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

[Malacoda]

On 6/14/2022 at 6:49 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

@Malacoda Rich liked my table posts so he's read them Robot @themagicrobot. I can feel a tidal wave of a post brewing.

Can you feel it....? 

It's going to be a while. 

While you're waiting, here's a little something on account for you and the Robot to chew on. I know it's something you've both wondered about for a while. 

 

Why are there DC PV’s for 2 months in July & August 1971?

To us, the T&P stamp is a ubiquitous feature of 20 years of comics, but in reality, T&P went through 7 changes of ownership & management, 4 changes of location and 4 changes of core business activity. The rock steady stamping hand of Ethel belies a lot of chaos behind the scenes. 

In 1966, they went bankrupt and were bought by IND. IND in turn were bought by Kinney in 1967.  Kinney then bought Warner Bros in 1969 and set about merging all the different operations under Warner Communications.  In 1971, T&P relocated from Thurmaston to the Warner-Columbia building in London, I assume losing most of the staff on the way. The various publishing corporations that Kinney owned were all consolidated and T&P not only lost its HQ and operational base, but almost all of its publications were made part of Williams. Dez Skinn’s publications were under the Top Sellers imprint, all the porn was put under the GBD imprint, the northern European branches that were part of Gilberton’s (run from T&P) became part of Williams.  Very little remained of T&P, except that stamp.

So, I think that 1971 is actually when T&P disappeared.  Warner’s knew that of all the jobs they had to relocate from Thurmaston to London, a temporary killer was going to be the ink stampers.  This job was doubtless really badly paid and there was no way the Ethels were going to relocate to central London for a job ink stamping comics. 

I think T&P warned IND and their other customers that there was going to be a hiatus. 

At this point, Marvel and DC are in very different boats.  Marvel have finally got free of IND in the US and are about to surpass DC for the first time.  They must surely want to get out of the relationship with T&P, but for the last few years they have been distributing both PV and stamped issues and it has been going very nicely, thank you.  However, if T&P are now going to be unable to distribute any stamped copies, potentially for a period of months, then Marvel are better off switching to another UK distributor. Even if that distributor can only handle PV’s.  I suspect that Marvel knew that T&P was done and didn’t expect preferential treatment from their historic enemies. DC on the other hand are sister company to IND/T&P. Effectively, they self-distribute. They can’t jump ship because they own the ship.  So what can DC do if there are to be no ink stampers? It will have to be PV’s, but if you think about it, this is a massive sea change for DC.  It’s not just a matter of changing from stamps to PV’s – their supply to the UK is returns. Distressed inventory. Now they are going to need to send bespoke, newly printed comics to the UK and have nowhere to get rid of the mountain of returns.  This is why, in the end, the hiatus only lasts 2 months. Notice that DC only managed to produce about 5 titles with pence variants with weirdly placed prices.  They straddle two cover date months, but in fact they only straddle 2 weeks of on sale dates so it was a fast hit.  It’s pretty clear that their heart was not in it – it was either always intended as a very brief stopgap, or they did a very fast U-turn.  They just didn’t want the UK shelves empty of DC product for 2 months (right at the moment Marvel were surpassing them in the US?)

This is why (1) you have DC PV’s at all (2) why you only have a few titles and (3) only for 2 months.

T&P, such as it now was, moved to Wardour Street in the summer of 71, so they would have warned Marvel & DC in the spring that there would be no stampers for the July issues.  But do all 3 dates tie up? 

Yes.

Yes they do.

Marvel stamps disappear from on sale May, cover date July and so do DC.  A nice little touch here is that the Marvel July cover dates which were published in April still have stamped issues, and the July/May ones don’t, so it ties up rather exactly. Bear in mind also that whereas in the past, the relationship between DC on sale dates and when the returns rocked up in the UK could potentially be anything, but here, finally, you have a line in the sand because the UKPV's rolled off the presses at the same time as the US cents copies with nowhere to go but the UK. 

I have no evidence that this is causal, by the way.  It may be a complete coincidence that T&P are shut down in Thurmaston at the same moment that Marvel change UK distributors and go over wholly to PV’s, which is also at the same moment that DC have an inexplicable and short lived flirtation with UK PV’s.  But it’s one Hell of a triple coincidence if it is.

I propose we adopt this theory until a better one comes along.

OK...let me have it.  What have I overlooked?

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 2:16 AM, Malacoda said:

T&P, such as it now was, moved to Wardour Street in the summer of 71, so they would have warned Marvel & DC in the spring that there would be no stampers for the July issues

 

On 6/15/2022 at 2:16 AM, Malacoda said:

Marvel stamps disappear from on sale May, cover date July and so do DC. 

 

On 6/15/2022 at 2:16 AM, Malacoda said:

OK...let me have it.  What have I overlooked?

These:

And this Flash is the lone August UKPV bearing cover date issue, but still has stamped copies out there:

Maybe they were all stamped later when they got back into it?

You'll find 5p stamps on non-UKPV bearing July '71 DC issues too, Rich:

On 6/15/2022 at 2:16 AM, Malacoda said:

Notice that DC only managed to produce about 5 titles with pence variants with weirdly placed prices.

