rarity of DD#4 and Avengers #9, but I would pair these with SF #11 not JIM #109.  (Note: he does not include Sgt. Fury #11 as one of these because he has it down as a UKPV - that I would be very interested to see). 

So leaving Duncan behind, where are we? The 3 super rarities for October 1964 are Avengers #9, DD#4 and Sgt Fury #11.  They are also, by an extraordinary coincidence, the comics which were stamped at 9d.  All the others are either PV’s at 9d or stamps at 10d. 

All the others you say, Rich, I don’t think that’s right!

No. Indeed. Let’s have a look. 
 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

Part Five:  What actually happened to the prices in the 1964 hiatus?

OK, let’s have a look at the old scoreboard (give us a twirl, Marwood):

 

 

But, Rich, I hear you cry, that’s total chaos.  There’s PV’s after the stamping starts. There’s 9d’s after the 10d’s start. Whatever can it mean?

Well, obviously, I don’t hear you cry because you know exactly what’s coming next, but let’s at pretend there’s a journey of discovery going on here.  Let’s add the release dates, that’s what you’re waiting for, isn’t it?

 

 

And, what do we find? Well, our old friend DD#4 is, as usual not playing well with others, but I don’t see that as the big revelation. Let’s keep in mind that release dates are not the same thing as print dates. 

Kid Colt is clearly also a maverick. Kid Colt might well have been printed in the first week of August, but his dispatch date was always the 2nd week of the month (between the 8th and the 12th) not the first week, so if they had done the print run of Kid Colt in the first week of August for dispatch on the 11th, this is exactly what you’d expect to see.  Also keep in mind that Kid Colt was a bi monthly, low selling title, so could easily have been knocked off a bit early in the schedule.

Just to really belabour the point, in case anyone is still awake, during the ‘66 hiatus, Kid Colt misses one issue in the hiatus, but the 2 issues either side are stamps in a run of PV’s.  No other title does that. Whoever called him ‘Kid Colt, Outlaw’ clearly worked in distribution.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you find that plausible or not, remember nothing can be proved, only disproved, so you just have to acknowledge that it’s possible Kid Colt was printed the week before it was distributed, which doesn’t seem a big stretch, right? Say No and we can move on.

 

The interesting thing is:  whether you look at this by cover date or by release date, the price change and the PV vs stamp method both change mid-month.

Now that is odd.  That is a phone call from T&P to Marvel in the first week of August 1964:

T&P: Stop the presses. Something kicking off.  We need to change the prices

Marvel /ECP: OK, no problem, we can just strike another price stamp. What price do you want?

T&P We don’t know yet, we’re not sure. Just stop printing pence variants and send us cents copies until further notice.

Marvel / ECP: OK, you crazy limeys, it’s your dime, or whatever you call it.

So T&P asked Marvel to stop printing 9d PV’s some time in the first week of August 1964.  But, most bafflingly, the first lot of these stamped ones were then stamped with 9d stamps anyway. So what was the point?

Well, note one key date:  the price change does have a hard & fast dateline. Everything before Sept 1^st is 9d whether it’s PV or stamp.  Everything after that release date is 10d, so whatever happened they were getting ready for it in advance.

So what happened?

Edited January 19, 2022 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

Part Five: How come Marvel and DC jumped in the same month by the same amount?

If Marvel had simply followed DC’s market lead, there would have been a 3 month hiatus because the DC increase would not have been visible to Marvel until it hit the stands.  It may be that T&P warned them, but certainly not likely DC did as the Donenfeld’s were still running the show in 1964 and were, at this point, cutting their nose off to spite their face with the distribution deal they gave Marvel.  Though notionally running the show, Jack Donenfeld was incapacitated by 1964, but Irwin had the only key to the sales figures cupboard and was definitely running the show.  DC in this era used their dominance of distribution to crush Marvel, though clearly not as much as Jack & Irwin Donenfeld believed. As late as 1966, Irwin Donenfeld was still under the impression DC were outselling Marvel by 3 to 1, which was clearly not true and hadn’t been for years, so their data was clearly old or bad or both.

 In 1967 when Kinney took over the books (I mean of IND rather than DC) , the first thing they did was unshackle Marvel as they realised they were sitting on a goldmine.  Unfortunately for them, over in Philadelphia, Martin Ackerman was either unintentionally or intentionally failing to save Curtis publications. A sequence of events which was, by a stroke of fate, going to leave him a distribution company with nothing to distribute and a comics empire in dire need of a new distributor. What are the chances?  Anyway, back to 1964.

