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

[Malacoda]

On 5/18/2024 at 8:48 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Only five Marvel annual UKPVs.... only five DC early UKPVs.... 

I think you've gone a bit grassy knoll there, Oliver.  

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/18/2024 at 10:25 PM, Malacoda said:

I think you've gone a bit grassy knoll there, Oliver.  

Depends which way you read it, Oswald.

[Malacoda]

On 5/18/2024 at 6:48 PM, OtherEric said:

My memories aren't going to be great, because from 1979 to 1983 my family lived in Germany as my dad was working for Boeing on the NATO AWACS program.  I know I actually noticed the issues were dated way ahead of time before we moved, and asking my parents about it.  The best they could do was the "look newer" excuse.  But most of my comics in that era were from Whitman three packs, and the only ones I still have are my Star Wars issues, which I never bought a new issue off the stands until very near the end of the run.  We got 4-18 from the Whitman bags, and I got a subscription starting with issue #21.  I actually stopped collecting for a couple years when I got back from Germany, so the first issue I bought off the stands was #104, at which point I had recently discovered comic book stores. 

The trick that worked for quite a while was hitting the newsstands if you missed a book at the LCS, that Star Wars #104 was already relegated to the back issue bins but I could find it at the 7/11.  More generally, most stores would not have multiple issues out at the same time, not even the comic shops.  But there was at least one exception, YNOT Magazines, which was the only store I know that got books both Direct Market and Newsstand distribution, in a weird combination I never did figure out.  They would keep books on the shelves for ages, even newsstand copies.  (They're long gone, but my current LCS is actually in the same strip mall they were in.)  It's also worth noting that the change-out of books was always very haphazard: while most stores would never deliberately keep multiple months on sale, you could almost always find one or two issues that had been missed when they pulled old books.

Oh, one other note that seems at least worth mentioning:  The newsstand books were roughly 2 1/2 to 3 weeks behind the direct market.  So if a book got hot in a hurry, everybody would rush to the newsstand a week later to see if they could snag it.  One of my only attempts at flipping a book... and I think I got $15 or so for the issues I found... was the Death of Robin phone-in event.  I know I got at least two or three extras by hitting the newsstand once word was out the book was hot.

Thanks Eric.  Where & when in the US were you at this point?  If you were in Germany til 83 and gave up collecting for 2 years, then we're in the mid to late 80's? Interesting that direct was only 3 weeks behind direct, but then if we're well into the 80's, we're getting to the point where direct is the larger piece of the market. 

 

[Malacoda]

On 5/18/2024 at 8:15 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

So ASM annual #2 moves out of the hiatus window and into UKPV production territory.

Indeed it does, but that's absolutely begging the question, isn't it?  In 1963, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1969 and 1970, the annuals were also in UKPV production territory and yet the annuals were not PV's, they were all cents stampies, so why were the only pence variants in 1965?  As is demonstrated by 1965, they could have been PV's all along, but they weren't, T&P preferred to stamp them, even when they had PV's of the monthlies being minted every month.  Why? And more particularly, why was 1965 different?

Can we agree that the on-sale dates with annuals probably somewhat belie the production schedule?  By which I mean that the annuals must have taken longer to produce as they were twice the size, twice the material, included posters and extras, were squarebound so could not be collated in the normal way, and had to be produced alongside the monthlies without impacting the schedule, so I would suggest that work on the annuals began relatively early.  To be specific, if normal comics were assembled 3 months ahead of the on-sale date, then annuals must have been scheduled ahead of this. 

The point I would then make is that the moment when T&P had to place their order for the annuals would be considerably earlier than May.    

Which means that the moment where they chose to have PV's would certainly have been during the hiatus.  

(all this is only tangentially relevant to FF#80 btw, but it was something else I had a note on to investigate if I ever got back to FF #80).  

This could be wrong. It could have been that T&P could have called at the last minute and Marvel could have called ECP, but it doesn't feel like that.  Given that we now know that comics were assembled 3 months before the on sale date, that must have been to get everything assembled for the print run.  It wouldn't make sense to kill yourself getting everything assembled 3 months early just to stick it in a drawer for 10 weeks before sending it to the printers.  