The UK prices were in the same place as the US ones, so they're not bespokely weird. As for there being only five of them, it's interesting that Marvel only had five for one month very shortly after:

 Great, thought provoking stuff though Rich. Keep it coming 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 2:16 AM, Malacoda said:

At this point, Marvel and DC are in very different boats.  Marvel have finally got free of IND in the US and are about to surpass DC for the first time.  They must surely want to get out of the relationship with T&P, but for the last few years they have been distributing both PV and stamped issues and it has been going very nicely, thank you.  However, if T&P are now going to be unable to distribute any stamped copies, potentially for a period of months, then Marvel are better off switching to another UK distributor. Even if that distributor can only handle PV’s.  I suspect that Marvel knew that T&P was done and didn’t expect preferential treatment from their historic enemies. DC on the other hand are sister company to IND/T&P. Effectively, they self-distribute. They can’t jump ship because they own the ship.  So what can DC do if there are to be no ink stampers? It will have to be PV’s, but if you think about it, this is a massive sea change for DC.  It’s not just a matter of changing from stamps to PV’s – their supply to the UK is returns. Distressed inventory. Now they are going to need to send bespoke, newly printed comics to the UK and have nowhere to get rid of the mountain of returns.  This is why, in the end, the hiatus only lasts 2 months. Notice that DC only managed to produce about 5 titles with pence variants with weirdly placed prices.  They straddle two cover date months, but in fact they only straddle 2 weeks of on sale dates so it was a fast hit.  It’s pretty clear that their heart was not in it – it was either always intended as a very brief stopgap, or they did a very fast U-turn.  They just didn’t want the UK shelves empty of DC product for 2 months (right at the moment Marvel were surpassing them in the US?)

The fact that DC still have 5p stamped copies cover dated July/August seems to muck this whole theory up Rich. It sounds great on paper, tying T&Ps existential / relocation difficulties to the end product, but the DC books were still stamped whether UKPV bearing or not. It's just another example of where DC and Marvel seem to differ. T&P relocate, no stamped Marvels. But there were stamped DCs. So perhaps the Marvel absence has nothing to do with the relocation. What successful company relocates and fails to recreate the necessary workforce needed to survive, anyway? 

Five inaugural DC UKPVs for Jul/Aug '71 cover dates. Five Marvels (only, oddly, as it was ten at the time) for cover dates October. Coincidence? Marvels never seem to quite align with DC, date-wise, do they. Maybe there is something in that. Maybe the same event caused the same outcome - five UKPVS each - but manifested in different cover dates. 

And there's an element of contradiction in your theory - if you say DC did not want their product to be absent from the shelves, why order a measly 5 UKPVs? They were distributing pretty much all DC titles at this point - five isn't going to go unnoticed, is it? To me, the five UKPVs have an experimental air about them. They don't feel forced, to me. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 2:16 AM, Malacoda said:

Very little remained of T&P, except that stamp. So, I think that 1971 is actually when T&P disappeared. 

Still going strong - on paper (heh, heh) - nearly ten years later! 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 8:27 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

To me, the five UKPVs have an experimental air about them. They don't feel forced, to me.

A further coincidence - the first ever DC UKPVs are the same cover month as the last DC 15c issues:

A strategic review of US pricing incorporates a test run of UKPV issues, possibly?

[Albert Tatlock]

This grows more fiendishly complicated all the time.

Anyone who can get to the bottom of it will be on the back of the next 50 quid note, elbowing aside the chap who cracked a much simpler code.

[Get Marwood & I]

                      

                                                                                       

                                                                                     

[yrag9591]

Nice find!

BTW, Showcase 22 is Sep/Oct 1959.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 4:50 PM, yrag9591 said:

Nice find!

BTW, Showcase 22 is Sep/Oct 1959.

I've amended it to Oct (as per cover date), cheers Gary. 

Been looking for stamped copies of those two for years!

[yrag9591]

Is Showcase 22 the only issue dated Sep/Oct to have been found with a stamp?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:12 PM, yrag9591 said:

Is Showcase 22 the only issue dated Sep/Oct to have been found with a stamp?

Pat Boone #1, off the top of my head....

[yrag9591]

Ah yes. So they tie for the earliest stamped and distributed DCs.

I’ve never seen an Action 257 stamped before. Fairly sure I have seen a Superboy 76 stamped.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 4:24 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

This grows more fiendishly complicated all the time.

Anyone who can get to the bottom of it will be on the back of the next 50 quid note, elbowing aside the chap who cracked a much simpler code.

Will a fiver do?

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:20 PM, yrag9591 said:

Ah yes. So they tie for the earliest stamped and distributed DCs.

Not necessarily earliest distributed - the stamp number determines the order of arrival in the UK, if our collective sums add up. The Action #257 and Superboy #76 are both stamped with a one, indicating they came late / after those stamped 8 and 9 (which we believe to be the first). But they are the earliest stamped copies currently known by cover date for their titles.

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:20 PM, yrag9591 said:

Fairly sure I have seen a Superboy 76 stamped.

I had a Superboy 76 when I was a nipper, there was no way realistically that it had turned up in my neck of the woods without having paid a flying visit to Castle T & P.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:21 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Will a fiver do?

Oi! You've short-changed me by 45 quid. A fiver won't even get me fish and chips these days.

Edited June 15, 2022 by Albert Tatlock
add 1 line

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:35 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Oi! You've short-changed me by 45 quid. A fiver won't even get me fish and chips these days.

'appen it won't, but a Godiva aint to be sniffed at in any road. Now stop mithering y' daft 'apeth.

[Get Marwood & I]

Do you think Rich passed out when he logged in and saw the stamped July '71 DCs then? 

[OtherEric]

I would say that, even if there are various complications, that the idea the DC UKPV covers are directly tied to the change in ownership and the move is reasonable, even if it's an incomplete explanation of all the books we have.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/15/2022 at 5:20 PM, yrag9591 said:

I’ve never seen an Action 257 stamped before. Fairly sure I have seen a Superboy 76 stamped.

Stuff like this was very difficult to find when I was collecting in the early 1960s.

The Action and Superboy must be late arrivals, I am sure there were very few of them that made it to our shores.

I never saw the Action 257, or Showcase 22, but I did have an Adventure 265, probably another delayed return.