Based on DC’s demonstrated attitude to Marvel in 1964, let’s assume they weren’t predisposed to have a friendly chat and offer Marvel a profit opportunity.  Maybe T&P were, and maybe T&P were setting the prices, but was there an external factor?

Was it just T&P jacking the price up?

Marvel and DC comics originally cost 10c when they were pegged at 9d in 1959.  They increased US prices to 12c in 1962.  DC in January, and Marvel following the leader in March, presumably as fast as they could.  T&P did not increase the price of the UK copies in step.  I suspect that 9d was as much as the market would bear, it was a very nice margin vs their no-SOR super cheap wholesale price and 9d was a handsome number in the 1960’s – bear in mind that in decimal currency, 9p to 10p is not much of a move in terms of the coins you have to hand over. In pre-decimal currency, it moves in 3’s not in tens ( the coins were a thruppence, a sixpence, a shilling =12d,  a florin = 24d, a half crown = 30d, and a crown = 60d). it all moved in 3’s.  If you ever wondered why you had to learn your times table up to 12 in school rather than 10, that was why.  12 pence in a shilling, 12 inches in a foot, etc.

So 9d was a handsome number and 10d was an ouch.

So were T&P just passing on the 1962  increase?

Whatever the reason, the jump from 9d to 10d did not happen for nearly 3 years after the US price rise, so it was clearly nothing to do with that.  

So why did they do it, both of them, at the same time at that time, and for the same amount? And does the price increase have anything to do with the Marvel PV hiatus and perceived scarcity caused by the dock strike or are these all unrelated coincidences?

This is worse than 6 series of Lost. Shall we have the answer?

[Malacoda]

Part Six.  The Answer.

Let’s make another Popperian prediction.  Let’s hypothesise for a moment that something happened in October 1964 causing T&P to need a price increase  

Let’s predict it will have nothing to do with Marvel or DC

Nothing to do with the US price

And was not driven by T&P.

Let’s imagine there was some kind of government tax or levy to affect Marvel & DC comics sold by T&P at the same time.  

This would have to be a new tax of some sort, which would explain a rise of 1d on all imported comics which took effect on or about October 1964.  But in order to explain why T&P didn’t just get the 1d added to the PV, there must have been something about the tax making them reluctant to commit to 10d PV’s 3 months in advance.  Was there anything like that?

Yup.

The government introduced an import tax of 15% ( which would turn 9d into 10.35d) on October 25^th 1964.  The tax was supposed to be a temporary measure to restore the balance of trade deficit, but ended up in place for 2 years.  This explains why the prices moved, why Marvel & DC changed simultaneously and why Marvel waited 10 months to start getting printed PV’s again: because the tax was supposed to be repealed and then wasn’t.    

But that can’t be right, can it? If there was a tax change coming, they would have known about it months in advance.  Good question. I was wondering who would be the first to spot that.

[Malacoda]

Part Seven:   How is possible that Marvel, DC and T&P knew this change was coming and were still caught out by it?

There was a knife edge election in 1964. The Tories had been in power for 13 years, but MacMillan had become unpopular and the Profumo scandal had rocked the government. It was thought the Tories were unelectable with MacMillan, so he resigned in favour of Alec Douglas Home, but the manner of Home’s unelected accession (smoke filled rooms) was another issue threatening electoral success. On the labour side, Hugh Gaitskell had died suddenly and Wilson was an unknown quantity.  No one knew who was going to win.

The campaigns did not formally start until 25^th September 1964, but the government had gone nearly the full 5 years, so everyone knew an October election had to happen.

In Labour’s manifesto, they announced that the balance of trade would be their top and most immediate priority.  They would prioritise exports and increase duties on imports.  The only imports which would be spared would be those of raw materials for manufacture in the UK.  So in August 1964, it was known that if Labour won, there would be increases in import tax.  The manifesto did not say how much or when, but it was very clear that it was priority, so anybody importing anything into the UK better be ready for a price hike in October.

In the end, it was the tightest election of the century, with the Liberals taking just enough support off the Tories to give Labour a 4 seat majority.   If just 900 voters in 8 seats had changed their votes, it would have been a Tory government.

Labour came in on 15^th October and 10 days later on the 25^th, Wilson announced a ‘temporary’ increase in import tax of 15%. 

This gave all importers a hard time. How temporary was it going to be?  And when was it starting? It is illegal to pass on a government charge before it happens, so this made life for importers with goods in transit very difficult. I don’t know exactly when the act became law (it was debated on December 7^th) but clearly importers moved as fast as possible.

