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

[Albert Tatlock]

October 1953 magazine distributed by T & P, the earliest I have found so far, but printed in England and with no stamp.

Mr Thorpe and Mr Porter are certainly men of mystery. Even Mr Google is struggling.

Companies House no help, as their public records do not go back far enough.

I have checked for trademarks for Thorpe & Porter, T & P and Strato Publications as far back as 1876, but nothing is showing.

Earliest stamp will probably be in the 1958/59 range, I feel but will carry on hunting.

[Albert Tatlock]

Back cover of Amazing, with T & P credit at bottom.

[Garystar]

33 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

October 1953 magazine distributed by T & P, the earliest I have found so far, but printed in England and with no stamp.

Mr Thorpe and Mr Porter are certainly men of mystery. Even Mr Google is struggling.

Companies House no help, as their public records do not go back far enough.

I have checked for trademarks for Thorpe & Porter, T & P and Strato Publications as far back as 1876, but nothing is showing.

Earliest stamp will probably be in the 1958/59 range, I feel but will carry on hunting.

My reading shows Fred Thorpe bought a chain of newsagents owned by Porter group just after the end of WW2 so Thorpe & Porter came to be around 1946. However there was a post war ban on importing books/comics so they reprinted American comics in Britain so these wouldn’t have been stamped being home produced. In mid 50’s ban was lifted on non fiction books and ban on fiction comics lifted a few years later. So earliest possible stamp existed on books around 1955 onwards and on comics 1957/58 onwards. 

[Garystar]

21 hours ago, Albert Tatlock said:

 

Here is a thought - what if the early Marvels were not SOR?

If no returns would be entertained, no need to stamp expiry dates.

That could explain why the early imported Marvels are so scarce compared to DC.

If T & P had to pay more for the Marvels, printed to their own specifications with a pence cover price, than they did for the remaindered DCs, they would order less, and also need to make sure that the increased per item outlay was offset by guarantee that retailers could not return them. Only DC, Charlton, etc would be eligible for a credit.

 

I struggle to see this. I don’t believe the average newsagent would know the difference between Marvel and DC or Charlton so having a system where Marvels were SOR and others were non-returnable would be worth their while - unless all shops were exclusively Marvel or exclusively non-Marvel so they only had one system to work with. And what happened later on when you get Marvel UKPV and T&P stamped Versions of the same issue?

[Albert Tatlock]

The difference would be not between DC/Marvel/Charton, but between stamped and unstamped.

stamped = SOR, unstamped = non-SOR.

 

[Garystar]

1 minute ago, Albert Tatlock said:

The difference would be not between DC/Marvel/Charton, but between stamped and unstamped.

stamped = SOR, unstamped = non-SOR.

 

You may be right and things may have changed later on, but pick on Daredevil 72 (a comic I recall buying “new” in 1973) it exists as a UKPV and cents with a T&P stamp - seems complicated that one would be SOR and one not. Would a newsagent be bothered to look?

[Albert Tatlock]

48 minutes ago, Garystar said:

My reading shows Fred Thorpe bought a chain of newsagents owned by Porter group just after the end of WW2 so Thorpe & Porter came to be around 1946. However there was a post war ban on importing books/comics so they reprinted American comics in Britain so these wouldn’t have been stamped being home produced. In mid 50’s ban was lifted on non fiction books and ban on fiction comics lifted a few years later. So earliest possible stamp existed on books around 1955 onwards and on comics 1957/58 onwards. 

My understanding is that some comics were imported after the end of WW2, but the passage of the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act of 1955 put a stop to them.

The infamous Fredric Wertham had an equally misguided British counterpart, George Pumphrey, who lost no opportunity to fulminate against the degrading American imports leading the youth of this country on a path to inevitable damnation.

[Albert Tatlock]

3 minutes ago, Garystar said:

You may be right and things may have changed later on, but pick on Daredevil 72 (a comic I recall buying “new” in 1973) it exists as a UKPV and cents with a T&P stamp - seems complicated that one would be SOR and one not. Would a newsagent be bothered to look?

Possibly by that time all were SOR, it just seems strange that the Marvels were UKPV almost from the off, but DCs were stamped.

