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

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/2/2021 at 4:46 PM, baggsey said:

There were a number of disruptions in the 1970s due to UK Dock Strikes, and T&P's own decision to suspend imports for a few months due to a backlog in the mid 1970s, but when service resumed the supply chain was the same.

Tell us more about that decision by T&P to suspend imports please Baggsey

On 10/3/2021 at 11:15 AM, yrag9591 said:

Apologies if this has been mentioned and/or disproved before, but is the idea that Batman 179 and 180 are rare in the UK because of a dock strike a fact or a theory?

None of the other DC titles for those months are rare, as far as I know. My assumption is that Batman 179 and 180 are rare because they are the issues on sale in the US when the TV series started, so they sold very well, leaving few returns. By the time of issue 181, DC had increased its print run to cope with the massive demand.

Any ideas?

I remember knowing that 179 and 180 were rare quite early on in my collecting, and my delight at finding a 180 in a Blackpool newsagents when we were in holiday!

I don't know specifically what happened during a short dock strike back in the day, but thinking practically, what would happen to the books that would have travelled if not for the strike? Presumably they were still returned by the US outlets as unsold, and there would have been a contract in place for T&P to take them. Wouldn't they just sit there at the docks and then go on the first available post strike boat? Citing a dock strike as the reason for books not coming to the UK only works if those books were destroyed or recycled in the US. Doesn't it make more sense that they would just come over late, after the strike ended?

What do we think? I like your theory Gary - popular TV show = US sell out = no returns for us. 

[baggsey]

On 10/3/2021 at 5:15 AM, yrag9591 said:

Apologies if this has been mentioned and/or disproved before, but is the idea that Batman 179 and 180 are rare in the UK because of a dock strike a fact or a theory?

I've been going back through early issues of Alan Austin's fanzine Fantasy Unlimited from 1973 and 1974 where the subject of the scarcity of those issues was a topic of discussion across a number of issues. Certainly the dock strike was a fact (it ran from May 16th to 1st July) and no cargo was unloaded during this period by union members. What is unknown is if the cargo was subsequently distributed, or if any of the comics never came off the ship.

As you observe, the Batman TV show premiered here in the US on Jan 12th 1966 and Batman #179 hit the streets on Jan 20th 1966 (according to Mike's Comic Newsstand) so US demand for 179 and 180 would have been massive.  (Batman did not premiere on TV in the UK until July 4th 1966).

I suspect that whatever Batman comics that arrived went to Thorpe & Porter after the strike ended on July 1st, along with all other DCs. There does not seem to be any scarcity of other DCs for that month, so I think it is safe to conclude that the Batman TV show accounts primarily for the scarcity, with the dock strike impacting the delay of arrival.

[baggsey]

On 10/3/2021 at 8:40 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Tell us more about that decision by T&P to suspend imports please Baggsey

Your question has sent me wading through more old copies of Alan Austin's Fantasy Unlimited/Comics Unlimited from that era, as well as my own copies of SuperStuff and notes in my comic checklist book at the time.

Feb 1973

The first T&P hiatus that I came across was the month that Batman 246 (Cover  December 1972, on sale in US Oct 19 1972, due in UK newsagents Feb 22 1973) was due to hit the stands. It was ND in the UK.  I have a memory of having read the reason for the one-month gap, but it eludes me at the moment. I was eventually able to pick up a non-distributed copy of that comic.

Aug-Oct 1975

Comic Media News first reported in #1 (Aug '75) : "As from September this year General Book Distributors (T&P) will cease importing DC comics for an unspecified period. The reason given is that General Books are finding it very difficult to get rid of the issues they have in stock (in there words the mags aren't selling). There is no indication that this will be a permanent arrangement and DC are reviewing the situation. Fan importers will not be affected and Nick Landau is reporting that he is gearing up his operation to deal with the expected increase in demand." 

The next record I found was in Comics Unlimited #31 (October 1975 issue, written in August 1975). Dave Hitchcock of Long Eaton, Nottingham writes “With DCs not being distributed by T&P for 3 months, are you getting stocks of missing issues for collectors….?”

Alan Austin replied “First batch of missing issues are listed in this CU. It’s very doubtful that they would come over later. I have heard that one month’s consignment of DCs were pulped [in the US?], so they definitely shouldn’t be coming over. But with T&P you can never be sure about anything.”

In Comic Unlimited #32 Nov ’75 Martin Lock writes in The Worlds of EMLOCK : “DCs are coming over again."

I'm sure more research could be done on this subject.

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/3/2021 at 10:14 PM, baggsey said:

Your question has sent me wading through more old copies of Alan Austin's Fantasy Unlimited/Comics Unlimited from that era, as well as my own copies of SuperStuff and notes in my comic checklist book at the time.