As we noted, there’s a clear line in the sand with the Marvel comics:  everything that had been dispatched after 1^st September was stamped 10d and everything before it was 9d. So how does this date relate to the tax increase?

From August 1964 it was known that there would be an election in October.  

It was known that if Labour won, there would be an increase in import duties. It was known it would happen immediately but not how much.

So why was the Marvel changeover such a mess?

Not knowing the price gave Marvel a different problem to DC. DC’s were stamped by T&P, so could be increased at a moment’s notice.  Marvels were printed and shipped 3 months in advance.

T&P probably left it to the last minute they could, but in the first week of August 1964, something happened which convinced them they couldn’t wait any longer. ( Maybe it was just that they were less than 3 months from the election, but I suspect from the fact that pricing changed mid-month, it was something specific).

How did Kid Colt get printed as a PV, but Avengers, DD & Sgt Fury didn’t?

In the first week of August 1964, T&P asked Marvel / ECP to stop printing PV’s so they could stamp the comics (at this point they didn’t know the new price).   This caused a couple of issues:  the November Kid Colts  for next week  had already been run off and they’d already done most of the October run for everything else, but, as asked, they stopped.  Daredevil #4, Avengers #9 and Fury #11 were caught out. Why did this happen? Well, there was actually no tidy way of doing this.  6 of the October cover dates were printed & distributed in July in the States,  then in the first week of August, 2 of the Octobers and the first 2 Novembers were printed and then in the 2^nd week of August, the last 2 Octobers and the next 5 Novembers were printed. So whenever you stop, it’s a mess.

At whatever point T&P told ECP to stop the presses, there was going to be one cover month that was completely fouled up and several comics left in limbo.  I think the moment they did it was actually the best possible moment, except that DD#4 somehow missed the deadline and Kid Colt had already been done ( ECP’s presses were famously old and not fit for purpose, so I imagine deadlines were intentionally re-organised round print-size vs how fast the printers could go – if you could get all of Kid Colt done,  but only half of Daredevil, you printed Kid Colt).

As logical as that last point is,  I actually suspect that the reason is much more obvious than this.  I think the schedule was still in the same order it had always been.  Two Gun Kid and Kid Colt were the oldest titles so they were first on the schedule.  Sgt Fury, Avengers & DD were the most recent, so they were last on the schedule ( X men was still bi monthly, so no issue that month).  I think it might have been that simple.

These were then dispatched to T&P.  The whole of the October load was sent, however it was missed or misunderstood that this was supposed to include cents batches of Avengers, Sgt Fury and DD.  They may have thought these titles weren’t wanted (because no UKPV’s were produced – remember there were romance comics which had no PV’s and were not exported to the UK), they may have forgotten and already dispatched all the cents copies to the US wholesalers, so some leftovers were chucked in.  Maybe a limited number of these came the following month with the other cents copies.  For whatever reason, the order went out with very, very few of the three October issues that had missed being PV’s.

Harold Wilson announced the increase on the 25^th October. It didn’t become law for some weeks, but clearly there was a date at which imported goods in transit would incur the tax increase.  I suspect this date related to a transaction / shipping / manifest date rather than a cover date (which most goods would not have had).  Either because they had to or because they just chose a date, T&P maintained the old price of 9d on anything (including the missing 3) that had shipped before a certain date, and increased to 10d on everything after that date.  You can see that date reflected in the US release dates as September 1^st.  It probably wasn’t that date, but it correlates to it after shipping time.  

 

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

Part eight: So how did this affect DC?

Let’s do another prediction.  As T&P had the capacity to stamp DC comics they had nothing like the advance timing problem that Marvel had, but they still had the same production & shipping times. So you would expect to see the same messy mix of 9d and 10d across at least one month. 

But I’ll go you one better. Some of the DC comics actually have 9d and 10d variants of the same comic in the same month, which tells you that they came over in different batches (which is exactly what you’d expect if they were returns or remainders, unlike the Marvel PV’s).  You can actually see Ethel pricing the same comic differently on a different day in the same month as the import tax price increase goes in. 

Note the different batch numbers: 3 and 5. 

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

Part Nine: Conclusion.

So does this answer everything?

It explains why the price increase happened

It explains the amount and timing of the increase

It leaves open any impact on distribution the dock strike may have had. There’s nothing to say these issues weren’t also affected by trouble at the docks.

