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

[Get Marwood & I]

8 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Library of Congress in this instance,

House ad, I mean. Typed the wrong thing

[Mr Thorpe]

Some Albert and Robot 'duplicates' and a few new ones. I'll try and get to my Mystery and War comics over the weekend to see if I can fill any more gaps.

[Get Marwood & I]

9 hours ago, Mr Thorpe said:

Some Albert and Robot 'duplicates' and a few new ones. I'll try and get to my Mystery and War comics over the weekend to see if I can fill any more gaps.

Thanks Mr T.  Those Wonder Womans are hard to find online - nice to see copies at last. Some more War would be nice, yes.

Romance is a disaster, currently - I didn't even bother with a list. Seems no chicks collected back in the day. I'll do a full 'missing list' soon, but here are some high profile ones which should exist:

• Adventures of Bob Hope #57
• All American Men of War #83, 85, 87
• Blackhawk #150, 153, 159
• GI Combat #79, 81, 86, 87, 88, 89
• Green Lantern #5
• House of Mystery #94, 95, 101, 102, 106, 108, 114, 116
• House of Secrets #29, 42, 47, 50
• Our Army at War #94, 99, 103, 105, 107, 108, 112
• Our Fighting Forces #55, 56, 59, 62, 63
• Pat Boone #3
• Showcase #26
• Star Spangled War Stories #91, 96, 98
• Strange Adventures #116, 118, 119, 124
• Sugar & Spike #29
• Jimmy Olsen #42
• Tales of The Unexpected #52, 58, 61, 68
• Tomahawk #70, 72, 73, 75

[Get Marwood & I]

Only Jimmy #42 needed for the stamped set:

[yrag9591]

[yrag9591]

[yrag9591]

[yrag9591]

[yrag9591]

Hi Marwood. Hope the above are useful. My copies of the other issues you need are all without T&P stamps.

You mention you need Adventures of Bob Hope 57. Is that a mistake? That issue is about mid-1959.

I may have some of the romance covers you need, if you want to list them.

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, yrag9591 said:

Hi Marwood. Hope the above are useful. My copies of the other issues you need are all without T&P stamps.

You mention you need Adventures of Bob Hope 57. Is that a mistake? That issue is about mid-1959.

I may have some of the romance covers you need, if you want to list them.

Oh, they're just fantastic Gary, thank you mate for posting all them 

That Pat Boone #3 is a beauty.

I'll start adding them to the table now, and then post am update. Brilliant...

[Get Marwood & I]

Busy, busy 

Here is the updated cover sheet, showing the current earliest stamped copies for each of the 56 titles that exist on the first four stamping cycles (click to enlarge):

Still only three titles now without a confirmed stamped copy:

• Flippity & Flop
• Dobie Gillis
• Peter Porkchops

I wonder if any examples will ever turn up, given their relative obscurity? Maybe they will if we can have The Three Mouseketeers and Rex the Wonder Dog 

With you guys help, I've plotted 1,845 examples across the four cycles and they now present as follows (you might have to save them to your computer to zoom in on the detail - it's impossible to plot each cycle on one page now without minimising the text to the point that you can't read it without magnification):

The consistency shines through now so we can say with near certainty that the DC comics came over in sequential batches, and were broadly stamped in line with their cover dates. The second, third and fourth complete cycles all cover 8 sequential months by majority cover date:

• 1st 1-9:    November 1959 to January 1960 (not a full number usage)
• 2nd 1-9:   February 1960 to September 1960 (8 months)
• 3rd 1-9:    October 1960 to May 1961 (8 months)
• 4th 1-9:    June 1961 to January 1962 (8 months)

I like it when that sort of consistency manifests - it means you're on the right track.

It's interesting how some months have considerable less titles than others and how some months have no majority slot (e.g. no July 1960 majority slot but two March and two May slots for that year).

And look at the consistency in this slot:

A lean month, but every book in it is cover dated June.

Regarding my 'what's missing' chart yesterday, I've rejigged it to this:

Once complete, we can use that to help us to look for any issues which could / should have stamped copies within the first four cycles. I know that some books have bi-monthly indicias, and that the on sale dates will have a bearing, but for now I'm going to work with any October 1959 cover dated comic as potentially being in scope given the handful we have confirmed. At the end of the fourth cycle, the 9 stamped books are dated either January or February 1962 so I've used the latter as the cut off point.

We seem to be doing well between us with most genres, but the romance ones aren't looking too good. There just isn't enough love in the world is there!