Feb 1973

The first T&P hiatus that I came across was the month that Batman 246 (Cover  December 1972, on sale in US Oct 19 1972, due in UK newsagents Feb 22 1973) was due to hit the stands. It was ND in the UK.  I have a memory of having read the reason for the one-month gap, but it eludes me at the moment. I was eventually able to pick up a non-distributed copy of that comic.

Aug-Oct 1975

Comic Media News first reported in #1 (Aug '75) : "As from September this year General Book Distributors (T&P) will cease importing DC comics for an unspecified period. The reason given is that General Books are finding it very difficult to get rid of the issues they have in stock (in there words the mags aren't selling). There is no indication that this will be a permanent arrangement and DC are reviewing the situation. Fan importers will not be affected and Nick Landau is reporting that he is gearing up his operation to deal with the expected increase in demand." 

The next record I found was in Comics Unlimited #31 (October 1975 issue, written in August 1975). Dave Hitchcock of Long Eaton, Nottingham writes “With DCs not being distributed by T&P for 3 months, are you getting stocks of missing issues for collectors….?”

Alan Austin replied “First batch of missing issues are listed in this CU. It’s very doubtful that they would come over later. I have heard that one month’s consignment of DCs were pulped [in the US?], so they definitely shouldn’t be coming over. But with T&P you can never be sure about anything.”

In Comic Unlimited #32 Nov ’75 Martin Lock writes in The Worlds of EMLOCK : “DCs are coming over again."

I'm sure more research could be done on this subject.

 

Thanks Bags - the boards are playing up a bit tonight, so more on this tomorrow 

[Malacoda]

On 10/3/2021 at 10:14 PM, baggsey said:

Aug-Oct 1975

Comic Media News first reported in #1 (Aug '75) : "As from September this year General Book Distributors (T&P) will cease importing DC comics for an unspecified period. The reason given is that General Books are finding it very difficult to get rid of the issues they have in stock (in there words the mags aren't selling). There is no indication that this will be a permanent arrangement and DC are reviewing the situation. Fan importers will not be affected and Nick Landau is reporting that he is gearing up his operation to deal with the expected increase in demand." 

The next record I found was in Comics Unlimited #31 (October 1975 issue, written in August 1975). Dave Hitchcock of Long Eaton, Nottingham writes “With DCs not being distributed by T&P for 3 months, are you getting stocks of missing issues for collectors….?”

Alan Austin replied “First batch of missing issues are listed in this CU. It’s very doubtful that they would come over later. I have heard that one month’s consignment of DCs were pulped [in the US?], so they definitely shouldn’t be coming over. But with T&P you can never be sure about anything.”

In Comic Unlimited #32 Nov ’75 Martin Lock writes in The Worlds of EMLOCK : “DCs are coming over again."

I'm sure more research could be done on this subject.

 

I think T&P is carnage by 1975. Having been conglomerated into Warner Communications by Kinney in 1970, T&P is really just an imprint at this point. In 1971 the offices were all shut down and remaining staff moved to London (if any of them actually went).  

Williams Publishing was in theory a subsidiary of T&P, but as Gilberton bought T&P primarily to publish its Classics Illustrated for distribution across Europe, Williams was pretty much the whole show and took over most of what T&P had been doing after 1971.  

In addition to that, T&P was raided for pornography a number of times, the largest raids being in 1972 and 1975.  GBD was specifically created to separate off the imprints so that when they got raided and all the porn got seized, they wouldn’t lose all the comics & other legitimate publications at the same time (not sure how well this worked as the Obscene Publications Squad were notoriously corrupt and routinely carried out raids just so they could sell the porn back to the publishers afterwards). 

It wouldn’t surprise me if some of these non-distribution incidents were caused by the comics being seized and having been superseded by the time they came back or just never coming back at all.  Or just that the company was in total freefall by this point. 

In the 1975 raid, over 200,000 publications were seized. At this point Warners’ decided to cut their losses and sell T&P to Howard Whitman (W. H. Allen & Co) in 1977 , who close it by 1978. I think the name carries on in some form until 1979. 

