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

[Malacoda]

On 1/3/2022 at 11:13 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

The down side of getting in a time machine is that upon arriving at your destination, especially if it is before your birth, you will find that the atoms and molecules that currently make up your body are scattered right across Earth (some maybe yet to arrive on our planet), so you would be a disembodied wraith, a severe handicap if you would like to pick up a book and read it. Of course, returning to your point of origin in time would be out of the question, so make sure that you settle your financial affairs before pressing the start button. Additionally, the seller of the book would be unlikely to accept whatever form of electronic transfer of funds you propose, having never heard of such wizardry, so you would need a pocketful of those old metallic discs which served that purpose back in the day.

Well, indeed you'd need to take some change back with you, but I don't see that as a significant obstacle. The coins would also overcome your strong force / electromagnetic issue, as long as they were minted before the year you go back to (a 1959 shilling would still be a shilling in 1961, it's atomic nuclei wouldn't break down....the coin would however exist in 2 places in the same time so there might be some impact on inflation.... which wouldn't please Mr. Macmillan). 

Here for instance is chap selling 80 shillings for £11.99.  This is enough to buy 106 pristine copies of Hulk #1, FF#1 and similar (you couldn't flood the market obviously).  This would be about £24 million in profits, though obviously, there is the cost of building the time machine.  And the £11.99. Plus postage.

The question of disembodied atoms is of course the crux of the matter. 

Surely, if your molecules went back in time to where they were in 1961, you wouldn't even be a disembodied wraith? You'd be part of everything from George Harrison's E string to a jam sandwich to the Venera space ship to a shovelful of horse manure. However, thanks to atomic superposition, it is possible for atomic particles to be in 2 places at once, so it's actually possible for the relevant atoms to be vibrating under George's fingertips as he plays Buzz Buzz A Diddle It and in my own fingertips as I tremulously pluck my Hulk #1 from the T&P spinner. 

As for coming back, well, I always assumed I would have to take the mode of transport with me. Assuming its particles don't return to their 1961 locations, I would just jump back into my sports car / phone box / ship-in-which-I-fly-round-the-sun-really-fast and pop Back To The Future (...you can hear the music too, right?). 

Obviously, this will require a bit more planning before I set off.  One mistake and I might out turn out to be Blackbeard. 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Malacoda

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/3/2022 at 4:03 PM, Malacoda said:

there is the cost of building the time machine.

The time machine would pay for itself. All you have to do is wait for someone to invent it, hop on board one as soon as it hits the market, travel back to the day before the inventor registered his patent and claim it as all your own work.

Retaliation in kind would surely follow, and the two of you would end up rolling in the gutter swapping punches just before the patent office opened its doors for the first time. Make sure you have a suitable blunt instrument to hand.

[Malacoda]

On 12/6/2021 at 12:06 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Another 'first 6' in the pot...

....or second 6 of course, if you believe they were all latecomers...

 

Another nice crisp 6 - 2 years later but still predates Marvel. I like Robin's surprise that, having fired a harpoon at this beast, it's now coming towards him. 

 

 

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/8/2022 at 2:38 AM, Malacoda said:

 

Another nice crisp 6 - 2 years later but still predates Marvel. I like Robin's surprise that, having fired a harpoon at this beast, it's now coming towards him. 

 

 

 

Wish I had a quid for every cover where Batman, Robin or Superman exclaim Great Scott!

[themagicrobot]

Or indeed any passer-by who is not only familiar with the Dynamic Duo and ancient warriors but also recognises a time-space warp when he sees one.

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

 

[Malacoda]

On 1/12/2022 at 7:52 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

 

That's from 1959, so that's virtually day one of the imports. That makes it a lot clearer why it has that 'no duty' stamp because up to that point, there would have been heinous duty payable on it.  What's more interesting is the price of 10d.  That would not be the UK price of a DC comic for another 5 years, so this appears to have a stamp from 1959 and 1964 simultaneously.  Maybe they were experimenting with prices? I assume it's not possible the mystery comic is a Miller?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/13/2022 at 4:30 PM, Malacoda said:

That's from 1959, so that's virtually day one of the imports. That makes it a lot clearer why it has that 'no duty' stamp because up to that point, there would have been heinous duty payable on it.  What's more interesting is the price of 10d.  That would not be the UK price of a DC comic for another 5 years, so this appears to have a stamp from 1959 and 1964 simultaneously.  Maybe they were experimenting with prices? I assume it's not possible the mystery comic is a Miller?

