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

[baggsey]

On 6/30/2020 at 5:45 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Sorry to hear that Gary. He left his mark on the hobby though - must have been cool working on that. 

Alan Austin wrote a book on his experiences as the UK's first full-time American Comic Dealer, which is well worth reading. It was published posthumously recently. Search for "Comics Unlimited: My life as a Comic Collector and Dealer" on Amazon. More info on the background to the book at https://superstuff73.blogspot.com/2021/06/announcing-publication-of-alan-austins.html  

[baggsey]

On 9/15/2021 at 3:21 PM, David Buck said:

apologies if I am repeating something that I found on here in the first place but I think it was actually an amazon recommendation instead where I learned of it., Alan Austin's memoir - a bargain at 77p on Kindle, I've just started reading it and am enjoying it, I read his interesting fiction collection on the adventures of a secondhand bookdealer which I can also recommend first - I'm sure the main participants here are aware of it but some people enjoying the thread may not be

 

Thanks for the plug David. The book has been published "at cost" on Amazon to ensure as many of Alan's friends and old customers can get hold of a copy. It's a great read, as is Alan Austin's other book "The Adventures of Bernie Burrows". Nigel Brown did a great job getting Alan's manuscripts into shape for publication as per Alan's wishes.

[baggsey]

On 9/15/2021 at 3:38 PM, Malacoda said:

 

Agree David. I'm very much enjoying it at the mo.  Also, just in case anyone here is more old school than Kindle (what are the chances?) it's only £3.73 in paperback.

Glad to hear you are enjoying it, Malacoda. The book has been published "at cost" on Amazon to ensure as many of Alan's friends and old customers can get hold of a copy. The physical copy is nicely printed. All credit to my pal Nigel Brown who did a great job getting Alan's manuscripts into shape for publication as per Alan's wishes. 

[baggsey]

On 9/16/2021 at 12:50 AM, nmtg9 said:

Oh didn't know about this. Ordered. And yes, I'm old school and prefer paperback when it comes to books. Maybe the only area of my life that hasn't gone digital yet. 

Hope you enjoyed the book, nmtg9. My pal Nigel Brown edited it at Alan's request.

[baggsey]

On 6/26/2020 at 8:24 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

the likely 3 month shipping delay from the point of printing

This is a great thread. Have you arrived at a definitive calculation on when DC comics were likely to arrive in the UK following US publication in the 1960s and 1970s? The general consensus from my reading of the various posts is that DCs were the returns from US retailers, which were then sent as ship's ballast to the UK for price-stamping and distribution.  My question:

• Were books returned by retailers when (1) the next issue arrived or (2) when the book's cover month had elapsed?  (This could be quite a difference. Looking at http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/series.php?seriesid=1562 If we take Phantom Stranger #13 as an example, the comic hit the streets in the US on 16th March, cover dated June 1971 (it was a bi-monthly book). However, the next issue #14 was on the stands in the US on May 18th.   So was #13 returned by retailers on May 18th or July 1st?  I thought the idea of having a cover date far in the future was so US retailers could keep a book on the stands longer.

My feeling is that books were returned by retailers once the cover month had expired, and then the DC comics appeared in the UK on the last Thursday of each month following 6 weeks after the cover date. (DCs always appeared on the last Thursday of each month in Portsmouth, at least.   Marvels appeared on the 2nd Wednesday, btw).

So the above Phantom Stranger #13 would be on the streets in the US on 16th March, returned on 1st July, arrived in UK for pricing by T&P around 11th August and hit the UK spinner racks on Thursday August 26th. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 9/26/2021 at 6:25 PM, baggsey said:

This is a great thread. Have you arrived at a definitive calculation on when DC comics were likely to arrive in the UK following US publication in the 1960s and 1970s? The general consensus from my reading of the various posts is that DCs were the returns from US retailers, which were then sent as ship's ballast to the UK for price-stamping and distribution.  My question:

• Were books returned by retailers when (1) the next issue arrived or (2) when the book's cover month had elapsed?  (This could be quite a difference. Looking at http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/series.php?seriesid=1562 If we take Phantom Stranger #13 as an example, the comic hit the streets in the US on 16th March, cover dated June 1971 (it was a bi-monthly book). However, the next issue #14 was on the stands in the US on May 18th.   So was #13 returned by retailers on May 18th or July 1st?  I thought the idea of having a cover date far in the future was so US retailers could keep a book on the stands longer.

