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

[Get Marwood & I]

12 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

while we're here, does anyone else have any evidence that the following were or definitely were not distributed in the UK: 

TTA 62, FF 80, Nick Fury 14, Silver Surfer 10, Cap 113, 115, 116, 117 Fury 13, Doc Strange 179, 181, Tower of Shadows 4,5,6,7,8 & COTL 12,  Chamber of Darkness 3,4,5, Am Adv 1 & 2, Astonishing Tales 1 and Conan 2 and 7. 

Much appreciated. I mean....very much!!!

Anecdotal evidence maybe. You can't prove a negative, or something like that 

[Malacoda]

1 minute ago, Get Marwood & I said:

It was the 'p's I was pointing out - all the surrounding copies are pence, only #10 had no pee 

Oh. Right.  But then....dealers charging more for ND is also.....indicative....of....

[shuffles towards door]

[sound of door closing]

[Get Marwood & I]

16 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

Can't thank you enough for staying on top of this. 

Not at all. I know I get on everyone's nerves with the martialling sometimes, which can come across as me trying to have the last word, but I'm trying to keep track of what can be proven, and what is only speculation. I think that is important.

3 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

Has that actually been established?  I believe it. but do we know it?  It also sits very nicely with the anecdotal evidence (from everyone who was around then) that you often found Marvel comics, especially at holiday/seaside locations, long after their cover dates. If they were stamped US returns, it would sync up nicely. 

No, that was in the 'speculation' part of my post. But all the evidence points to it, it seems...

 

[Get Marwood & I]

2 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

6 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

It was the 'p's I was pointing out - all the surrounding copies are pence, only #10 had no pee 

Oh. Right.  But then....dealers charging more for ND is also.....indicative....of....

[shuffles towards door]

[sound of door closing]

Two! Two indications of probable ND status, Ah, ha, ha, ha, hah!

[Frisco Larson]

Snapped these pics last night.

[Malacoda]

3 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Anecdotal evidence maybe. You can't prove a negative, or something like that 

You say that, but you know if I handed you a shipping manifest from June 1969 with a note that said 'Sorry Dennis, No Nick Fury this month. Best wishes, Sol'  you would want a few minutes alone with it. 

[Albert Tatlock]

9 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

You can't prove a negative

That here are no Pythagorean triangles with 3 odd-numbered sides, is one of an infinity of negatives which can be proven.

[Get Marwood & I]

4 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

You say that, but you know if I handed you a shipping manifest from June 1969 with a note that said 'Sorry Dennis, No Nick Fury this month. Best wishes, Sol'  you would want a few minutes alone with it. 

Followed by the note on the subsequent one that said "Sorry Dennis, our distribution manager didn't get the message about Nick #13, hence that one copy that....."

[Mr Thorpe]

I was around buying comics in the late 60's/early 70's.

As I remember, when the 1/- UKPV Marvels appeared, they were sold in all branches of WH Smith and some newsagents. Newsagents were either Marvel UKPV or DC T&P (or didn't sell either). So effectively you got 'Marvel' or 'DC' newsagents, with WH Smith doing Marvels. I only bought DC's so I avoided the 'Marvel' newsagents.

That much is experience and fact, if you accept my memory is correct.

I'd therefore speculate that someone else was distributing the UKPV Marvels (remember they were Curtis by this stage) and T&P were apparently free to import unsold cent priced Marvels and they did. 

Edited May 11, 2021 by Mr Thorpe
spelling

[Get Marwood & I]

5 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

That here are no Pythagorean triangles with 3 odd-numbered sides, is one of an infinity of negatives which can be proven.

Nobody likes a smartarse Albert 

10 minutes ago, Malacoda said:

You say that, but you know if I handed you a shipping manifest from June 1969 with a note that said 'Sorry Dennis, No Nick Fury this month. Best wishes, Sol'  you would want a few minutes alone with it. 

Jesting aside, if a Nick 13 were to show up with a T&P stamp, completely against the run of expectations and extant examples, would we believe it was either;

a) A legitimately imported copy

or

b) A copy that was lumped in after the event with a later legitimate shipment

Did that make sense? 

[Malacoda]

1 minute ago, Mr Thorpe said:

I was around buying comics in the late 60's/early 70's.

As I remember, when the 1/- UKPV Marvels appeared, they were sold in all branches of WH Smith and some newsagents. Newsagents were either Marvel UKPV or DC T&P (or didn't sell either). So effectively you got 'Marvel' or 'DC' newsagents, with WH Smith doing Marvels. I only bought DC's so I avoided the 'Marvel' newsagents.

That much is experience and fact, if you accept my memory is correct.