[Albert Tatlock]

More on George Pumphrey can be found here:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lupBCb1lcokC&pg=PA219&lpg=PA219&dq=george+pumphrey&source=bl&ots=hmDniXnKC5&sig=ACfU3U1qlXU2M7m44aHixYapuvY9uqCifQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwih8Kb_jbfsAhWRTxUIHXIjD8EQ6AEwCXoECAgQAg#v=onepage&q=george pumphrey&f=false

[Albert Tatlock]

Mentioned in the article is the case of a South Shields newsagent who had 20,000 comics seized and destroyed.

Presumably not Beano or Dandy, more than likely imported American horror-type comics.

Mention is there of a publication, the Newsagents and Booksellers Review, which may well give us information of value..

Who will undertake a trip to Colindale to peruse early 1950s copies?

[Garystar]

22 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Possibly by that time all were SOR, it just seems strange that the Marvels were UKPV almost from the off, but DCs were stamped.

Yes, especially as Marvels at that time were being distributed by DCs owners. 

[Albert Tatlock]

Marvels were distributed in the US by the same firm responsible for distributing DCs, but on this side of the pond, T& P did the distribution, as stated in the indicia.

[Redshade]

22 minutes ago, Garystar said:

I struggle to see this. I don’t believe the average newsagent would know the difference between Marvel and DC or Charlton so having a system where Marvels were SOR and others were non-returnable would be worth their while - unless all shops were exclusively Marvel or exclusively non-Marvel so they only had one system to work with. And what happened later on when you get Marvel UKPV and T&P stamped Versions of the same issue?

Whilst not agreeing with a lot of the theories and proposals within this T&P debate I find it fascinating to read, and commend Albert and Marwood on their expertise and erudition. Please continue to research and debate these subjects for the enjoyment and wonder that we followers achieve by reading your views and beliefs.

I too, Garystar, cannot convince myself that the newsagents would understand or even adhere to a system as supposedly sophisticated as the one outlined by Albert here. And the fact that T&P stamp numbers only went from one to nine and not twelve is perplexing.

Our paperboy used to deliver our daily papers and comics and various magazines every day/week without fail because they were ordered by us from the newsagent.

I'm guessing here that the above mentioned periodicals were ordered by the vendor from the wholesaler or distributor on an SOR basis. .

I cannot now more than 50 years later recall specific conversations that the precocious little oik inquisitive child that I was had with with Messrs Hartley Newsagents and Tobacconists but I do remember querying why certain American comics never arrived and why, when they did, were certain issues missing. And the lifelong impression that I have to this day was that they could not order specific titles and had to accept the random  batch that was delivered every week (or month).

This recollection ties in with the logistics of the comics being sent over to UK distributors by the US publishers as being totally arbitrary due to their not knowing which comics would be returned/remainded for any particular title or issue number and this casual method being passed on to the retail outlets. So I can fully appreciate that my Victor and Dad's Daily Mail and Mum's Womens Realm were ordered on a SOR basis I cannot see how this system could have applied to the haphazard distribution methods of American comics.

[Albert Tatlock]

19 minutes ago, Redshade said:

system as supposedly sophisticated as the one outlined

It is not all that sophisticated...........

stamped = SOR, unstamped not SOR. this would apply only to the early days, though, until T & P could see that they were in danger of underestimating the demand for Marvels, so upped the order numbers.

The newsagent did not decide which titles he would receive, he would just order, say 200 comics, and T & P would forward that number from the stock in their warehouse. It would have been time-consuming in the extreme and not at all cost-effective, to respond to a request from Mr Hartley by rummaging through thousands of comics in search of a particular issue that may or may not have been there.

Chances are, that by 1973, they were all, stamped or not, fully SOR, so 'whats the problem, squire?. Here they are, sell 'em in your shop to the snotty nosed kids, anything left over, send 'em back'.

[Albert Tatlock]

29 minutes ago, Redshade said:

And the fact that T&P stamp numbers only went from one to nine and not twelve is perplexing.

Maybe a 1 digit stamp was cheaper than a 2 digit one. You do not need numbers in any case. A,B,C,D would do the job just as well as 1,2, 3, 4. The numbers are just an indicator of when the item was processed at T & P's premises, and has no connection with the calendar.

[Garystar]

2 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Maybe a 1 digit stamp was cheaper than a 2 digit one. You do not need numbers in any case. A,B,C,D would do the job just as well as 1,2, 3, 4. The numbers are just an indicator of when the item was processed at T & P's premises, and has no connection with the calendar.