My feeling is that books were returned by retailers once the cover month had expired, and then the DC comics appeared in the UK on the last Thursday of each month following 6 weeks after the cover date. (DCs always appeared on the last Thursday of each month in Portsmouth, at least.   Marvels appeared on the 2nd Wednesday, btw).

So the above Phantom Stranger #13 would be on the streets in the US on 16th March, returned on 1st July, arrived in UK for pricing by T&P around 11th August and hit the UK spinner racks on Thursday August 26th. 

Welcome to the thread @baggsey 

I think your first few posts have remained hidden until today - that is the process here I believe for new joiners, so we weren't ignoring you. I don't think there is a definitive answer myself, as there are no records to really prove anything either way that I am aware of - just guesswork backed by personal recollections (which often differ).

I'm not sure if you've read the whole thread, or any of my other pence ones which stray into this territory, but I would take the 'on sale' dates from Mike's with a pinch of salt. My own research based on actual stamped arrival dates shows some major discrepancies a lot of the time. 

You might have seen some reference to an exercise we did relating to some comics on a rack in a UK film - I forget the title for the moment - where we sort of managed to arrive at indicative dates but, again, there are too many unknowns to arrive at a formula. And, as I may have mentioned once or twice, the process may have differed geographically in both the US and UK. We've even questioned the ballast theory, recently.

@Malacoda Rich will likely want to discuss this more with you - he is going into a greater detail than most in this area, and will be interested in your recollections I'm sure. 

When I started the thread, my original intention was to try to establish which books were coming to the UK for distribution, in what order and by whom. I never imagined it would expand its scope the way it has and end up solving long pondered questions like why the T&P stamps are numbered, what they mean, etc. And it was an eye opener to see just how much L Miller & Co distributed in those early years - their role has been largely ignored until I arrived. I'm long overdue a summary page in my journal section about all this, but have been holding off on that and my Charlton research while the owners of this site decide whether it will continue, in what format, and whether they will be able to solve the daily access issues that plague it. 

Glad to have you on board - it sounds like you may have a lot to contribute and I'm looking forward to hearing more about your background, if you're happy to share it.  

[baggsey]

On 9/28/2021 at 11:52 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

 

Glad to have you on board - it sounds like you may have a lot to contribute and I'm looking forward to hearing more about your background, if you're happy to share it.  

Hi @Get Marwood & I - thanks for the welcome. I'd be happy to contribute what I have theorized about the timing of the distribution of DCs from the US to the UK in the early 1970s.  I've recently been constructing a Excel spreadsheet set of calculations to try to "back into" the model,  based on known data points for various comics appearing in newsagents in Portsmouth UK back in the 1970s.  Back in the 1973-1978 period a good friend (and fellow comics fan) and myself (both teenagers) produced our own limited-distribution duplicated fanzine "SuperStuff". As part of the reviews section, we occasionally listed which comics had appeared on the spinner racks in local Portsmouth newsagents, and on which date in the month they appeared. It's not a huge amount of data, but has been useful as a check-and-balance to the calculations I've built. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 9/30/2021 at 1:36 AM, baggsey said:

Hi @Get Marwood & I - thanks for the welcome. I'd be happy to contribute what I have theorized about the timing of the distribution of DCs from the US to the UK in the early 1970s.  I've recently been constructing a Excel spreadsheet set of calculations to try to "back into" the model,  based on known data points for various comics appearing in newsagents in Portsmouth UK back in the 1970s.  Back in the 1973-1978 period a good friend (and fellow comics fan) and myself (both teenagers) produced our own limited-distribution duplicated fanzine "SuperStuff". As part of the reviews section, we occasionally listed which comics had appeared on the spinner racks in local Portsmouth newsagents, and on which date in the month they appeared. It's not a huge amount of data, but has been useful as a check-and-balance to the calculations I've built. 

That's what we need - paper records! I'd love to see some examples if you can post them. The fanzine sounds fun too - try to post a few examples of that too if you can. They can be a little minefield of information I've found. 