 

 

[OtherEric]

On 5/18/2024 at 2:45 PM, Malacoda said:

Thanks Eric.  Where & when in the US were you at this point?  If you were in Germany til 83 and gave up collecting for 2 years, then we're in the mid to late 80's? Interesting that direct was only 3 weeks behind direct, but then if we're well into the 80's, we're getting to the point where direct is the larger piece of the market. 

 

I was in the Seattle area.  It was around 1985-86 that I got back into collecting.  It wasn't so much that I had stopped consciously as I didn't know what to look for... I didn't know comic shops existed, I was months behind on Star Wars (We knew we were moving back to the US within the year, so my parents didn't renew my subscription), Micky Maus and Yps weren't available in the US, so I didn't really have a project to continue with at that point.

One thing I do recall that might be related to where I was:  The first few years I was collecting, new comic day at the comic shops was Friday, not Wednesday.  Not sure if that was shipping delay to the area or not, I do remember it being a fairly big deal when it moved to Wednesday.  Newsstands were always far more random on new book day.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/19/2024 at 12:41 AM, Malacoda said:

Which means that the moment where they chose to have PV's would certainly have been during the hiatus. 

It couldn't be any other way, Rich?

Sorry mate, but I don't really understand what you're trying to say or the significance of it. Look at my earlier post. Everything in it is fact driven. Cover dates, arrival dates, plotting, clear conclusions. Your previous post made me realise that I had plotted the ASM annual wrongly all those years ago. So I reassess, move it to its rightful position, and the extant examples back it up. It shows us that the ASM annual was on sale at the same time as the first ongoing ASM UKPV issue, after the UKPV resumption. So it makes sense that it was included.

T&P could only request the recommencement of UKPVs during the preceding hiatus by definition, so I don't know what point you're trying to make or prove. What we can prove is T&P originally solicited UKPVs from cover date May 1960 and decided against annuals, just as they decided against not taking all the Marvel titles in production (whereas Miller took every Charlton title as a UKPV in his UKPV window). Then we have a Marvel UKPV hiatus during which we see stamped cents copies, including the first round of Marvel annuals. When T&P decide to recommence printed UKPVs they try their hand with 5 of the annuals which were in production alongside those regular ongoing issues. The lead in time to the production of those annuals has no bearing on when and whether T&P solicited them. The US versions were being made regardless, and the T&P request could have come at any point prior to them being printed. One call, one plate change. The call could have gone like this:

• "Hello Marvel. Can we restart UKPVs please? We want them as 10d this time. I've got a title list, starting with Spider-Man"
• "Sure, Thorpe. Issue 27 has already been printed so the first ASM we can do will be issue 28, OK?"
• "Yep, fine"
• "We have an annual prepared too. Want that as well?"
• "Well, the stamped ones didn't sell too well. Maybe we could try a few and see...."

For reasons we don't know, T&P decided against annuals the next year. Maybe cost had a bearing. We'll never know for sure.

So, Rich, tell me clearly what your 1965 Annuals thing is please. Just hit me with it in one sentence.

 

[Malacoda]

As you say, we'll never know, I'm not offering proof, just throwing an idea out, and I'm not sure I can do this in one sentence, but while I'm putting it together, let me add another question to the mix:  why are the 1965 annuals all stamped despite being UKPV's?  It can't be that Ethel accidentally stamped a few - they're all stamped, and they're all stamped with the 1/6 stamp, so clearly not an error.  

 

Edited May 19 by Malacoda

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/19/2024 at 2:15 PM, Malacoda said:

It can't be that Ethel accidentally stamped a few - they're all stamped, and they're all stamped with the 1/6 stamp, so clearly not an error. 