Flash! A-ha! He was stamped with a funny stamp!

#109 is the earliest known T&P stamped Flash....

...making that 10d stamp all the more interesting.

Definitely not a Miller. Wrong everything, trust me.

And, of course, no telling when that stamp was applied.

Fun though, innit. On the bay as we spake, the grotty little thing is. 

 

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On the subject of earliest T&P stamps, I'm always on the lookout for those never seen ever 'make-weight' copies that Duncan McCoffee mentions in his early distribution musings. One is Action #257 so I nearly had a heart attack when I saw this the other day with a 10d price on it:

Then I looked a little closer and....

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/13/2022 at 5:14 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

And, of course, no telling when that stamp was applied.

Is it a Republic of Ireland price stamp?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/13/2022 at 6:23 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Is it a Republic of Ireland price stamp?

Could be Albert. We've seen it a few times, and their stickers are taxing

   

[themagicrobot]

I snagged these cheap just the other day. I am assuming they are Irish and not from some distant part of the British Empire (remember that?)  There must be someone who can confirm.

But just wondering how they got to the Republic of Ireland though. Would they have been imported directly and stamped there? Or would they have come via Leicestershire and been stamped by T& P or stamped closer to home?

Edited January 13, 2022 by themagicrobot

[themagicrobot]

No duty or tax for this one.

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/13/2022 at 7:19 PM, themagicrobot said:

I snagged these cheap just the other day. I am assuming they are Irish and not from some distant part of the British Empire (remember that?)  There must be someone who can confirm.

But just wondering how they got to the Republic of Ireland though. Would they have been imported directly and stamped there? Or would they have come via Leicestershire and been stamped by T& P or stamped closer to home?

Cor, I like them. We must try to find out what these 'lettered' stamps signify if we can, and where they were distributed. I've not seen that 'G' one before - will add it to the example list.

Here, Robot, you're a toy man. Not literally, that would be silly, but have you seen one of these before?:

https://boards.cgccomics.com/topic/501948-hulk-super-spinner-1978-jotastar-has-anyone-ever-seen-one-before/#comment-12142911

 

[themagicrobot]

I think we can safely say these comics were desitined for Ireland as this Doom Patrol is from the same eBay seller.

[themagicrobot]

But I don't know if the comics would have been shipped to Thorpe and Porter first though.  The same seller has a FF20 with an Irish price stamp on a cents issue. Here in the UK we had 9d prices printed on Marvel comics at the time. Did T&P also request cents issues so they could be stamped with the higher price???? Or was some other wholesaler involved????

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 1/13/2022 at 8:41 PM, themagicrobot said:

But I don't know if the comics would have been shipped to Thorpe and Porter first though.  The same seller has a FF20 with an Irish price stamp on a cents issue. Here in the UK we had 9d prices printed on Marvel comics at the time. Did T&P also request cents issues so they could be stamped with the higher price???? Or was some other wholesaler involved????

 

Rich is your man on this one, Robot @Malacoda - he's done the UKPV vs stamped cents copies at the same time analysis....

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/13/2022 at 7:31 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I've not seen that 'G' one before

Maybe the letters are sequential, like the numbers on the British T & Ps.

They have a vague similarity to the T&P stamps, wonder if there was any financial connection between the Irish and UK distributors. The most efficient way of supplying the Republic market may have been through an Ulster wholesaler supplied by T & P.

Can we find out the earliest of these stamps? I don't suppose they pre-date October 1959, at least not on the comics, but you never know.

Remember that the numbers on the British T & Ps began before the comics arrived in early 1960, having been previously used on various magazines. Maybe something similar was the situation across the Irish Sea.

Or possibly the extra 1d the Irish customers had to fork out was a result of the Irish distributor receiving their supply direct from T & P and having to meet extra shipping costs.

All idle speculation, but we have to start somewhere.

In the 1960s, the Irish Pound was held at parity with Sterling, the exchange rates diverged in 1979 when Dublin joined the European Monetary System.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/13/2022 at 7:19 PM, themagicrobot said:

some distant part of the British Empire

Like maybe Bognor, fondly remembered by George V in his final moments.