[Malacoda]

On 9/26/2021 at 6:25 PM, baggsey said:

This is a great thread. Have you arrived at a definitive calculation on when DC comics were likely to arrive in the UK following US publication in the 1960s and 1970s? The general consensus from my reading of the various posts is that DCs were the returns from US retailers, which were then sent as ship's ballast to the UK for price-stamping and distribution.  My question:

• Were books returned by retailers when (1) the next issue arrived or (2) when the book's cover month had elapsed?  (This could be quite a difference. Looking at http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/series.php?seriesid=1562 If we take Phantom Stranger #13 as an example, the comic hit the streets in the US on 16th March, cover dated June 1971 (it was a bi-monthly book). However, the next issue #14 was on the stands in the US on May 18th.   So was #13 returned by retailers on May 18th or July 1st?  I thought the idea of having a cover date far in the future was so US retailers could keep a book on the stands longer.

My feeling is that books were returned by retailers once the cover month had expired, and then the DC comics appeared in the UK on the last Thursday of each month following 6 weeks after the cover date. (DCs always appeared on the last Thursday of each month in Portsmouth, at least.   Marvels appeared on the 2nd Wednesday, btw).

So the above Phantom Stranger #13 would be on the streets in the US on 16th March, returned on 1st July, arrived in UK for pricing by T&P around 11th August and hit the UK spinner racks on Thursday August 26th. 

Hi Baggsey, 

I'm very familiar with your blog so it's great to welcome you to the Nerdhouse.  In fact, if you spin back a few pages to September 8th, it's actually your blog I'm quoting as I'm sure you noticed, so I'm already a fan. 

I think the questions about how comics were distributed and how returns were returned should be one question about a single process, but I think we all know it was way more of a shtshow than that.  The fact that (Marvel) comics appeared on UK shelves on their cover date month is interesting, as I don't believe it was a fortuitous coincidence caused by a 2-3 month sea crossing.  In the US, logic tells you that they must have been picked up when the new ones arrived, but I suspect the process of hauling them from Illinois to the four corners of nearly 10 million square km’s via a network of regional and local distributors and wholesalers means that crates had a lot of stop offs both coming in and going out, so the point at the retailer where it was 'old bundle out, new bundle in' may have been a 30 second swap over, but the point where all the returns made it back to Sparta was much more dragged out. 

In the 50’s Senate hearings, William Richter asserted to Mr Beezer (OK, it’s spelled ‘Beaser’, but I really want the guy who was trying to destroy comics to be called Mr. Beezer, so can we get behind that spelling?)….anyway, Richter asserted that newsvendors could not return comics until they were passed their cover date, but I am pretty sure that they could and did. I think they didn’t get the refund until the cover date expired, but I suspect that the comics & all publications were picked up when the new month’s ones arrived. The idea that the average news vendor was permanently storing hundreds of comics & magazines in a kiosk typically 6 ft wide x 5 ft high x 3 ft deep is logistically impossible, and off-site storage is financially unviable. 

Richter goes on to say that he believes if they did return the comics, they are passed onto other newsvendors until all avenues have been exhausted and they are never returned to the publisher, so he was clearly making it up as he went along. 

According to Carmine Infantino (and if you want to know about DC distribution, who better?), the returns took an astounding amount of time to finally all come back in: "The first numbers would come in after three months. Then at six months you'd get final sales figures, and one year later, you'd get final, final sales.”
Note that even the first indication took 3 months, which tells you that that was when the returns were first refunded? Seems reasonable.

So my guess would be that the returns were picked up monthly when the new comics arrived, but the size of the US meant it was probably messier than that and I believe some vendors who had the space would have hung on to back issues hoping for an eventual sale. I think they were distributed 3 months in advance for a reason, and that can only be that they hung around for a lot longer than one month in some places. Were they sold at discounts like they were in the UK?

I think that the vendors did not get refunded until the cover date was expired, and maybe sometimes later than that.  If the return had to make its way via multiple depots belonging to local and regional wholesalers, I suspect it was not a big priority and they were, as Carmine Infantino said, making their way back in a slow and disorderly fashion. 

This makes it seem likely that the DC comics shipped to the UK were returns because they had a pattern of coming in erratically, being stamped predominantly with comics of the same cover date, but with enough issues turning up out of sequence (both cover date sequence and T&P stamp sequence) to make it mirror the chaos I’m describing at point of origin. 

Marvel is a whole other conversation, as their predominantly UK pence printed covers and cover-date punctuality tells a completely different story despite them having the same US & UK distributor as DC up to 69/71. The big exception there is April 69 to July 71 but my colleagues here will make me sit on the naughty step if I open that Pandora’s Box again. 

