The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982) 16 16

[Malacoda]

On 6/17/2021 at 9:17 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

And my last thought - I think the distribution procedures for DC, Marvel, Charlton etc were different. Charlton, with their inhouse cereal box printing press operation, seemed to manage a seamless distribution of comics into the UK from 1959 to 1964 with sequential issues being stamped, then UKPV'd then stamped again with no gaps at all. Marvel looks all over the place by comparison.

Whoa, there, cowboy.  

Firstly, so did Marvel / T&P.   From 1961 - 1969 it flips back & forth between PV's and CS's and in that whole period there are only TWO issues that are ND (let's leave the 66'ers out of this for the moment....unless you want another ticket for my 3 day seminar on the 66'ers. Lunch provided.). 

Secondly, we're talking about the 69-71 dual pricing era, which I don't think is all over the place. It looks to me like whatever they were doing was pretty consistent,  it's just that we can't figure out what the Hell it was. 

[Get Marwood & I]

2 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

Whoa, there, cowboy.  

Firstly, so did Marvel / T&P.   From 1961 - 1969 it flips back & forth between PV's and CS's and in that whole period there are only TWO issues that are ND (let's leave the 66'ers out of this for the moment....unless you want another ticket for my 3 day seminar on the 66'ers. Lunch provided.). 

Secondly, we're talking about the 69-71 dual pricing era, which I don't think is all over the place. It looks to me like whatever they were doing was pretty consistent,  it's just that we can't figure out what the Hell it was. 

Mebbe.

[Get Marwood & I]

29 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Mebbe.

That was my Lee Van Cleef reply Rich. I'd have added a gif, but I'm on me tablet. Should be on more tablets probably, as it goes 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/17/2021 at 6:48 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I've never seen a satisfactory explanation for overprinting to that scale, have you?

The publishers knew that not all their output would sell, and they must have been aware of the percentage of returns to expect on each title, BUT they had no way of knowing which outlets would need more, or less product the following month. Probably they left the fine detail to their regional distributors, who would have been better able to keep their finger on the pulse at a local level.

As the retailer took no risk, there would presumably have been a tendency to over- rather than under-order, but even so, we know, from reading the letter columns of the time (certainly in the 60s, not sure of the 70s onwards - I may be able to provide chapter and verse if I can find the time), that complaints of  inefficient distribution were commonplace.

The answer to unsatisfied demand is to increase production, and with the economies of scale in long print runs being what they are, it is no surprise that 50% or so failed to sell at first time of asking.

[Albert Tatlock]

1 hour ago, Malacoda said:

But are they US shop (i.e. retailers) stamps, or are regional or local wholesalers? 

Individual store notation, surely. They come in pen, pencil, crayon, rubber stamps on the front cover, back cover, anywhere to hand. There seems to be a complete lack of uniformity.

[Malacoda]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

That was my Lee Van Cleef reply Rich. I'd have added a gif, but I'm on me tablet. Should be on more tablets probably, as it goes 

 

[Malacoda]

Before I forget it: quick theory.  Do we agree that the time of a cover price increase would be a logical point at which to talk about both the wholesale price / volume (as a price increase might decrease volume / demand) and also, if the cost of getting the PV's printed was an issue for T&P, maybe that too?

In November 1967, T&P put the price of a comic up to 1/- which is a whopping 20% increase.  Is this because demand is now so great that they can get away with this and they also increase the size of the wholesale order? Or, with the greater profit per comic, are they looking to decrease the order and cut costs?

Either way, production of PV's ceases for an incredible 17 months. When it finally resumes, on top of the restored PV's (now at 1/-), T&P are also still getting supplies of cents copies (as they have for the last 17 months) and stamping them. 

Are these events connected? Was the 17 month hiatus a result of Marvel and T&P playing hardball with each other?  If T&P wanted to up their order, did Marvel, trying to stave off an increase from 12c to 15c, increase the price of either the wholesale comics or the PV printing?  Given that they were at up to 40% returns on the US newsstands, was T&P looked on as a cash cow, albeit a relatively small one?

Perhaps more likely, given that WCP had taken over from ECP, is it possible that the PV print order was regarded as so small by Sparta that the cost of doing it actually went up? Sparta had a special area of the warehouse used for the ‘tiny’ jobs (only a few thousand print run), so they definitely had separate pricing & set up for jobs they regarded as not economic. 

It seems like the price increase precipitated the cessation of PV’s (it usually seems to be that) but it cannot possibly account for a 17 month stoppage. Whether you count 6 hiatuses or 5, this one is almost as long as all the others put together.  Demonstrably, it did not take 17 months to work out how to change the PV slug from 10d to 1/-.  It seems very unlikely that the changeover from Eastern to Sparta, which happened 3 months into the hiatus, was not in some way a factor in the length of the hiatus.  There is no obvious event around Cadence, Marvel, Curtis, IND or T&P, that explains it so Sparta seems the likely candidate. World Color was actually being bought out at this point and relocating HQ to NY. I also strongly doubt that Sparta were printing any comics in currencies other than dollars. 