Anyway, a big thanks to all the image contributors to date - I'll carry on plotting, tabling and searching for the missing books. Given how haphazard you might expect this operation to have been back in the day, in its fledgling state, and given its reliance on unsold copies being returned and redirected, it's quite remarkable how many of the in scope books exist / made it over. Wouldn't it be a thing if we could find a copy for every single one...

[yrag9591]

The ‘what’s missing’ chart only goes down to House of Secrets (as far as I can see).

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, yrag9591 said:

The ‘what’s missing’ chart only goes down to House of Secrets (as far as I can see).

I haven't finished it yet Gary, give us a chance 

[Malacoda]

On 5/5/2021 at 4:13 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

I am still wondering why T & P, who were well aware which titles sold well and which did not (and so did DC), were happy to start with the less popular titles.

I must be missing something here.  Surely, if we know DC were sending returns, it’s axiomatic that it was the less successful titles, inherently the US returns, that were getting sent over here.  
Also I don’t think Fred was choosy to start with.  He’d been ganting to get his hands on any kind of American publication since the war: magazines, books, pulps, anything American. He started importing leftover newspaper supplements, then imported the  printing matrices to reproduce them,  then moved onto comics, pulp magazines, Classics Illustrated, Bible stories, Horror comics, Esquire and other girly mags, anything American.  Even before the ban on fiction was lifted he started importing American non-fiction to get the shipping lines established.  And when the ban lifted he was straight in there.  
So when he called DC and said ‘I’ll take anything as long as it’s cheap’ they must have looked at the warehouse full of returns and thought it was Christmas. 
 

[Albert Tatlock]

40 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

I must be missing something here.  Surely, if we know DC were sending returns, it’s axiomatic that it was the less successful titles, inherently the US returns, that were getting sent over here.  
Also I don’t think Fred was choosy to start with.  He’d been ganting to get his hands on any kind of American publication since the war: magazines, books, pulps, anything American. He started importing leftover newspaper supplements, then imported the  printing matrices to reproduce them,  then moved onto comics, pulp magazines, Classics Illustrated, Bible stories, Horror comics, Esquire and other girly mags, anything American.  Even before the ban on fiction was lifted he started importing American non-fiction to get the shipping lines established.  And when the ban lifted he was straight in there.  
So when he called DC and said ‘I’ll take anything as long as it’s cheap’ they must have looked at the warehouse full of returns and thought it was Christmas. 
 

The unsold US items, though, would have been proportional to the print run. Looking back at the published sales information, 50% unsold was not uncommon, and would have been found across a range of titles, so if DC sent a random selection, the UK comic racks of the time would have reflected that. The low numbers of certain titles surviving here could be a consequence of low sales at the time. More Superman and Batman, less Tomahawk and Wonder Woman.

Edited May 6, 2021 by Albert Tatlock
add 1 word

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Get Marwood & I said:

3 hours ago, yrag9591 said:

The ‘what’s missing’ chart only goes down to House of Secrets (as far as I can see).

I haven't finished it yet Gary, give us a chance 

I'll have to finish it over the weekend Gary - on the road tomorrow... 

[yrag9591]

2 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

I haven't finished it yet Gary, give us a chance 

Sorry, I thought the chart might just have been cut off. I will be patient!

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, yrag9591 said:

Sorry, I thought the chart might just have been cut off. I will be patient!

Bloody things take forever 

[David Buck]

only found one in my boxes so far 

All Star Western 113

[Get Marwood & I]

1,500 posts! 

I definately (H) need to change the title 

On 5/6/2021 at 11:37 AM, yrag9591 said:

Hi Marwood. Hope the above are useful. My copies of the other issues you need are all without T&P stamps.

You mention you need Adventures of Bob Hope 57. Is that a mistake? That issue is about mid-1959.

I may have some of the romance covers you need, if you want to list them.

Sorry Gary, I missed this post - yes, Bob 57 was a typo.

Here's the complete 'missing list' with all 56 eligible titles present:

 

Let me know if you spot any errors, or of course if you have any of the missing stamped copies (more romance would be brilliant)

As the table suggests, I have included cover dates beginning October 1959 as we have several of those in existence but I accept that, for reasons of dual month indicias and 'on sale' dates that many of these may have missed the original cut off and will therefore never materialise.

Only The Three Mouseketeers has a September 59 cover dated example, but that may be the only one.

Titles like Superman, Superboy, Action and Adventure may of course be 'complete' if their October 59 cover dated issues didn't make it. I've been looking on and off for some of those for many years - long before I started this thread / exercise - so the possibility of them turning up may be small.

As Morlar used to say, "We shall see"