[Get Marwood & I]

I told you he'd be interested,  Baggsey! 

[Malacoda]

On 9/30/2021 at 10:16 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

I told you he'd be interested,  Baggsey! 

Hey, listen, I've got a whole new theory about that 69-71 period and if you're not careful, I'll share it with you.  

Also, another point I forgot about returns.  Dang. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Malacoda

[baggsey]

On 9/30/2021 at 4:14 PM, Malacoda said:

Hi Baggsey, 

I'm very familiar with your blog so it's great to welcome you to the Nerdhouse.  In fact, if you spin back a few pages to September 8th, it's actually your blog I'm quoting as I'm sure you noticed, so I'm already a fan. 

.........
I think the questions about how comics were distributed and how returns were returned should be one question about a single process, but I think we all know it was way more of a shtshow than that.  The fact that (Marvel) comics appeared on UK shelves on their cover date month is interesting, as I don't believe it was a fortuitous coincidence caused by a 2-3 month sea crossing.  In the US, logic tells you that they must have been picked up when the new ones arrived, but I suspect the process of hauling them from Illinois to the four corners of nearly 10 million square km’s via a network of regional and local distributors and wholesalers means that crates had a lot of stop offs both coming in and going out, so the point at the retailer where it was 'old bundle out, new bundle in' may have been a 30 second swap over, but the point where all the returns made it back to Sparta was much more dragged out. 

-------------

Marvel is a whole other conversation, as their predominantly UK pence printed covers and cover-date punctuality tells a completely different story despite them having the same US & UK distributor as DC up to 69/71. The big exception there is April 69 to July 71 but my colleagues here will make me sit on the naughty step if I open that Pandora’s Box again. 

Hi @Malacoda - thanks for the call-out to my previous commentary on the http://superstuff73.blogspot.com blog...it's gratifying to know people are stopping by!  I'll try to address the various points that you and @Get Marwood & I brought up.

Distribution of DCs

As regards DC distribution, my thinking is that DCs were returns from wholesalers and (and possibly) retailers from the point in time that the next issue became available, not when the cover date had expired. (I changed my mind since my previous post.) Any calculation on how long it would take for a DC comic to reach the UK by overland and ship's ballast would mean that DCs with expired cover dates would have arrived at least a month later on UK spinners than they did in actuality.

I further think that returns from wholesalers was more likely than retailers. I believe that US retailers were expected to tear the title off of the comic cover in order to get a refund on returns. Also, if unsold comics were only in a wholesalers' warehouse, retrieval of them to a central hub would be far easier.

So, I assume that returned comics went to a central distribution hub for collation, before heading to a port for shipment to the UK as ballast. You suggested that Sparta, Illinois was the returns hub?  That seems unlikely to me unless they had retained undistributed stock following printing from the previous month, although it may have been the case. Having lived in Illinois myself for the past 21 years, Sparta is not on a major Interstate, and is 30+ miles from an Amtrak train station. It is 360 miles from Chicago by road. It would seem to me to make sense to have a returns hub close to either Chicago (great road and rail links plus major comics wholesalers) or New York (great infrastructure links, plus close to ports, plus the centre of the comics business at that time).

I assume that there was one scheduled Trans-Atlantic shipment of comics to the UK each month, so that if comics were not returned and collated in time, then they had to wait a month for the next sailing, which explains why some comics arriving were older stock.  Once in the UK (Liverpool?) it probably took 3 weeks to first offload, then get them to T&P for sorting and stamping, and bundled for the distributors, ready for the last Thursday of the month. This is all somewhat educated guesswork, of course.

There are obviously unknowns here, but there may be someone out there who knows the specifics of returns-hub location and unsold comic return process, along with elapsed times.  

One other unknown is how many comics were actually shipped to the UK each month in the 1970s? We're probably only talking about 50,000-100,000 physical DC comics each month? I imagine that those numbers of returns could be easily sourced from wholesalers in the Eastern US close to a port (NY, Baltimore) so the returns process may not have been as major or onerous as we think.

Anyway, I have developed an excel spreadsheet which seems to map to known appearances of specific DC comics in Portsmouth, UK,

Marvels

I haven't looked into the Marvel calculation as closely, but it seems pretty clear that as the British pence issues were printed at the end of the US run, that they would immediately be available for collation and shipping to the UK far earlier. I have developed a draft calculation for Marvels also.