I would love to end here with a brilliant deduction that explains why there was 17 months of chaos followed by this unique, new CS+PV era…..but I got nothin’.  I would just be surprised if the two things were unrelated. .
 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Malacoda

[Get Marwood & I]

7 hours ago, Malacoda said:

 

[Get Marwood & I]

9 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

The publishers knew that not all their output would sell, and they must have been aware of the percentage of returns to expect on each title, BUT they had no way of knowing which outlets would need more, or less product the following month. Probably they left the fine detail to their regional distributors, who would have been better able to keep their finger on the pulse at a local level.

As the retailer took no risk, there would presumably have been a tendency to over- rather than under-order, but even so, we know, from reading the letter columns of the time (certainly in the 60s, not sure of the 70s onwards - I may be able to provide chapter and verse if I can find the time), that complaints of  inefficient distribution were commonplace.

The answer to unsatisfied demand is to increase production, and with the economies of scale in long print runs being what they are, it is no surprise that 50% or so failed to sell at first time of asking.

Is this for the US or UK Albert? I'd love to see anything else you can dig up if you can. I wonder where, when and how the US tearing off of covers and alleged pulping practice fits in to all this. 

[Get Marwood & I]

8 hours ago, Malacoda said:

Before I forget it: quick theory.  Do we agree that the time of a cover price increase would be a logical point at which to talk about both the wholesale price / volume (as a price increase might decrease volume / demand) and also, if the cost of getting the PV's printed was an issue for T&P, maybe that too?

In November 1967, T&P put the price of a comic up to 1/- which is a whopping 20% increase.  Is this because demand is now so great that they can get away with this and they also increase the size of the wholesale order? Or, with the greater profit per comic, are they looking to decrease the order and cut costs?

Either way, production of PV's ceases for an incredible 17 months. When it finally resumes, on top of the restored PV's (now at 1/-), T&P are also still getting supplies of cents copies (as they have for the last 17 months) and stamping them. 

Are these events connected? Was the 17 month hiatus a result of Marvel and T&P playing hardball with each other?  If T&P wanted to up their order, did Marvel, trying to stave off an increase from 12c to 15c, increase the price of either the wholesale comics or the PV printing?  Given that they were at up to 40% returns on the US newsstands, was T&P looked on as a cash cow, albeit a relatively small one?

Perhaps more likely, given that WCP had taken over from ECP, is it possible that the PV print order was regarded as so small by Sparta that the cost of doing it actually went up? Sparta had a special area of the warehouse used for the ‘tiny’ jobs (only a few thousand print run), so they definitely had separate pricing & set up for jobs they regarded as not economic. 

It seems like the price increase precipitated the cessation of PV’s (it usually seems to be that) but it cannot possibly account for a 17 month stoppage. Whether you count 6 hiatuses or 5, this one is almost as long as all the others put together.  Demonstrably, it did not take 17 months to work out how to change the PV slug from 10d to 1/-.  It seems very unlikely that the changeover from Eastern to Sparta, which happened 3 months into the hiatus, was not in some way a factor in the length of the hiatus.  There is no obvious event around Cadence, Marvel, Curtis, IND or T&P, that explains it so Sparta seems the likely candidate. World Color was actually being bought out at this point and relocating HQ to NY. I also strongly doubt that Sparta were printing any comics in currencies other than dollars. 

I would love to end here with a brilliant deduction that explains why there was 17 months of chaos followed by this unique, new CS+PV era…..but I got nothin’.  I would just be surprised if the two things were unrelated. .
 

Good theories Rich. The answer might not necessarily have to relate to anything specific though - maybe they just stopped, had a break, and then started again. When you say "why did Marvel stop the PVs for 17 months?", you could just as easily say "why didn't DC start them?". Marvel made comics that were popular in the UK. DC made comics that were popular in the UK. So UK companies arranged to bring them over. Why were Marvel (Dell, Charlton, Gold Key) doing PVs for so long and DC not? Why would one opt for one model and one the other? People are different, they make different decisions at different times. Maybe there was someone in the office who thought the bosses decision to stop Marvel PVs for 17 months was just dumb. 

If the increase in (UK or US?) cover price was a point for discussing wholesale prices and volumes, they must have had quite a lot of discussions between August 1974 and March 1977:

 

A few other thoughts Rich - we're talking about kids comics. I know business is business, but would two companies ever play hardball for 17 months about the price of kids comics? Would the US contingent not just set its wholesale price and then leave the UK distributor to price as they see fit? What would it matter to Marvel if T&P charged a shilling, two or three for the books in the UK? They've been paid and there was no returns. 

