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

[Malacoda]

On 12/14/2023 at 6:55 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I saw this on Farceblank earlier, and I found it good.

Now this is very interesting, because at first you think 'wait a sec, Transworld was Marvel from 1972 - 79, and these are Odhams.  This should have nothing to do with Transworld.'  And then you remember that Transworld were the licensee for Marvel reprints everywhere outside the US, so Odhams deal would have been with Transworld, not with Marvel. 

[LowGradeBronze]

On 12/13/2023 at 5:37 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Half a mild all round, and a mince pie.

Terms and conditions apply.

Subject to availability.

Do you think I'm made of money?

Sounds like a line from John Cooper Clark

[Albert Tatlock]

On 12/14/2023 at 8:07 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

Sounds like a line from John Cooper Clark

He should have got the Nobel Prize instead of that miserable git Dylan, who did not even bother to go and pick up his gong.

JCC would have given them a thing or two to remember him by.

[Malacoda]

<Pssst.  Hey, guys, how much do you want to bet I can make Steve stand on his head?> 

[Malacoda]

[Malacoda]

On 12/4/2023 at 11:15 PM, Get Marwood &amp; I said:

Yes, it's fun to try to work out what the printing order might have been using error copies like these.

Of course, with the stamp above, I guess there's a 1% chance the comic was upside down, but I think we can pretty much assume that this issue was the first one on the pile and Ethel had the stamp upside down.  Wouldn't it be sooooooo much easier if we could reliably make those kind of assumptions about other stuff?

[themagicrobot]

Are you positive it was Ethel who had the stamp upside down? After five or so years she was a most experienced stamperer. And didn't you earlier reliably assume that she lived in the Thurmaston area and worked for T&P? It is more likely that she was stamping oddities like this Dell and due to the rarity of 2/6 ink stamps others had to resort to stickers. Or was the magazine imported into the UK by more than one company?

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 12/15/2023 at 12:44 AM, Malacoda said:

<Pssst.  Hey, guys, how much do you want to bet I can make Steve stand on his head?> 

 

[rakehell]

On 12/14/2023 at 8:07 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

Sounds like a line from John Cooper Clark

"Like a nightclub in the morning..." 

[Malacoda]

On 12/15/2023 at 9:24 AM, themagicrobot said:

Are you positive it was Ethel who had the stamp upside down? After five or so years she was a most experienced stamperer. And didn't you earlier reliably assume that she lived in the Thurmaston area and worked for T&P? It is more likely that she was stamping oddities like this Dell and due to the rarity of 2/6 ink stamps others had to resort to stickers. Or was the magazine imported into the UK by more than one company?

Hi Robot, I'm absolutely positive it wasn't Ethel, I was just taking her name in vain for expediency. The oblong stamp belongs to (most likely candidate) Gold Star, so this would be a David Gold's version of Ethel  (I think I called her Donna previously).  These are the stamps we see on the 66'ers, but this comic is 4 months after the 66 hiatus, so it's one of the ones that proves that whoever was standing behind Donna when she stamped it, didn't just get the 66'ers but occasionally got other randos.  Steve has substantiated this at length, so yes, you're right, they were clearly being imported by more than one company, but the irregularity suggests they were bin-ends, leftovers, maybe US returns, not a regular deal.  

Those Dell's are absolutely tremendous.  Thanks for posting.  One stamped at 2/6 and the other stamped with something else and then stickered 2/6 does indeed make it look like Ethel (the real Ethel) accidentally stamped it with a regular 9d  stamp and then realised it was a 25c'er and stickered over the stamp.  The obliterator stamp was clearly not on duty, but I guess if she had a roll of 2/6 stickers, that would be the way to go.  As this is 1962, she might not have encountered a GS comic at this point?*

Given the relative infrequency with which we see the oblong stamp, I can easily see Donna doing the first one upside down as it was clearly not her day job.  The thing I liked about this is, much like the Which-Was-Printed-First debate, you could never know what order comics were stamped in or where in the immense pile a particular comic was, but with this one, having stamped the first one upside down, she obviously would have righted it, so you can actually say that particular one was on the top of the pile. Which, of course, helps us with absolutely nothing at all, but every now and then something like this makes me feel a little shiver of connection to the person stamping these comics all those years ago.  At the moment (probably) that she stamped that, I was not even one year old.  As she went 'oh Bloody Hell...' and turned the stamp the right way round, she can't possibly have imagined that mere babes-in-arms would, 56 years later, be speculating about that moment.  It's a strange and wonderful thing we do here.  But mostly strange. 

*I just put this to make Steve do a spit take with his Ovaltine and put up the list of GS'ers up to this point. 