Dates of comics arriving on UK spinner racks.

As I mentioned on the SuperStuff blog, DC comics appeared in newsagents in Portsmouth on the last Thursday of the month (or the following Thursday if last Thursday fell on Christmas Day), at least in the period 1974-1976.

In our fanzine SuperStuff #3, we listed on 11th Aug 1974 that the batch of DCs which arrived at the end of July included:

• Batman 256 (June), Black Magic 4 (July), Detective 440(May), House of Secrets 120 (June), JLA 111 (June), Phantom Stranger 31 (July), Shadow 5 (July), Superman 277 (July), World's Finest 223 (June)

I also used to note the dates the DCs were due in my school diary, and I confirmed dates for DCs appearing on Sept 26th 1974, Oct 31st 1974, Nov 28th 1974.

In SuperStuff #4, we listed on 3rd March 1975 that the February arrivals included 

• Detective 444

I used to photograph some of my comic covers in 1975 for reference, and I noted that

• Joker #1, Tales of Ghost Castle #1 and Tor #1

all appeared in my local newsagents on June 29th 1975. 

In SuperStuff #6 we listed on 21st March 1976 that the February 26th 1976 arrivals included

• Adventure 443, Detective 456, Batman 272

In SuperStuff #8 we listed on 11th April 1976 that the March arrivals included 

• JLA 128, Justice Inc 1, Our Fighting Forces 155.   These were old stock sold at 5p each, left overs from a forced hiatus that had occurred earlier and so are outliers in the data

Marvel arrivals always fell on 2nd Wednesday of the month, and I have noted in my school diary Wed 9th Oct 1974, Wed 13th Nov 1974 and Wed 11th December 1974 as dates of arrival. I have some data on when specific Marvel comics appeared, but I'll put that info in a separate posting.

Current calculation model for DCs arriving in the UK:

1. Assume comic returns become available the day the following next issue is published.
2. Assume it takes 14 days to collate, prepare and package shipment
3. Assume that the boat sails on the 14th of the month (any comics returned less than 14 days before ship sails will wait a further month before shipping)
4. Assume voyage across Atlantic is 7 days
5. Assume Thorpe & Porter take 14 days to receive goods, add price stamp and get ready for distribution
6. Comics sent to newsagents for last Thursday in month

The 1966 Dock workers strike of 1966 is also a useful data point which supports the supposition that the "last Thursday" rule was in operation at that time. It is well known that Batman #179 and Batman #180 never made it in to the UK due to the longshoremen's strike which ran from May 16th until July 1st, which stopped offloading of cargo. 

I've included a snapshot of the calculated result for the comics listed and highlighted in green where the expected date is the same as the actual date, or colored amber if the comic actually arrived a month later than expected. I'm still playing around with the parameter values to see if I can get a more accurate picture.

Hope this helps. I'll add the Marvel data in a separate post.

 

 

 

[Malacoda]

Wow.  OK, I need to read I inwardly digest that again before I respond. Thank you. 

 In the meantime, here's the other point about returns I didn't make last night:

On the question of whether the UK imports were returns (DC all the time, Marvel during 69-71), I think there was a contradiction we never quite resolved.  I think we agreed that we did not believe the stamped Marvels were returns because the cover dates & stamps don’t support that and because returns would be dog eared and knackered after 1-3 months on US spinner racks. We also know that it was mostly just the covers or partial covers returned after a certain point. 
I think we concluded that the Marvel issues were undistributed copies / oversupply while the DC’s were indeed returns, but that leaves some questions: 
Here’s a thought about the bad condition argument (‘if the comics were returns they’d be weather beaten and dog eared’). 

Newsvendors had to accept what the local wholesaler gave them.  If you consider that:

(1)  a newsvendor will have very limited space

(2) will make maybe 15% of the cover price of whatever magazines he sells

(3) adults have far more spending power than kids

(4) the more of any publication the newsvendor returned to the local wholesaler, the less he got of those next time, so they would actively try to return the (low margin) comics and not get their supplies of (high margin) magazines cut.  It’s a no brainer that comics either got very little space or never actually got put out at all.  

For example, Cosmopolitan & Playboy cost $1.25 in 1976, comics cost 25c, so not only do you have more chance of selling Cosmo and Hef (because adults have wages and kids don’t) but you make 5 times the profit. (And in the case of Playboy, you sell a newspaper too). 