It explains why it happened at Marvel & DC simultaneously

It explains why it caused issues, but different issues, at both Marvel and DC

It explains why T&P knew the increase was going to be needed but weren’t (couldn’t be) ready for it when it happened.

It explains why they didn’t go straight to 10d PV’s and why T&P wanted cents copies to stamp.

It explains why those particular three super rare issues went AWOL.

It explains why it took 11 months to go back to PV’s.

And the key one:  it explains why, having asked Marvel not to produce any 9d pence variants, the next 7 titles produced were then stamped 9d anyway.  

 

[Malacoda]

Part Ten : Epilogue:

One last prediction.

I’ve postulated that the October/November dated comics up to a US release date of September 1^st, were all 9d (either PV or stamped) and that the November dated comics after September 1^st were all 10d stamps, so that’s the cutover point.

I’ve also postulated that the Missing Three got removed from the PV run and cents copies failed to replace them (in any quantity).

What would have happened if there was a comic with a December cover date printed before September 1^st?  That comic would have even more chance of getting lost in the shuffle than the missing three.  But is there any such comic?   

There is one Marvel comic, and one only, that has a US release date of 1-9-64 and cover date of December.  One lone soldier. The last, highest dated comic with that fateful September 1^st issue date. The pinch in the hourglass. And who is this lone soldier who would have been on the last chopper out of Saigon?

Tales To Astonish #62. 

The only non-distributed Marvel (aside from Romance) in the first 7 years of importation.

Coincidence? You decide.  (Cue the Tales of the Very Expected music and Marwood dancing naked across the credits).

 

[Malacoda]

OK, that's it.  Thanks for your patience.  And, if you've actually slogged through all that, really thanks for your patience. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/19/2022 at 9:07 AM, Malacoda said:

OK, that's it.  Thanks for your patience.  And, if you've actually slogged through all that, really thanks for your patience. 

That is absolutely first rate work, Rich. Top draw stuff. I never imagined anyone would ever surpass the detail I have gone into down the years but this is just another level of scrutiny, research and piecing together. Absolutely terrific stuff. I'll let the sediment settle, read it again, and come back with any thoughts.

One early one - the difference between published release dates and actual arrival dates on comics can be illuminating when patterns don't fit. This one backs the published date up though, August 12:

 

And I found the KC#119 reference we were discussing privately:

"10 copies of Marvel Kid Colt Outlaw #119 (UK Edition) - November 1964VF/NM to Fine unread copies as pictured. Crisp, bright and flat copies with minor blemishes in places. Yellow pages. Photos are of the actual books you are bidding on. These books are from a lot of abandoned retail stock that was in storage since it was new."

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

I'm going to say it again, Rich - that's staggeringly good work  

@Malacoda

But never place an image of Marwood dancing starkers in my head again. 

[Malacoda]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:21 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

That is absolutely first rate work, Rich. Top draw stuff. I never imagined anyone would ever surpass the detail I have gone into down the years but this is just another level of scrutiny, research and piecing together. Absolutely terrific stuff. I'll let the sediment settle, read it again, and come back with any thoughts.

One early one - the difference between published release dates and actual arrival dates on comics can be illuminating when patterns don't fit. This one backs the published date up though, August 12:

 

And I found the KC#119 reference we were discussing privately:

"10 copies of Marvel Kid Colt Outlaw #119 (UK Edition) - November 1964VF/NM to Fine unread copies as pictured. Crisp, bright and flat copies with minor blemishes in places. Yellow pages. Photos are of the actual books you are bidding on. These books are from a lot of abandoned retail stock that was in storage since it was new."

 

 

This is absolutely fascinating. There I am saying that someone just forgot to put these missing ones into the order, and you've actually turned up 15 pence copies of Kid Colt 119 that were 'abandoned retail stock' since new and clearly never left the States.  The brilliant thing here is that if they were cents copies of Avengers, Fury & DD that were supposed to get shipped to the UK, you would never be able to tell because they're just like all the other cents copies, but these are actual UKPV's which were clearly part of this order that never made it.  Superb. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:32 AM, Malacoda said:

This is absolutely fascinating. There I am saying that someone just forgot to put these missing ones into the order, and you've actually turned up 15 pence copies of Kid Colt 119 that were 'abandoned retail stock' since new and clearly never left the States.  The brilliant thing here is that if they were cents copies of Avengers, Fury & DD that were supposed to get shipped to the UK, you would never be able to tell because they're just like all the other cents copies, but these are actual UKPV's which were clearly part of this order that never made it.  Superb. 

The seller had gallons of them in multiple listings - he couldn't give them away!