To back up your Alan Austin quote (“with T&P you can never be sure about anything”) here’s the Panelologist reporting that T&P simply ‘forgot’ to order the September & November 1975 DC’s. This sounds extremely unlikely to me, more likely they were putting out too many other fires, watching Regan & Carter carry everything out of the offices in plastic bags and answering memos from Warner telling them not to buy any green bananas. 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Morning 

I still check for stamped DCs in the first four T&P cycles occasionally and spotted a Blackhawk #143 on eBay the other day - that becomes the earliest stamped issue for that title that I have found:

 

Here is the latest position on the 'firsts' - still no stamped examples for Flippity, Porkchops and Gillis. You never know though:

The first capture page looks like this now:

I never did get around to devising a better presenting format. I am moving closer now to the possibility that Charlton examples precede some of these. A post for another day. And still no '7' stamps in that first round, indicating that it was either missed for some reason or that the 6 stamps that precede it may belong in the next cycle as very late arrivals.

Here is the current DC 'missing list', i.e. those books for which a stamped UK distribution copy could exist:

I took it to the fair with me last Sunday, but had no joy ticking any off. The romance titles seem especially reluctant to show themselves, as you would expect, if they do in fact exist. You'll see that I've added a column for the issue range and will complete that at some point. If anyone has an unconfirmed stamped copy in their collection, please dive in with a picture.

[Malacoda]

On 10/5/2021 at 11:59 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Morning 

I still check for stamped DCs in the first four T&P cycles occasionally and spotted a Blackhawk #143 on eBay the other day - that becomes the earliest stamped issue for that title that I have found:

 

Here is the latest position on the 'firsts' - still no stamped examples for Flippity, Porkchops and Gillis. You never know though:

The first capture page looks like this now:

I never did get around to devising a better presenting format. I am moving closer now to the possibility that Charlton examples precede some of these. A post for another day. And still no '7' stamps in that first round, indicating that it was either missed for some reason or that the 6 stamps that precede it may belong in the next cycle as very late arrivals.

Here is the current DC 'missing list', i.e. those books for which a stamped UK distribution copy could exist:

I took it to the fair with me last Sunday, but had no joy ticking any off. The romance titles seem especially reluctant to show themselves, as you would expect, if they do in fact exist. You'll see that I've added a column for the issue range and will complete that at some point. If anyone has an unconfirmed stamped copy in their collection, please dive in with a picture.

This is superb work and practically the definition of a thankless task, so....thank you.  

I can't remember if the dearth of first round 7's only applies to DC? 

On the subject of collecting samples, I've carried on looking for the cover stamped Marvels from April 1969 to June 71.  So far, the only title for which I have 100% crossover of both CS and PV's is Thor, but there are now only  9.9% of the total Marvel publications for which I have PV only, so I would say it's pretty definite that it was not sporadic or leftovers: there were probably both cover stamps and PV's for every issue that was distributed. 

 

CS + PV	215
CS only	168
ND	48
PV only	56

Edited October 5, 2021 by Malacoda

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/5/2021 at 4:36 PM, Malacoda said:

This is superb work and practically the definition of a thankless task, so....thank you.  

It was something to do Rich.

On 10/5/2021 at 4:36 PM, Malacoda said:

I can't remember if the dearth of first round 7's only applies to DC? 

Nor can I. That's on another version, which has filled up somewhat and which I'll share as part of the Charlton stuff to come. Charlton is the guvnor, you'll find. 

On 10/5/2021 at 4:36 PM, Malacoda said:

On the subject of collecting samples, I've carried on looking for the cover stamped Marvels from April 1969 to June 71.  So far, the only title for which I have 100% crossover of both CS and PV's is Thor, but there are now only 11.5% of the total Marvel publications for which I have PV only, so I would say it's pretty definite that it was not sporadic or leftovers: there were probably both cover stamps and PV's for every issue that was distributed. 

CS + PV	215
CS only	168
ND	48
PV only	56

Another thankless task, well done Rich. Can you bring that last set of numbers to life for me - I must have my stoopid head on, as I'm looking at it and nothing is making itself known to me... 

(I'm going for a walk, be back later)

[Malacoda]

On 10/5/2021 at 4:40 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

. Can you bring that last set of numbers to life for me -

Sure thing.  

So, between April 1969 and June 1971 Marvel published 487 comics (excluding romance and probably some comedy titles I’m not tracking). 

Of these, 48 were non-distributed by T&P.  This is interesting in itself as T&P had previously distributed everything (barring the odd random missing issue here and there).  Bear in mind that you’ve not only got the Marvel explosion of 68, but also 6 months into this period, Marvel shrug off IND (T&P’s parent company) in the States and start distributing in the US via Curtis. It’s therefore not a huge surprise that T&P’s relationship to Marvel changes at this point. 

Of the 439 that were distributed,  168 were CS only (Two Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, Captain America, Sgt Fury, Marvel Tales,  CIC/Greatest Comics, FM/MSH, Captain Savage, Nick Fury, the Surfer (to #9) & Mighty Marvel Western). 