It could be one operational error. The annuals may have all been placed on the wrong pile, so all got stamped. One error causes the whole batch to be stamped instead of them passing through the 'no need to stamp as already UK priced' operational swim lane. The ASM #2 Annual UKPVs would have arrived in one delivery. Ditto the other four titles. They go into the wrong queue, as the staff are used to annuals not having UKPVs, and are used to stamping them. The printed cover price is tiny, no one is interested enough to notice. They just stamp what is in front of them. One mistake, repeated 5 times (or less, if some titles arrived together) in a short window, results in every book being needlessly stamped in error.

Sticking a 9d sticker over a 6d printed price is explainable. Stamping a comic at 1/6 when it is already priced 1/6 can't be anything other than an operational oversight. Unless you can think of an operational / sales advantage garnered by doing so?

[Malacoda]

On 5/19/2024 at 2:31 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

The annuals may have all been placed on the wrong pile, so all got stamped. One error causes the whole batch to be stamped

Could be, but it does make me think about the joke about the guy who goes to the opera: he's so into it that he leans out too far and falls out of the box into the orchestra pit.   Rather than admit his mistake, he goes back every night and falls out of the box at the exact same moment. 

On 5/19/2024 at 2:31 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

The ASM #2 Annual UKPVs would have arrived in one delivery. Ditto the other four titles

There's a problem there, though, isn't there?  ASM & JIM would have rocked up in June,  FF & Sgt Fury in July and Marvel Tales in August, so they would have had to have kept the mistake going for 3 straight months.  

On 5/19/2024 at 2:31 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Unless you can think of an operational / sales advantage garnered by doing so?

I'm about to take a swing at it.  I don't think you'll be convinced, but I'm just conjecturing. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/19/2024 at 2:40 PM, Malacoda said:

Could be, but it does make me think about the joke about the guy who goes to the opera: he's so into it that he leans out too far and falls out of the box into the orchestra pit.   Rather than admit his mistake, he goes back every night and falls out of the box at the exact same moment. 

Painful lesson that. Opera's awful. 

On 5/19/2024 at 2:40 PM, Malacoda said:

There's a problem there, though, isn't there?  ASM & JIM would have rocked up in June,  FF & Sgt Fury in July and Marvel Tales in August, so they would have had to have kept the mistake going for 3 straight months.  

You're saying humans can't repeat the same mistakes? 

On 5/19/2024 at 2:40 PM, Malacoda said:

I'm about to take a swing at it.  I don't think you'll be convinced, but I'm just conjecturing. 

I might be. Depends what you've got to conject 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/19/2024 at 2:40 PM, Malacoda said:

There's a problem there, though, isn't there?  ASM & JIM would have rocked up in June,  FF & Sgt Fury in July and Marvel Tales in August, so they would have had to have kept the mistake going for 3 straight months.  

Three of the five could have arrived in the same UK shipment:

  

[Malacoda]

On 5/19/2024 at 1:25 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

T&P could only request the recommencement of UKPVs during the preceding hiatus by definition

Well, yes and no.  According to Mike, the annuals came out on 1st June (ASM, JIM), July 1st (FF & SF) and 3rd August (MT).  This actually coincides with the return to PV’s:   JIM 119, TGK 77, DD 9, Kid Colt 124 and TTA 71 were all released on the same day as the first 2 annuals, so yes, by definition the request would have to have been made during the hiatus, but if PV’s restarted from June 1st and none of the annuals precede that date, then arguably, it might have been possible to flip the annuals back to being cents stamps.  You make this point - it would have just been a phone call and could have been done at any point and just needed a plate flip.

I don’t think that happened.  As I said, I think the annuals would HAVE to have been in the schedule well ahead of time because: they took longer to produce, were twice the size, twice the material, included posters and extras, were squarebound so could not be collated in the normal way, and had to be produced alongside the monthlies without impacting the schedule, so I would suggest that work on the annuals began relatively early and probably T&P had their order in for the annuals long before the order for the 1st June released monthlies I named above. 

But if I’m agreeing with you on key points, then what am I banging on about? 

