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

[themagicrobot]

Dich Turpin appeared in umpteen issues of Thriller Picture Library. All the covers were different. Dunno about the interiors. And Gold Key did a Dich Turpin too!!

[themagicrobot]

QUIZ  Can anyone name all or any one of these three (four??) comics??

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/23/2024 at 6:39 PM, themagicrobot said:

QUIZ  Can anyone name all or any one of these three (four??) comics??

                                                                                                                                       

[Albert Tatlock]

On 3/23/2024 at 1:35 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Philip K Van Dyke

Surprised to get Dyke through.

[themagicrobot]

I’ll have to make it harder next time

[CGC Mike]

On 3/23/2024 at 12:52 PM, OtherEric said:

I actually asked @CGC Mike to remove the name from the censor filter a while ago, because of all the appropriate uses available.  He did.  Within about three days, it was back on the list.  I'm not sure if he was the one who switched it back or not, but I assume it's just something that is too open to abuse by people.

Hm  I didn't switch it back.  Let me check into this.

[Kevin.J]

 when I first seen Mike post here, I thought we were gonna get told off for all our Philip Kaying around  

 

[themagicrobot]

House of Mystery 173 contains a Statement of Ownership statement. The average print run was stated to be 306,000. An average number of 157,000 reached circulation. How many of those would be returns that would end up in the UK at Thorpe & Porter? An average number of 147,000 are classed as Office Use/Left Over/Unaccounted for/Spoiled after Printing. How many of those (if any) would end up in the UK at Thorpe and Porter? I've pondered this question before, but what did they do with half the print run (of this title and many others) that they never ever distributed in the US?? And as they had these figures why did they continue to print 300,000 of each issue if they didn't intend to distribute 300,000??

And for a single issue nearest to the Statement of Ownership filing date House of Mystery had 600 subscribers. For the previous four years the comic had featured the superhero J'onn J'onzz and for two years Robby Reed with his "H" Hero Dial. Those 600 subscribers would be caught by surprise with issue 174. Gone were the fantasy/science-fiction/superhero stuff and overnight it became a Horror comic. Perhaps the stories weren't quite as gruesome as back in the 1950s, but for such an abrupt change why didn't they bother to mention it in No 173s letters page??? 

[OtherEric]

Give that George Kashdan edited #173 and Joe Orlando edited #174, I can think of several reasons starting with annoyance, continuing with not caring, and ending with not even knowing it was going to happen.

[themagicrobot]

Did they keep the numbering going just for the Second Class Postage and the 600 subscribers (who might not have liked the new format anyway)? I would have started the new horror HOM at number one. But numbering with comics can be bonkers (usually Charltons) even Marvels sometimes.

For example, I came across this comic, which may not have been distributed here, which I might have purchased at a London Comic Mart when it was new. According to the GCD there were only 4 issues. So how come this says number 6?? It seems the small print says Marvel Adventures while the first two issues say Marvel Adventure?!? All six issues say Marvel Adventure on the cover however. And Marvel Adventure seems a good title for a series that they let go to waste.

PS: It's interesting how they play around with the original cover artwork on the reprint. Thinking about it, they were reprinting something that was barely nine years old. That's like yesterday to me nowadays ?!?

Edited March 25 by themagicrobot

[OtherEric]

The GCD is, in my opinion, far too eager to declare books separate titles based on trivial distinctions.

And House of Mystery was originally more of a horror book, it was arguably reverting to the norm.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 3/25/2024 at 5:25 PM, themagicrobot said:

nd as they had these figures why did they continue to print 300,000 of each issue if they didn't intend to distribute 300,000??

Could DC have been booking machine time simply to deny it to the competition?

[Albert Tatlock]

On 3/25/2024 at 5:25 PM, themagicrobot said:

House of Mystery 173 contains a Statement of Ownership statement. The average print run was stated to be 306,000. An average number of 157,000 reached circulation. How many of those would be returns that would end up in the UK at Thorpe & Porter? An average number of 147,000 are classed as Office Use/Left Over/Unaccounted for/Spoiled after Printing. How many of those (if any) would end up in the UK at Thorpe and Porter? I've pondered this question before, but what did they do with half the print run (of this title and many others) that they never ever distributed in the US?? And as they had these figures why did they continue to print 300,000 of each issue if they didn't intend to distribute 300,000??

But does 'Left Over' include returns?

Would DC not have made every effort to distribute as close to 100% of the print run as possible?

Could be that of  100 copies which were sent out into the distribution network, 50 were sold, and eventually paid for, and 50 were eventually returned, some of them destined for T & P, maybe only 10 or so, which would equate to .30,000 mags.

Say T & P had a similar sell-through rate, that would mean that they took back 15,000 copies.

If so, they must have been stacking up in Leicester faster than they could be disposed of.

Before too long, most of T & P's holdings would have been deadstock.

After recirculating some of it at reduced prices, there would have been no realistic alternative to selling it to a waste paper merchant.