 

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Malacoda

[themagicrobot]

Donna didn't like getting ink stains on her fingers and asked Mr Gold to get her some stickers instead. She had noticed that the local new-fangled supermarket used stickers on tins of Heinz Beanz rather than messy ink stamps. So it was that Goldstar moved into the modern world with trendy swinging sixties orange labels. But who on earth stamped (or had printed) "UK Edition 2/6" on Fantastic Monsters ?

 

Edited December 15, 2023 by themagicrobot

[Malacoda]

On 12/15/2023 at 2:52 PM, themagicrobot said:

But who on earth stamped (or had printed) "UK Edition 2/6" on Fantastic Monsters ?

Indeed.  That looks printed, and from issue #1. Amazing.  That magazine was an indy produced by a couple of guys in Topanga Canyon, which is a kind of artist's colony with a film festival, so makes a lot of sense that they produced the mag, but international distribution from issue 1? Maybe the UK edition was a reprint?  The US edition doesn't have the price in that spot or in black, so it wasn't a straight swap out on the K plate. 

[themagicrobot]

Were they maybe overprinted over here before UK distribution or were they just very good ink stamps? The positioning of this one is odd.

 

And T&P ink stamped UK prices to Warren's Monster World and FMOF but never Eeries or Creepies. That is eerie and creepy. Have a cool yule. With a ghoul.

 

[LowGradeBronze]

I know this is pure speculation at this point, but do you think Ethel or Donna collected comics or at the very least, took some home each week for her little brother. Or would it have been a busman's holiday? Imagine, being so bored of seeing piles of pristine (or very fine to near mint) comics that they did nothing for you! (There are no emojis awful enough to convey that!)

[themagicrobot]

I always pictured a bored Ethel, ciggy in mouth, with a resemblance to Hilda Ogden, (Albert can explain that to Othereric) tearing off covers to assemble Double Doubles and taking home bundles of unwanted DC, ACG and the odd Marvel covers to paper the bedroom walls of her sprogs.

Edited December 15, 2023 by themagicrobot

[OtherEric]

On 12/15/2023 at 1:34 PM, themagicrobot said:

I always pictured a bored Ethel, ciggy in mouth, with a resemblance to Hilda Ogden, (Albert can explain that to Othereric) tearing off covers to assemble Double Doubles and taking home bundles of unwanted DC, ACG and the odd Marvel covers to paper the bedroom walls of her sprogs.

I know just enough to understand the reference, at least.

[Malacoda]

On 12/15/2023 at 8:30 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

I know this is pure speculation at this point, but do you think Ethel or Donna collected comics or at the very least, took some home each week for her little brother. Or would it have been a busman's holiday? Imagine, being so bored of seeing piles of pristine (or very fine to near mint) comics that they did nothing for you! (There are no emojis awful enough to convey that!)

Loads of that.  A chap called Nigel told me his mum worked there in the 50's and used to bring him home the T&P reprints of Classics Illustrated.  Also, a lady named Sue told me that her neighbour Mrs. Clarke (very possibly Ethel herself) used to bring her home a comic every week. She said that even then she was aware she had some rare ones ( FF & Superman), but her mum chucked them all out.  

Edited December 16, 2023 by Malacoda

[themagicrobot]

Why did T&P toy with stickers but return to ink stamps. A white sticker would show up better on dark coloured artwork than an ink stamp. A sticker could be placed in the same position on all comics rather than Ethel having to use her initiative to find a suitable spot for her ink stamp.

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by themagicrobot

[Malacoda]

On 12/15/2023 at 9:34 PM, themagicrobot said:

I always pictured a bored Ethel, ciggy in mouth, with a resemblance to Hilda Ogden, (Albert can explain that to Othereric) tearing off covers to assemble Double Doubles and taking home bundles of unwanted DC, ACG and the odd Marvel covers to paper the bedroom walls of her sprogs.

Apparently one of the things that took people aback, particularly after Gold & Sullivan took it over, was the packing ladies, ciggy in mouth, nattering about Corrie, the weather and the price of fish as they obliviously put together packages of porn.   

[Malacoda]

On 12/16/2023 at 4:59 PM, themagicrobot said:

Why did T&P toy with stickers but return to ink stamps. A white sticker would show up better on dark coloured artwork than an ink stamp. A sticker could be placed in the same position on all comics rather than Ethel having to use her initiative to find a suitable spot for her ink stamp.

Do you think there's a phase of stickers?  It seemed to me that stickers crop up sporadically throughout, but usually (not always) to oversticker a stamp at the point of a price increase.