[Malacoda]

On 1/13/2022 at 8:50 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Rich is your man on this one, Robot @Malacoda - he's done the UKPV vs stamped cents copies at the same time analysis....

There's a really interesting question here which I haven't quite formulated.  Transworld had the contract for all the exported Marvels.  However, this, to my understanding means the Marvel content exported to other countries for re-packaging & reprinting including, in most cases, translating. This puts the UK (and maybe Ireland)  in a different place to other non-US countries.   Transworld's relationship with Marvel predates Marvel itself (back to the Timely days) and tries to subsume Marvel in the 70's when Al Landau (whose family owned Transworld) became President of Marvel and the tail started wagging the dog.  Transworld originally distributed magazine content to south & central America in the 50’s.  This is where Transworld’s connection to Martin Goodman starts (through Magazine Management rather than Timely/Marvel).  Al Landau then expanded this into comics when he joined the family biz in the late 50’s.

Fred Thorpe’s direct relationship with Timely & DC predates Transworld’s involvement, so I suspect the Landaus never had their hands on the relationship with T&P (though it would have been right up their alley....reprints!) and then the ban lifted in 1959 and T&P stopped re-printing and just imported the originals. No reprints, no Transworld.

This means Transworld would have had the gig for Marvel in France, Germany, Italy, Spain etc, where the comics had to be re-packaged. They also cunningly acquired the reprint gig for the UK (1972 onwards) while Marvel US continued to export the originals directly to T&P/World. But where does that leave Ireland? Well, the other English speaking countries ( ex-colonies like South Africa, Australia & NZ) got re-print content through Transworld. This was actually handled through Ray Wergan’s London branch of Transworld, not Transworld Features Syndicate in NY.  ( I say branch, but Landau sold it to him, so more of a sister company).

Ireland, on the other hand, is our immediate neighbour and English speaking (if not by choice) with easy trade links to the UK, so it’s very plausible that they would have also exported the originals to Ireland rather than set up reprints.  But here’s how I suspect it would have been done:  from 1959 T&P was actually owned by Gilberton’s.  Gilberton were the publishers of Classics Illustrated which was (I believe) T&P’s biggest seller in the 50’s (and, thanks to its reprinting of Bible stories, the part of the business least likely to get seized).

Gilberton’s distributed all over the world via deals with local (national) distributors whom they liked to buy out:  Ayers & James (Aus.), T&P (UK), Editora Brasil-América Limitada (Brazil), Ekdóseis Pechlivanídi (Greece), Editora de Periódicos La Prensa (Mexico),  Serieforlaget (Norway), Illustrerede Klassikere (Denmark), Classics (Netherlands), Illustrerade Klassiker (Sweden), Illustrierte Klassiker (Germany).  You will note that Ireland is absent from the list, which makes me think they didn’t actually own a subsidiary there, but they definitely sold there and even had a crack (craic?) at an Irish language translation of Classics Illustrated.   

This ownership of national distributors is the reason that when T&P gets folded into Warner Communications, it more or less disappears: because all the European offices that had been part of Gilberton’s became part of Williams, including T&P.

So…..I don’t know the name of it, but I would guess that Gilberton’s had either a subsidiary or a very-dominant-supplier relationship with a distributor in Ireland, and I would imagine that this is your distributor of US comics in Ireland. Whether the comics came to T&P and were re-stamped and distributed or whether it was done through Gilberton’s is to some extent a moot point as T&P was part of Gilberton’s anyway. Though it would still be interesting to know the logistics. 

This, of course, may all be total cobblers and there may have been a direct deal with an Irish distributor, but Ireland had massive protectionist trade barriers with the rest of the world up to 1958. Thereafter most of the trade was still with the UK (they abandoned their bid for EU membership when we didn't get in because there was no point), so it would make a lot of sense for the comics to come from Leicester. Would also explain why it specifies no duty – because although it was American it was actually imported from the UK. 

That stamp is very T&P like, isn’t it?

One thing that would surely be a big clue is if we can find a Marvel comic with this stamp during the period when Marvels had T&P indicas. That would be a smoking gun, either way.

When I said I hadn’t formulated the question, I wasn’t kidding.

Incidentally, unrelated, but I’m sure you’ve noted the timing of the T&P sale. The fact that Fred sold to a massive US publishing house right at the point when he needed deeper pockets and a much stronger relationship with a US counterpart is not a coincidence.