And similarly back at DC's HQ.

That is how I read it.

[Malacoda]

On 3/25/2024 at 5:25 PM, themagicrobot said:

An average number of 147,000 are classed as Office Use/Left Over/Unaccounted for/Spoiled after Printing. How many of those (if any) would end up in the UK at Thorpe and Porter? I've pondered this question before, but what did they do with half the print run (of this title and many others) that they never ever distributed in the US?? And as they had these figures why did they continue to print 300,000 of each issue if they didn't intend to distribute 300,000??

This is indeed a really key question.  I assume 'left over' includes returns which we believe to be the stock re-cycled to T&P which may have made it onto US newsstands, but perhaps more likely never made it past the wholesalers warehouses. 

Outside of comics, there is a strong logic to the overprinting of magazines and periodicals that goes like this:  the magazines are created by the publishers, printed by the printers (at cost to the publishers), first distribution to the wholesalers is directly from the printers (so again, no cost to the distributor), then returns are sent back to the wholesalers who signs the affidavit as to how many were unsold and (supposedly) destroys the leftovers / sends them to pulpers or sends them back to the publisher at the publisher's expense.  

The strangely counter intuitive thing is that distributors don't distribute. At no point are the magazines in their hands.  They are more like distribution-financers who make (effectively) bridging loans to the publishers enabling them to keep the presses turning while most of their capital would otherwise be tied up in paper across every newsstand in the country.  

For this reason, it was massively in the interests of the distributors to demand over-production because they had absolutely nothing to lose. The extra copies printed cost them nothing, nor the distribution, nor the destruction (or return) of all the unsold copies. The only thing that could potentially cost them was if there weren't enough copies of a popular title and it sold out. So their deal with the publishers was exactly the deal you'd make if you were in that position.  

However, the distribution of comic books was, in most cases, a strange exception to this.  The publishers self-distributed.  IND distributed DC. Capital distributed Charlton.  Dell financed and distributed comics created by Western, but Western created those comics at Dell's behest for them to distribute.  We tend to focus on the points where Marvel were distributed by ANC and IND, but they were self-distributed by Atlas, by Curtis and by Heroes World for much longer. 

This makes the whole question a lot more mysterious.  I can see a separate, unconnected distributor putting the screws to a publisher, but do we think that Harry Donenfeld spent years creating massive losses at DC to show a notional profit at IND? It would absolutely defeat the entire object of self distribution. 

There is some logic to printing these vast numbers of never-to-be-sold comics that we've never discovered.  Whilst we suspect that the post office data is not reliable, we know from many sources that vast amounts of comics were printed and not sold.  It would be a remarkable coincidence if all of the publishers were making up fictional numbers (as Dick Giordano suggested re Charlton) and all choosing to fictionalise massive quantities of distressed inventory and wasted stock which seems to be  consistent between all publishers.  I don't believe that. I think what Giordano meant was that they used wildly inaccurate estimates but based on actual business reality.  

[Malacoda]

On 3/25/2024 at 9:17 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Could DC have been booking machine time simply to deny it to the competition?

That's a nice idea, but no.  They were at different printers at different times, and by the time most of them were at Sparta, WCP had presses capable of knocking out the entire print run in days.  ( To put numbers to that, if DC wanted 300,000 copies of 30 titles per month, that would be 9m comics in one go.  WCP could have knocked that out on one single press in the space of 9 days....and they had an aircraft hangar full of printing presses). 

To another point, it was possible for a larger publisher with a powerful distributor to crowd a smaller publisher off the newsstand racks, which is what Marvel did to Warren and Skywald once they had Curtis, but that's the number of titles not the amount of copies. 

 

Edited March 26 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

On 3/25/2024 at 6:38 PM, themagicrobot said:

It seems the small print says Marvel Adventures while the first two issues say Marvel Adventure?!?

By small print, do you mean the indicia? Interesting. There were definitely, as you say, 6 issues - all without PV's and all ND in the UK. Helpfully, someone in Barnet is flogging all six even as we speak.  

[Malacoda]

Just while I'm posting, another of these head-scratchers...

[OtherEric]

On 3/25/2024 at 4:21 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

But does 'Left Over' include returns?

 

Left Over has to include returns.  Everything I've heard about the sales at that point suggest sell-through was normally around 50% for comics on the newsstand.

I do NOT know if the returns shipped overseas ultimately landed in the returns column or the sales column of the report, I'm inclined to guess they're counted as returns but I suppose they could add them to the sales count last minute.

[OtherEric]

Just posted this in another thread, and noticed the dual pricing.  5/- seems pricey for a book that was 50c in the US.

[themagicrobot]

5/- for a copy of Analog in 1966 seems daylight robbery. In 1963 they cost a mere 2/6d. I guess, as SF readers were older, they thought they could get away with it. When Analog increased to 60¢ we were charged 6/-. If a 25¢ Wonder Woman could be sold here for 7½p a 50¢ magazine ought to have been 15p or 3/-