I think a lot of comics never came out of the bundles they arrived in, which means they’d be in the same condition they arrived in.   And I think the phenomenally high returns (50% Marvel, 70% DC) say nothing to contradict that assertion. 

However, we know that returns were only partial (covers or part covers) and we also know from the Publishers' Statements of Ownership data (bogus as it may be) that there were huge numbers of comics printed that were never distributed in the US. According to Carmine Infantino, Marvel had sell-through of up to 85% where DC were getting half that figure, so DC had vastly more returns than Marvel.  We also know that Marvel were always far more Anglophile than DC, so it seems plausible to me that the UK-distributed Marvels arrived on cover month because they were undistributed overspill (of which Marvel had a lot)  and DC rocked up later because they were returns (of which of DC had a lot). 

I wish I knew what the difference between the Publishers' Statements of Ownership figures for Total copies versus total distribution were, because they seem to indicate that there were hundreds of thousands of comics printed every month which were never distributed and were not returns. 
What happened to them?

I know those PSO numbers are total BS and only existed because of a Post Office statute about junk mail, so it really did not matter what the Marvel or DC numbers actually were and they could have just made them up (as Giordano said Charlton did) …..but if you’re trying to satisfy the US government that your books are in order, why would you make up a bunch of numbers that spectacularly do not add up or make sense? Why would you make up numbers that are going raise exactly the questions they’re designed to silence? They look more like numbers that are inconveniently true than neatly falsified.  I’m sure they’re just guesstimates but Accounts depts at Marvel and DC must have been collating the real data, so surely you’d use that as a basis? 
 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/1/2021 at 2:50 AM, baggsey said:

Current calculation model for DCs arriving in the UK:

1. Assume comic returns become available the day the following next issue is published.
2. Assume it takes 14 days to collate, prepare and package shipment
3. Assume that the boat sails on the 14th of the month (any comics returned less than 14 days before ship sails will wait a further month before shipping)
4. Assume voyage across Atlantic is 7 days
5. Assume Thorpe & Porter take 14 days to receive goods, add price stamp and get ready for distribution
6. Comics sent to newsagents for last Thursday in month

The 1966 Dock workers strike of 1966 is also a useful data point which supports the supposition that the "last Thursday" rule was in operation at that time. It is well known that Batman #179 and Batman #180 never made it in to the UK due to the longshoremen's strike which ran from May 16th until July 1st, which stopped offloading of cargo. 

I've included a snapshot of the calculated result for the comics listed and highlighted in green where the expected date is the same as the actual date, or colored amber if the comic actually arrived a month later than expected. I'm still playing around with the parameter values to see if I can get a more accurate picture.

Hope this helps. I'll add the Marvel data in a separate post.

 

That's great stuff Bags - I do like to see a spreadsheet backed by assumptions, trying to drive out a pattern that stands up to scrutiny. It may be on there and hidden, but I would add a column to show the cover date if you can, so we can see at a glance how that compares to the UK on sale date (contributors here often cite their recollections in terms of cover date / available in the UK) 

Some questions, and food for thought, if I may.

I take it that the 'US Sale Date' and 'Next US Sale Date' columns are based on the 'on sale' dates from Mikes Comic Newsstand. One note of caution, as I mentioned earlier, they are often some way out when compared to actual arrival stamps on existing copies so we shouldn't view them as absolute. Also, the on sale dates may have varied across the US, given the significant distances some would have to travel (to and back) compared to those nearer the production premises.

Your columns 'Next Ship Sails' and 'Actual Ship Date' - where are you getting those dates from? The 'Actual column' suggests that you have actual shipping data to hand - do you, and how do you know that any given batch of comics were on board? If the dates are assumptions, why two columns? Also, comics with the same cover month were produced throughout the month, not all at the same time. So one January dated book could get on the monthly boat, the other just miss it depending on the printing order (unless all January books were held at the printers, then sent to the ports for shipping?). And how do we know it was a monthly boat?

Your final column, when green, you say is because you actually noted at the time that the comic was in the newsagent. But it is showing as a whole month only, and there is a world of difference between the first Thursday in the month and the last when trying to drive out an end to end date window. Shouldn't it show an actual date, if you kept records? Also, you say that Batman 179 and 180 never made it to the UK, so how can they be on the sheet with a green confirmed UK newsagent date?