I'd therefore speculate that someone else was distributing the UKPV Marvels (remember they were Curtis by this stage) and T&P were apparently free to import unsold cent priced Marvels and they did. 

You'd be right from July 71 onwards.  DC were still with T&P, but Marvel changed to World, so would no longer be welcome on T&P's spinner racks. 

[Albert Tatlock]

19 hours ago, Malacoda said:

I agree.  I think TTA 62, FF 80, Nick Fury 14 and Silver Surfer 10 are The Unfindables. 

Cap 113, 115, 116, 117 Fury 13, Doc Strange 179, 181, Tower of Shadows 4,5,6,7,8 & COTL 12,  Chamber of Darkness 3,4,5, Am Adv 1 & 2, Astonishing Tales 1 and Conan 2 and 7 might turn up one day, especially Fury 13 & Doc 179, but those top four are not happening. 

I don't think that we will ever be in a position to establish that absolutely none of these issues were sent back in the day, but their documented scarcity points to their not having been included in the regular distribution process. Where the few that were in circulation originated from is anyone's guess - returning tourists, PXs on USAF bases, and by the early 1970s there were a few UK based dealers importing back issues on a small scale. 

[Get Marwood & I]

3 minutes ago, Mr Thorpe said:

I'd therefore speculate that someone else was distributing the UKPV Marvels (remember they were Curtis by this stage) and T&P were apparently free to import unsold cent priced Marvels and they did. 

I like it....

[Get Marwood & I]

We're motoring today boys! 

I've got to go out now (sassenfassenrassen) but I expect all the mysteries to be solved by the time I return, so I can put them all in a table that we'll all forget about for six months then return to once we've forgotten it all again....

[Get Marwood & I]

21 minutes ago, Frisco Larson said:

Snapped these pics last night.

Thanks again Frisco!

Boys, Frisco is another old pence appreciator - give him a warm welcome 

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/29590-pre-hero-marvels/?do=findComment&comment=11784276

 

[Malacoda]

10 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Nobody likes a smartarse Albert 

Jesting aside, if a Nick 13 were to show up with a T&P stamp, completely against the run of expectations and extant examples, would we believe it was either;

a) A legitimately imported copy

or

b) A copy that was lumped in after the event with a later legitimate shipment

Did that make sense? 

I'd believe it was option B. And I'd have no trouble believing that happened.  Even now, one is always seeing 'warehouse find' and that's in these digital days. 

[Albert Tatlock]

6 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Nobody likes a smartarse Albert

Sorry, let's dumb it down a little, then,

In number theory, Fermat's Last Theorem (sometimes called Fermat's conjecture, especially in older texts) states that no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n greater than 2.

The proof is 200 pages long, so I will upload it later, after I've had my brekkie.

Seriously, though, just to find one unexpected stamped copy would mean nothing other than that particular item was in the wrong place at the wrong time, as is likely to have been the case with the recently discovered Showcase 22. Who is to say that a lone copy of TTA 62 could not have lain about unnoticed until someone chucked it in with a later shipment.

[Malacoda]

4 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Thanks again Frisco!

Boys, Frisco is another old pence appreciator - give him a warm welcome 

https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/29590-pre-hero-marvels/?do=findComment&comment=11784276

 

Presumably not Mike Pence, though.  

Hi Frisco. That's a lovely TTA.  I always enjoy the Indica. 'Vista Publications' indeed. I wonder if there's actually an exhaustive list of Martin Goodman's rabbit warren of companies. 

[Malacoda]

6 minutes ago, Albert Tatlock said:

Seriously, though, just to find one unexpected stamped copy would mean nothing other than that particular item was in the wrong place at the wrong time, as is likely to have been the case with the recently discovered Showcase 22. Who is to say that a lone copy of TTA 62 could not have lain about unnoticed until someone chucked it in with a later shipment.

I fully agree with this.  My bent is distribution and if 1 or 2 copies rocked up, it is still, to all intents and purposes non distributed. If a PV shows up, that is different as it means a few thousand must have existed. We would regard a comic that was only imported by dealers as non D and yet they might have imported hundreds of them.  Different time, but Neil Craig at Futureshock in Glasgow famously imported 1,000 copies of every issue of the Wolverine mini-series, so if you lived in Glasgow, this comic was pretty much limitlessly available, whereas some comics we know were supposedly CS distributed, it takes years to find even one example.    

[Garystar]

4 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

@Garystar - does that look right? Our only unknown is to what extent the T&P stamped copies extend beyond the 1971 examples you plotted

It looks right if you are saying this is generally the pattern because as we have seen there is phasing during cover months e.g. Nov 64, Aug 65, Nov 67 some titles are UKPV some are stamped.

I believe there are no T&P stamps post July 71, there are certainly none from Nov 71 onwards (cover dates).