Of the rest, I have so far found 215 which have both CS and PV and there are 56 left for which I have so far only found PV’s, no CS’s.  (Thanks to Gary for his list on this).  The ones that have yet to turn up are just odd missing issues here and there, no patterns or missing runs, so I see no reason to imagine they won't turn up eventually (although X men is a looking a bit weird).  

Thor is the only title for which I’ve got a confirmed CS & PV for every issue, but some of the others are pretty close now ( Hulk has 3 missing out of 28). 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/5/2021 at 5:21 PM, Malacoda said:

Sure thing.  

So, between April 1969 and June 1971 Marvel published 487 comics (excluding romance and probably some comedy titles I’m not tracking). 

Of these, 48 were non-distributed by T&P.  This is interesting in itself as T&P had previously distributed everything (barring the odd random missing issue here and there).  Bear in mind that you’ve not only got the Marvel explosion of 68, but also 6 months into this period, Marvel shrug off IND (T&P’s parent company) in the States and start distributing in the US via Curtis. It’s therefore not a huge surprise that T&P’s relationship to Marvel changes at this point. 

Of the 439 that were distributed,  168 were CS only (Two Gun Kid, Rawhide Kid, Captain America, Sgt Fury, Marvel Tales,  CIC/Greatest Comics, FM/MSH, Captain Savage, Nick Fury, the Surfer (to #9) & Mighty Marvel Western). 

Of the rest, I have so far found 215 which have both CS and PV and there are 56 left for which I have so far only found PV’s, no CS’s.  (Thanks to Gary for his list on this).  The ones that have yet to turn up are just odd missing issues here and there, no patterns or missing runs, so I see no reason to imagine they won't turn up eventually (although X men is a looking a bit weird).  

Thor is the only title for which I’ve got a confirmed CS & PV for every issue, but some of the others are pretty close now ( Hulk has 3 missing out of 28). 

 

Cheers Rich. Post that updated missing list if you can. The more eyes, the merrier and I do like a challenge. 

[Get Marwood & I]

I just spotted a 6 stamped Action #258 on the bay - the previous copy I had saved was an 8 stamp:

 

If I plot it in the first cycle 6 slot we get this:

Without going over it all again, I can see how those 6's actually belong in that first cycle, now that it is filling up. Otherwise, someone in the US sat on an Action #258 and 259 for an awfully long time before sending them back for onward UK distribution, didn't they.

And if I added them to the second cycle's 6 lot, they would virtually double that 'months' compliment and stand out like a sore thumb, date-wise:

How likely is that? 

[Get Marwood & I]

Stamped just to make sure.... 

 

[Malacoda]

On 10/5/2021 at 7:49 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Stamped just to make sure.... 

 

In fairness to Ethel, that month was the start of the first hiatus, when some of the comics were PV's but most were not, so she probably just had a massive stack of comics most of which did need stamping.   She also got caught out in 65 when the PV's came back. 

 

 

 

[Malacoda]

On 10/5/2021 at 6:13 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Cheers Rich. Post that updated missing list if you can. The more eyes, the merrier and I do like a challenge. 

OK, so these are Marvels cover dated from April 69 to June 71 for which we (the Royal We) believe that there are BOTH cents copies imported to the UK with T&P cover stamps AS WELL AS UK printed pence variants.  The UKPV's are bountiful, what we're trying to track down are the cover stamps.  As I said, the scatter of ones I haven't found yet makes me think they're probably all out there.  The oddball is Xmen where odd numbers have CS and PV and the even numbers have PV only.  I think that's a quirk of fate, and they will turn up, but if there was any experimentation or makeweighting going on, X men would be my bet, particularly as it was on the brink of cancellation at this point. 

If anyone can find a T&P cover stamp copy of any of these, I will get very excited: 

Hulk 116, 137,138
FF 91, 102, 109
ASM 76, 79, 88, 94, 95
Avengers 65, 69, 70, 72, 86
DD 54, 58, 59, 62, 69
Iron Man 15, 21, 22 
Captain Marvel 13, 14, 21 
Subby 17, 20, 23, 32 
Surfer 15, 16, 17 
Chamber of Darkness 6, 7,  8 
Monsters on the Prowl  9, 10, 11 
Where Monsters Dwell 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 
Amazing Adventures 3
Astonishing Tales 2, 3, 4 
Xmen 56 58 60 62 64 

There’s also Sgt Fury 86 for which I’ve only ever seen stickered copies. 
Many thanks, everyone. 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/6/2021 at 12:05 AM, Malacoda said:

If anyone can find a T&P cover stamp copy of any of these, I will get very excited: 

Looking for these again this morning reminded me of the years I spent looking for the UKPVs. The same searches, the same results, the same patterns in lots, over and over again. Some of these books are very numerous and you have to wonder after repeated searches whether they will turn up. The Spideys for example, five issues with multiples available all over in the UK. It's a high profile, well collected title. If you can't find a stamped copy on eBay, Comicana, Google, eBid, When Titans Clash, Compal, a host of auction sites (that retain sales images) and at well stocked fairs (I looked again for some of them last Sunday) then what are you to conclude?