I like what you are attempting to do here very much - we've all had a go at some point - but the word 'assume' is so prevalent in what you are presenting that I can only at this stage feel the same way about it as I did the various attempts we have made already in this thread. I am always interested in speculation - I do enough of it myself - but the absence of concrete data is always a problem when trying to drive out a conclusion that stands up to scrutiny. The end dates that you documented at the time are great. If we know for sure that comic X went on sale in Portsmouth on date X, and we know that it went on sale in the US on date Y then we can say with some confidence what the end to end gap was, certainly if that gap plays out in subsequent examples for the period.

The starting date has to be verified though, I think - Batman #181 has a MCN 'on sale' date of the 19th of April and, happily, the comics back that up:

 

They don't always though, sometimes being months out (see my Charlton research).

Presently, everything that took place in the middle is guesswork and I think it highly likely myself that the process changed by location and time anyway. My interest is the early 1960s, where it all started, so anything you have to add to that I'd love to see.

Your notion that the DC books may have been returned in the US when the new issue arrived, and not when the cover date expired, is an interesting one and one which some of our US members may be able to comment on (if any are reading). Some of them are old enough to have been there.

Anyway, great stuff and I look forward to your further posts. I can't look back on them of course, as you haven't posted them yet 

P.S. Dat you? 

Dis me 

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/1/2021 at 12:59 PM, Malacoda said:

I wish I knew what the difference between the Publishers' Statements of Ownership figures for Total copies versus total distribution were, because they seem to indicate that there were hundreds of thousands of comics printed every month which were never distributed and were not returns. 
What happened to them?

You know my memory is terrible Rich, but I don't recall there being a clear answer:

 

[Malacoda]

On 10/2/2021 at 9:36 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

You know my memory is terrible Rich, but I don't recall there being a clear answer:

 

I’m never too sure about using Charlton as a typical example. Your devotion to that ancient religion is commendable, but Charlton are unique.  They did all their own stuff in house, owned their own printers and distribution company and did it all under one roof, paid the lowest rates to creators, used leftover material from other publishers and published in every genre.  I always felt like they had taken Martin Goodman to the next level. So their practices (and costs) may well have been different to everyone else’s.
Also, in an interview in here, Giordano does say that they pretty much just made up the Post Office numbers, which might mean that everyone else did too, but it might not.  

 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/2/2021 at 4:06 PM, Malacoda said:

I’m never too sure about using Charlton as a typical example. Your devotion to that ancient religion is commendable, but Charlton are unique.  They did all their own stuff in house, owned their own printers and distribution company and did it all under one roof, paid the lowest rates to creators, used leftover material from other publishers and published in every genre.  I always felt like they had taken Martin Goodman to the next level. So their practices (and costs) may well have been different to everyone else’s.
Also, in an interview in here, Giordano does say that they pretty much just made up the Post Office numbers, which might mean that everyone else did too, but it might not.  

 

Indeed, they were atypical in many ways 

 

 

[baggsey]

On 10/2/2021 at 3:33 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

That's great stuff Bags - 

Some questions, and food for thought, if I may.

How did you know that “Bags” was my nickname at school? 

>>> It may be on there and hidden, but I would add a column to show the cover date

Yes - the snapshot excluded the actual cover date, which I think I hid . I'll  rework the  snapshot.

>>> I take it that the 'US Sale Date' and 'Next US Sale Date' columns are based on the 'on sale' dates from Mikes Comic Newsstand.

Yes - I presume MCN derived those dates from the ads in DC comics and in the DC Direct Currents for forthcoming attractions.  I’m not aware of another source of info though. Are you?

>>> Also, the on sale dates may have varied across the US, given the significant distances some would have to travel (to and back) compared to those nearer the production premises.

Could be. But it’s only a 27 hour drive from Sparta, Illinois to Los Angeles, say. Presumably if on-sale was scheduled for a week after printing, everyone would get the same on-sale date? It’s a good point you raise though. I’m going to call in to a comic shop near me and ask the owner for his view (he was collecting comics in the 60s and 70s as a lad).

As I said in the post, I think that the comics that came to the UK were undistributed copies held by the wholesalers, not returns from newsstands or drugstores. The condition of new comics coming in to the UK was generally top notch. If they were held at wholesalers, then making them available for the UK made sense when the next months issues arrived for US distribution. The wholesaler would not want to have unsold inventory on their balance sheet.