OK, so I think that T&P chose to keep the annuals (every year) priced (physically priced, not pricing level i.e. PV vs stamp) by two different methods.  This may have been initially because they weren’t sure how much to charge for annuals and were keeping their options open or, in my opinion, more likely to avoid confusion with the cheaper priced monthlies.  UK annuals were big hardback affairs completely different to the weekly UK comics, summer specials were like big broadsheet versions of the weekly comics.  By contrast, the American annuals, same height, same width, same design, sitting in the same spinner rack, could easily be confused for a regular comic and charged at 9d or 10d by a busy newsagent.  Having an unchargeable US price on it prompted the newsagent to look for a UK price, if he hadn’t already seen the massive stamp Ethel’d onto the cover. 

In 1963 and 1964, this meant stamping them to differentiate from PV monthlies.  However, in the spring of 1965, the monthlies were being stamped, so the way to differentiate them had to be PV.  So that’s what they ordered.  
However, sometime around April, it became clear to T&P that the ‘temporary’ tax causing the 10d price wasn’t going away any time soon and they might as well go back to PV’s.  More likely, there had been long enough for the cost-benefit of the 10d price point (lost sales vs increased revenue/profit margin) to be clear and they decided to stick at 10d.  
This left them with a big (pre-paid?) (already printed?) order for PV annuals. Should they cancel and go back to stamps?  Well, there’s actually zero benefit whatsoever in cancelling the order.  If you’re going to stamp them all to make the price super clear,  you’re better off the with UK price on it twice.  There’s no benefit in cancelling the PV and getting cents copies to stamp….it’s exactly the same amount of stamping to achieve less result.

This is just a thought experiment really, but it does explain: 
(a)    Why there were PV annuals
(b)    Why they coincide with the first hiatus
(c)    Why there were only PV annuals this one year
(d)    Why they were all stamped when they already had UK prices on them. 

Like I say, I'm not wedded to this.  It's just a thought. 

Edited May 19 by Malacoda

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

I don’t think that happened.  As I said, I think the annuals would HAVE to have been in the schedule well ahead of time because: they took longer to produce, were twice the size, twice the material, included posters and extras, were squarebound so could not be collated in the normal way, and had to be produced alongside the monthlies without impacting the schedule, so I would suggest that work on the annuals began relatively early and probably T&P had their order in for the annuals long before the order for the 1st June released monthlies I named above. 

But Rich, as I said before, all this work was in train already for the US bound copies. The UKPVs added 3-5% volume. I can't see T&P having to make a UKPV solicitation decision on those annuals any earlier than they would have for those first, post hiatus regular size titles. A plate change and an extra 5% volume was peanuts to the printers - you've said yourself that they were pumping out millions of comics each week. I understand that it may (and I stress may) have taken longer to conceive the content for the annuals, but the printers would have rattled them off in their sleep. How does the timing of T&Ps UKPV solicitation have any bearing on the lead in production time for the issue content?

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

This left them with a big (pre-paid?) (already printed?) order for PV annuals. Should they cancel and go back to stamps?  Well, there’s actually zero benefit whatsoever in cancelling the order.  If you’re going to stamp them all to make the price super clear,  you’re better off the with UK price on it twice.  There’s no benefit in cancelling the PV and getting cents copies to stamp….it’s exactly the same amount of stamping to achieve less result.

Eh? Even if you're right, and T&P decided, having ordered them, not to cancel the UKPV annual order and flip back to cents for stamping, why bother stamping them? T&P would have had operational processing queues for UKPVs which didn't require stamps and cents copies that did. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying that T&P knowingly stamped the UKPV annuals. Why would they do that, if they had separate existing processing queues? 

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

This is just a thought experiment really, but it does explain: 
(a)    Why there were PV annuals
(b)    Why they coincide with the first hiatus
(c)    Why there were only PV annuals this one year
(d)    Why they were all stamped when they already had UK prices on them. 