That said, I drew a similar conclusion on a handful of early UKPVs and they finally turned up after years of relentless looking. I remember swearing at the screen when someone posted one of them a few years back, half in delight, half in anger that the damn thing had eluded me for so long. So never say never has been one of my mottos. The longer that never goes on for though....

 

(cue someone posts one of them)

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/6/2021 at 12:05 AM, Malacoda said:

Iron Man 15, 21, 22 

A proliferation of other manually applied UK prices does make you wonder though, doesn't it.... 

  

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 10/2/2021 at 4:46 PM, baggsey said:

As I said in the post, I think that the comics that came to the UK were undistributed copies held by the wholesalers, not returns from newsstands or drugstores.

There are many examples of T & P stamped comics with US arrival dates on the cover, clearly an indication that some, at least., had been through the retail system Stateside.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 10/1/2021 at 12:59 PM, Malacoda said:

I wish I knew what the difference between the Publishers' Statements of Ownership figures for Total copies versus total distribution were, because they seem to indicate that there were hundreds of thousands of comics printed every month which were never distributed and were not returns. 
What happened to them?

I believe the Statement of Ownership circulation figures to be a red herring for our purposes.

The authorities would not have been interested in how many copies were left over. Would they really have sent someone around to check that the 'spoiled after printing' tally was correct?

The only reason the Statement of Ownership details were published was that there was an almost century old regulation (1879, I seem to remember) insisting on it.

Notice that in those years that the circulation figures were not mandated, they were not provided.

Uncle Sam's IRS would want to know, not about the production figures, but about the dollars and cents flowing into and out of the publishing companies.

Of course, if the figures have a degree of inaccuracy, that would be likely to be roughly of the same order across each company, but I think we should be prepared to view them as a rough guide only. They tell us which were the more and less successful titles in each publishing house, but not, among other things, what happened to the vast amounts of unsold stock.

 

 

[Malacoda]

On 10/6/2021 at 9:15 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Looking for these again this morning reminded me of the years I spent looking for the UKPVs. The same searches, the same results, the same patterns in lots, over and over again. Some of these books are very numerous and you have to wonder after repeated searches whether they will turn up. The Spideys for example, five issues with multiples available all over in the UK. It's a high profile, well collected title. If you can't find a stamped copy on eBay, Comicana, Google, eBid, When Titans Clash, Compal, a host of auction sites (that retain sales images) and at well stocked fairs (I looked again for some of them last Sunday) then what are you to conclude?

That said, I drew a similar conclusion on a handful of early UKPVs and they finally turned up after years of relentless looking. I remember swearing at the screen when someone posted one of them a few years back, half in delight, half in anger that the damn thing had eluded me for so long. So never say never has been one of my mottos. The longer that never goes on for though....

 

(cue someone posts one of them)

I’m not sure that nailing these stragglers changes the picture any. The fact that we were able to get to a 90/10 ratio almost straight away (remember I captured 84% of them in the first sweep) indicates to me that there was a whole separate block of cents copies shipped to be stamped for every issue or virtually every issue. It certainly was not a case of ‘oh, there’s a few leftovers this month, chuck ‘em in the UK crate’. 
Whatever this system / volume, it was clearly far less than the UKPV’s (though I think I saw a few where there were more stamps around than PV’s but it was a very few).  I would also venture that the volumes were inconsistent.  This might just be a trick of fate, but there are some titles where there are no end of CS’s for a particular issue and just one or two of another.  Retention by collectors (or lack thereof) cannot explain that. 
That said, it makes perfect sense.  The PV’s had to be a fixed, pre-ordered run which could go nowhere but the UK.  The CS cents issues, whatever the reason for them is, were clearly more flexible in quantity and therefore it’s not a surprise that the volume was flexed. 
 

[Malacoda]

On 10/6/2021 at 12:25 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

There are many examples of T & P stamped comics with US arrival dates on the cover, clearly an indication that some, at least., had been through the retail system Stateside.

Marwood's point about the same DC comics coming over in different batches in different months and acquiring different T&P stamp numbers might indicate both things are true. If it were both it would explain why anecdotally people remember DC comics arriving out of sequence sometimes/places and in sequence others.