I’m starting to agree with Albert that the stamp number relates to shipping dates - Extensive research of the two Daredevil issues I want to upgrade, 7 and 8, fits the pattern exactly all 7s are stamped 2 and all 8s (2 months later) are stamped 4. other early DDs seem to fit the pattern also. I’ll have a more extensive search of more Marvels titles.  However i remain unconvinced it’s for SOR - were US comics SOR? By 1980 (post T&P I know) I was buying a full set of distributed Marvels from newsagent at 12p cover price and a month later I bought everything he hadn’t sold for 6p so he evidently wasn’t getting SOR or my 6p was more than he was paying wholesale and would get in return. 
As to UKPV I’d like to know did Marvel or T&P decide what issues would be distributed? The haphazard nature makes me think Marvel, if T&P had final say surely we would have had uninterrupted runs of the best sellers? 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Redshade said:

Whilst not agreeing with a lot of the theories and proposals within this T&P debate I find it fascinating to read, and commend Albert and Marwood on their expertise and erudition. Please continue to research and debate these subjects for the enjoyment and wonder that we followers achieve by reading your views and beliefs.

As a result of Albert's input, and the subsequent number crunching, I'm comfortable with the idea that the T&P stamp numbering was an internal operational procedure and likely directly linked to the sequential arrival of comics in shipments from the US. The table summaries that I put together are quite convincing in that respect for the DC titles. The Charlton dates cast a bit of doubt though in as much as they don't fit the DC pattern when transposed. So there is clearly more to it, more to learn.

I don't however currently support the notion that the stamps were of any significance to the newsagents for the many reasons I've outlined so far. I'll need a lot more evidence to buy in to that theory.

 

[Albert Tatlock]

Comics were definitely SOR in the USA, as can be seen from the copies with US arrival dates, in the US, not European format, written on the cover. A proportion at least of these unsold returns were then sent overseas.

Later on, the US publishers began to publish a Direct Sale version, with a different symbol on the cover, signifying that it was sold on a no-return basis. The regular issues still continued to reach the newsvendors, who could return their unsold stock.

All this, and much more detailed information, has been published on Overstreet over quite a time.

[Albert Tatlock]

2 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

The Charlton dates cast a bit of doubt though in as much as they don't fit the DC pattern

What if the early (pre-October 1959) Charltons were sent with the first batches of DCs, arriving early 1960?

There are no stamped DCs before that date, so presumably DC did the decent thing and sent as up-to-date material as they could, but Charlton just sent any old outdated rubbish, glad to get it off their hands at any price.

I reckon anything cover dated before October 1959 actually arrived in 1960, when the market was still being explored. Later, as things settled down, T & P would have expressed a preference for up to date comics and presumably their wishes were seen as not unreasonable.

So, I reckon that before the number 6 stamp found on the Pat Boone 1, all the stamps related to non-comic items. Number 1 was probably a magazine from earlier in 1959.

Famous Monsters numbers do not tie in. What if they lagged 6 months behind cover date, not 3 as with the DCs?

[Get Marwood & I]

18 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

What if the early (pre-October 1959) Charltons were sent with the first batches of DCs, arriving early 1960?

There are no stamped DCs before that date, so presumably DC did the decent thing and sent as up-to-date material as they could, but Charlton just sent any old outdated rubbish, glad to get it off their hands at any price.

I reckon anything cover dated before October 1959 actually arrived in 1960, when the market was still being explored. Later, as things settled down, T & P would have expressed a preference for up to date comics and presumably their wishes were seen as not unreasonable.

Definitely possible. The sequential monthly spread of Charltons gets me though - if their sequential stamps correlate with the 1960's stamping, not 1959's, why would the monthly cover dates have a cover date / stamp number sequential pattern? Why would the US send their year old Charltons over a year later than when they were returned in the US, sequentially and not in one lump? Why haven't all the Charltons that I plotted got the same number on them, if they are from the previous year? 

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So, I reckon that before the number 6 stamp found on the Pat Boone 1, all the stamps related to non-comic items. Number 1 was probably a magazine from earlier in 1959.

Don't you find it odd though that neither of us has seen or can lay our hands on a publication with one of these missing 1-5 stamps on them? The 1959 Charltons exist - we have ample examples starting from Feb 1959 with a '2' stamp. Is it not more likely that they are the 'missing' first set of stamps, than these conspicuously absent magazines that no one has ever seen?

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Famous Monsters numbers do not tie in. What if they lagged 6 months behind cover date, not 3 as with the DCs?

They tie in with the Charltons though. Well, the two examples we have do.