And at a possible 5% of the total print run, would the aggregate UK bound title compliment really be a 'small job'? Only the covers differed remember - the guts are all one long continuous production event. I would imagine any increased cost to the printer from producing UK copies would come from the outward distribution of them. Internally, a quick plate change for the covers and a separate area to collate / store them. Hardly an onerous additional operational burden, surely? Bread and butter stuff for printers who were (certainly later) likely used to producing comics with different cover dressings for a variety of reasons.

[Albert Tatlock]

8 hours ago, Malacoda said:

In November 1967, T&P put the price of a comic up to 1/- which is a whopping 20% increase.  Is this because demand is now so great that they can get away with this and they also increase the size of the wholesale order? Or, with the greater profit per comic, are they looking to decrease the order and cut costs?

This was a consequence of the 14% devaluation of sterling in November 1967.

[Albert Tatlock]

4 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Is this for the US or UK Albert? I

US. Speculation, I admit, but maybe not too far from reality.

People were asking why the publishers were producing more than they could hope to sell, but does that mean waste and inefficiency?

Not necessarily.

In any case it would need to be compared with the other similar sectors of the publishing industry, magazines, newspapers, paperback books,etc. I would not be surprised to see that the data for comics were in the same ballpark.

Put your beancounter's hat on for a moment. You can increase your press run by 50%, say, for an additional outlay of only 10%. A good gamble, as any additional sales would be at the full market rate, whereas the extra cost would be only marginal.

And don't forget that you have competition. The more you can flood the market with your product, the less shelf space there is for the opposition.

 

[Malacoda]

15 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

And don't forget that you have competition. The more you can flood the market with your product, the less shelf space there is for the opposition.

This is a really key point where Marvel are concerned. This starts under Martin Goodman - find out what your competitors are selling, create imitations and then flood the market with them - he literally says this. And in the 70's - long post-Goodman -  they pretty much put Skywald out of business this way.

Al Hewetson: 

When Marvel entered the game with countless titles gutting the newsstand, their distributor was so powerful they denied Skywald access to all but the very largest newsstands, so our presence was minimal and fans and readers simply couldn't find us.  We had a business lunch with our distributor in the fall of '74 and we were given very specific information about the state of affairs on the newsstands – which had nothing to do with Warren's or Skywald's solid readership base. 

 

[Malacoda]

Incidentally, in the same interview, Hewetson says:  "Our issues were selling well, and some sold out. Such returns as we received were shipped overseas, mainly to England, where they sold out completely." 

......which is all kinds of interesting, isn't it?

[Get Marwood & I]

23 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

US. Speculation, I admit, but maybe not too far from reality.

People were asking why the publishers were producing more than they could hope to sell, but does that mean waste and inefficiency?

Not necessarily.

In any case it would need to be compared with the other similar sectors of the publishing industry, magazines, newspapers, paperback books,etc. I would not be surprised to see that the data for comics were in the same ballpark.

Put your beancounter's hat on for a moment. You can increase your press run by 50%, say, for an additional outlay of only 10%. A good gamble, as any additional sales would be at the full market rate, whereas the extra cost would be only marginal.

And don't forget that you have competition. The more you can flood the market with your product, the less shelf space there is for the opposition.

 

Makes sense. My only thought was that in the cases where the data implies a near 50% overprint, that doubles all the associated post production costs - double the van capacity to deliver them etc - and then there is the cost of disposal. I'm no expert, but I would imagine it would cost a bit to pulp thousands of unsold (cover defaced) comics?

If that is what happened of course.

[Albert Tatlock]

4 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

it would cost a bit to pulp thousands of unsold (cover defaced) comics?

Would it cost anything? Wouldn't the waste paper dealer pay for paper of the right grade? It can be recycled and sold on.

Franny (Lee Won Pen) Lee made his money turning waste paper into bog rolls.

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, Malacoda said:

Incidentally, in the same interview, Hewetson says:  "Our issues were selling well, and some sold out. Such returns as we received were shipped overseas, mainly to England, where they sold out completely." 

......which is all kinds of interesting, isn't it?

It is. He's referring to the mid-Seventies there I take it?

One thing I note in all this is that it doesn't matter which model you speculate on, there always seem to be examples or rational arguments that undermine it. "Such returns as we received" implies few, yet we have full compliments almost of stamped copies extant. And what happened to the US sellers getting their refunds by way of defacing the comics?

It's why I favour a mapped approach by date. If the standard approach was to tear off covers in the US, then that doesn't work with onward transfer to the UK. If the UK copies were undistributed copies, that doesn't fit with "selling well and some sold out". I suspect that all the anecdotal, written and recollected snippets that we are discussing here all may have been unique to specific periods, and / or publishers, not the whole of the 1959-1982 window. 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Franny (Lee Won Pen) Lee made his money turning waste paper into bog rolls.

So many jokes, so little time... 

[Albert Tatlock]

Where there's muck, there's brass............

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-athletes/richest-soccer/francis-lee-net-worth/

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Where there's muck, there is brass............

https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-athletes/richest-soccer/francis-lee-net-worth/

....making things, to wipe yer arse..