My earlier theory also explains everything. There weren't UKPV annuals originally, because they didn't want them, just as they didn't want the regular titles that weren't taken. Issue quotas / restrictions, costs, whatever. When the hiatus is coming to an end, they decide to give them a go as some of the earlier stamped ones sold. They start with five. They go through the wrong processing queue and get stamped (looks like they arrived in two deliveries, only two headline mistakes which I gave a plausible explanation for). When the next round of annuals fall due, they decide they don't want them. 

[Get Marwood & I]

 

I'm really struggling with this paragraph Rich:

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

This left them with a big (pre-paid?) (already printed?) order for PV annuals. Should they cancel and go back to stamps?  

If there's no penalty, sure, why not. Are cents cheaper than UKPVs? Yes? Well cancel then.

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

Well, there’s actually zero benefit whatsoever in cancelling the order.  

Oh, isn't there? Why? 

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

If you’re going to stamp them all to make the price super clear,  

Eh? It's clear enough. Miller's 9d couldn't be any smaller if it tried, and sellers and buyers coped.

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

you’re better off the with UK price on it twice.

Not if you have to pay someone to stamp them all.

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

 There’s no benefit in cancelling the PV and getting cents copies to stamp

There is if they're cheaper, and there's no cancellation penalty.

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

….it’s exactly the same amount of stamping

Not if you don't stamp them it isn't

On 5/19/2024 at 3:58 PM, Malacoda said:

to achieve less result.

Eh? 

[Malacoda]

On 5/19/2024 at 6:32 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I can't see T&P having to make a UKPV solicitation decision on those annuals any earlier than they would have for those first, post hiatus regular size titles.

If they were scheduled earlier (at each point in the production) schedule, then whatever point T&P confirm the order would inherently come sooner.  Also, I suspect that the order for the regular size titles was exactly that....regular....whereas the annuals.....once per year, different size, different cost.....were surely a conversation? 

[Malacoda]

On 5/19/2024 at 6:32 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

A plate change and an extra 5% volume was peanuts to the printers - you've said yourself that they were pumping out millions of comics each week.

I do agree with this point, however: 

1) You're thinking of WCP where they cranked out literally 40k comics per hour.  At this point, Marvel were printed at ECP, who were phasing out the comic business and using way inferior, slower, older presses (this is why you get Marvel chipping). 

2) The annuals would be a special job because they're squarebound, so rather than the innards being stapled to the cover, the innards are stapled and the cover is glued on at the spine. It's slower, messier and you can't do it in the normal print run.  At T&P this was done by hand!

Nonetheless, I agree it was their bread and butter, but ECP was not WCP and squarebound is not regular. 

[Malacoda]

On 5/19/2024 at 6:32 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I understand that it may (and I stress may) have taken longer to conceive the content for the annuals,

It may have taken longer to produce 72 pages of content than 32 pages?  OK, I'm game.  Talk us through the scenario where it takes less time 

[Malacoda]

On 5/19/2024 at 6:32 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

How does the timing of T&Ps UKPV solicitation have any bearing on the lead in production time for the issue content?

It doesn't.  It's the other way.  The production schedule for the issue content (well, the finished article) prompts the question 'how many of these jumbo sized, squarebound, twice-the-price johnnies are you going to want?'

[Malacoda]

On 5/19/2024 at 6:32 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Eh? Even if you're right, and T&P decided, having ordered them, not to cancel the UKPV annual order and flip back to cents for stamping, why bother stamping them?

To make it clear to newsagents, with a dirty big stamp, rather than tiny numbers (and they actually were oddly small) that the price of this one was not the regular price they had got used to charging spotty herberts the last 10,000 times they sold one of these.  Can I take it we agree that the stamp is more noticeable....?

 

We've actually seen exactly this the other way round......when World couldn't get their heads round the 8p price of the 71'ers and stuck 6p stickers over the correct price.  And they were the distributor, never mind the newsagent. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/19/2024 at 6:59 PM, Malacoda said:

It may have taken longer to produce 72 pages of content than 32 pages?  OK, I'm game.  Talk us through the scenario where it takes less time 

You have more people work on it, consecutively.