>>> Your columns 'Next Ship Sails' and 'Actual Ship Date' - where are you getting those dates from?

As I mentioned in my post, the data in the spreadsheet is all educated guesswork. So I made an assumption that there was only one transatlantic shipment per month. I assumed that the volume of comics going to the UK was so low that more than one shipment made no sense, plus if you’re running a supply chain, it would make most sense to collect all returns up until a certain point, and then send for shipment.  Similarly, T&P would want to run a monthly process of one collection and distribution.

By playing with the spreadsheet, a date around the 14th of the month seemed to yield the best match to known UK deliveries.  I tried moving the guessed monthly shipping day earlier or later and the known matches to appearing in the UK shops started to erode.

As you pointed out, returned comics would become available each week in the month, so I assumed that any returns within two weeks of the next scheduled shipping date, would miss it, and end up on the next month’s shipment. So “Next Shipping Date” is the next time the ship sails, and “Actual Shipping Date” is the ship I think it actually went on because the comic return became available too late to hit that month’s sailing.

>>> Your final column, when green, you say is because you actually noted at the time that the comic was in the newsagent.

Yes . The showing of the month only is just a formatting choice in Excel for ease of display. The actual date for in the shops was the last Thursday in the month and is held in the spreadsheet itself.

>>> Batman 179 and 180 never made it to the UK, so how can they be on the sheet with a green confirmed UK newsagent date?

Correct. 179 and 180 were hit by the dock strike. I was just including them to show that the dates that they would have arrived fell within the dates of the UK Dock workers strike. I should have color-coded it differently to avoid confusion. Actually, 179 and 180 are classed a “Very rare” in the UK because some few copies did make it in at the end of July after the dock strike ended on July 1 1966. I paid £1 to Alan Austin of Fantasy Unlimited in 1974 for a water-stained copy - the most I had ever paid for a comic up until then! Most back issues of that age were 10p each….

>>> The absence of concrete data is always a problem when trying to drive out a conclusion that stands up to scrutiny.

Agree. As I said, my assumptions are all educated guesswork. That said, I think that the assumption of a single shipment per month is the most likely to reduce costs on what would have been a very low-profit exercise for DC, really only aimed at increasing profit margin on US print-runs.

>>> The end dates that you documented at the time are great.

I’ll put the Marvel dates up separately, plus look for any other DC dates I may have. I don’t have any data from the 1960s unfortunately

>>> I think it highly likely myself that the process changed by location and time anyway.

I'm not sure about "highly likely". Any changes to a supply chain once implemented could have major implications, so I think that once it was instituted, there would be a lot of pressure from wholesalers, shippers, etc to keep it running from month to month. Remember that port Customs officials would want to check incoming shipments which would be on an expected workday.

There were a number of disruptions in the 1970s due to UK Dock Strikes, and T&P's own decision to suspend imports for a few months due to a backlog in the mid 1970s, but when service resumed the supply chain was the same. It may be that T&P and Miller had different dates, of course.

>>> P.S. Dat you? 

Yup. Dat's me.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/2/2021 at 4:46 PM, baggsey said:

How did you know that “Bags” was my nickname at school? 

Assumption based on educated guesswork? 

On 10/2/2021 at 4:46 PM, baggsey said:

I don’t have any data from the 1960s unfortunately

Seems that nobody does. All dead now, probably. 

On 10/2/2021 at 4:46 PM, baggsey said:

Yup. Dat's me.

Cool. Dis was me, a long time ago...

Not so much hair now.

Keep it up Baggsey. I kicked the tyres to show you we were awake, but you can crack on in Earnest now. 

Spoiler

 

 

[yrag9591]

Apologies if this has been mentioned and/or disproved before, but is the idea that Batman 179 and 180 are rare in the UK because of a dock strike a fact or a theory?

None of the other DC titles for those months are rare, as far as I know. My assumption is that Batman 179 and 180 are rare because they are the issues on sale in the US when the TV series started, so they sold very well, leaving few returns. By the time of issue 181, DC had increased its print run to cope with the massive demand.

Any ideas?

I remember knowing that 179 and 180 were rare quite early on in my collecting, and my delight at finding a 180 in a Blackpool newsagents when we were in holiday!