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Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's. (1960) Showing Signs of Life!
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254 posts in this topic

I'm taking Mitch's advice and moving this to the Silver Age section, as I think it will be of more interest here (and, unfortunately probably annoy even more people). It's my open research on the real history of the Birth of the Marvel Universe and... if you're one of those people who believes every thing Stan says, you may just not even want to come in, because there's a LOT here that dispels the myths he created and... you won't be happy.

The one good thing is there's a LOT of comic book stories to read! We can all agree that's awesome. 

If you missed some of the early parts and want to get caught up:

 

Part ONE (1954):

 

Part TWO (1955):

 

Part THREE (1956a): 

 

Part FOUR (1956b): 

 

Part FIVE (1957): 

 

Part SIX (1958): 

 

Part SEVEN (1959): 

 

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Where we now are in the story:

For 1960, Dell Comics would continue to have outstanding success in the market. Unlike some versions of comic history that make it seem that all the publishers were having a tough time after the start of the Comics Code (Dell snubbed its nose at the Code), Dell had some top sellers that still showed numbers like the old days:

Uncle Scrooge                                  1,040,543 average copies per month sold (#1)

Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories    1,004,901 average copies per month sold (#2)

Mickey Mouse                                     568,803 average copies per month sold (#5)

Looney Tunes                                      459,344 average copies per month sold (#9)

Lone Ranger                                        408,711 average copies per month sold (#13)

Turok, Son of Stone                             359,013 average copies per month sold (#15)

 

That's pretty impressive!

 

DC Comics was right there with them, as their superhero line continued its outstanding sales success:

Superman                810,000 average copies per month sold (#3)

Superboy                 635,000 average copies per month sold (#4)

Batman                    502,000 average copies per month sold (#6)

Jimmy Olsen            498,000 average copies per month sold (#7)

World’s Finest          476,00 average copies per month sold (#8)

Action Comics         458,000 average copies per month sold (#10)

Lois Lane                 458,000 average copies per month sold (#11)

Adventure Comics  438,000 average copies per month sold (#12)

 

Archie Comics certainly wasn’t having any difficulty either, as their flagship title would post a 500,200 average copies per month sold (Archie #118), Betty & Veronica at 307,340 (B&V #65), Jughead at 282,117 (Jughead #72), Pep Comics 269,504, Little Archie 210,089, Laugh Comics 254,188 (Laugh #121),

Harvey Comics would remain consistent, putting out 14-16 titles a month, mostly at the same pace they had for the last 10 years. Charlton was putting out consistently 24 to 30 titles a month in for 1960 and had actually picked up market share.

One publisher that WAS struggling was Stan Lee’s Marvel Comics. He can rewrite history all he wants that he was burnt out or whatever, but the truth is Stan just couldn’t get it going. He tried. Bringing back 'My Girl Pearl', and 'Kathy', and a second Millie title. These would prove to be unsuccessful as well and meet the same fate as his Melvin the Monster, Homer the Happy Ghost, and other Millie spin offs.

Even ACG was outselling him:

Adventures into the Unknown (192,500), Unknown Worlds (192,000), and Forbidden Worlds (187,000)

The truth is, once Stan lost all of his editors who put together the horror books and the war books and the Jungle titles - both writing and drawing them - he couldn’t put anything together himself. Even with artists who could help him write the stories like Vince Colletta, Stan Goldberg and Al Hartley. The romance genre was dying, and the Humor Comics were dominated by Archie Comics and no matter how much they might try to copy it - that brand was just too powerful.

Martin Goodman had made a critical business error in distribution, and Stan just didn't have the creative ability to overcome it. 

What Marvel needed was someone visionary to come in and lead the way. A real powerhouse…

And they got that in Jack Kirby…

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Edited by Prince Namor
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These are Marvel's Sales Figures for the Year 1960:

Strange Tales #83 - 169,601 (#73-81)  1,529,409 (total sold)

Journey/Mystery #66 - 167,125 (#56-64)  1,504,125

Tales to Astonish #18 - 163,156 (#8-16) 1,468,404

Millie the Model #102 - 154,972 (#95-101)  1,084,804

Tales of Suspense #16 - 148,929 (#8-14)  1,042,503

Kid Colt Outlaw #98 - 144,746 (#89-96) 1,157,968

Patsy Walker #94 - 143,474 (#87-93 )  1,004,318

Love Romances #92 - 133, 227 (#85-91) 932,589

 

1960 TOTAL sales (per Marvel Comics AD): 16,100,000 copies sold

9,724,129 (Top 8 above) - 6,375,871 left - (56 others issues) - 113,854 average in below list

 

The rest of the line (the books below) all averaged only 113,854 copies each... Yikes!

Kathy #10???? (#3-9)

Life with Millie #11??? (#3-9)

My Girl Pearl #11??? Cancelled (#7-10)

Patsy & Hedy #75??? (#68-74)

Two Gun Kid #59??? (#52-58)

Gunsmoke Western #64??? (#56-62)

Wyatt Earp #27-29

My Own Romance #73-79)

Battle #68 -70)

Rawhide Kid #17-20)

—————————

Here’s the best breakdown I can do with the numbers I have. Some of these I got from the Comichron list - others I got from the Statements in the Comics - the rest I figured based upon the information available (see below - from Marvel's Ad).

What this shows is that pre-Stan Lee's 'writing' with Kirby (or whatever) - Jack was already responsible for Marvel’s Top 3 sellers and 4 of the 5 Top Sellers.

The rest of Marvel’s books outside that top 8, averaged 113,854 copies per issue and that’s where most of Stan’s ‘dumb blonde’ comics fell. The Comics that Jack did covers AND Stories for are all the best selling books.

Jack’s 4 comics - which he did covers and lead stories for - sold an average of 162,202

Minus just those 4 Kirby books - the rest of Marvel’s line averaged 124,177 copies a month.

THIS is why Stan latched onto Jack. This is why in 1960 they started expanding Jack into Westerns more because it was Goodman’s favorite genre! Kirby was a SELLER.

This is BEFORE Stan began to promote like crazy. This is before any media attention. This is before superheroes. Jack Kirby was helping Marvel sell books based entirely upon HIS content. HIS stories. HIS art. HIS words.

From here, Marvel just followed his lead, started eliminating Stan’s books and began to go up in sales the rest of the decade (though still never surpassing DC in the 60’s).

 

Sooooo....

Based on the sales numbers that Goodman sees, for 1960, the Top 3 Kirby titles are all bumped up, going monthly from April/May until Goodman again shuts Marvel down in November. Kid Colt Outlaw is also bumped up to monthly despite ranking behind Tales of Suspense which is strangely left at bi-monthly. Lee must feel threatened by Kirby’s success and needs something to latch on to.

The Romance titles that Vince Colletta puts together are all bi-monthly as are the Westerns. Rawhide Kid replaces the cancelled Wyatt Earp and Stan makes his move to try and attach himself to Kirby through the Westerns (more on that later).

All of Stan’s dumb blonde books are downgraded to only 5 issues, including the longest running Marvel title Millie the Model. In a bizarre move, Stan also brings back My Girl Pearl to replace ‘Battle’ on the schedule though it would be cancelled at the start of the following year after numbers come in. He appears to be reaching here, trying anything to get the numbers up on the rest of the line.

It’s pretty obvious though - Kirby is what is keeping Marvel alive. BARELY. 

Goodman still isn’t happy with Stan… and an interesting point I noticed in my research… Marvel releases Zero titles to the newsstand between October 27, 1960 and the end of the year December 29th. But even more strange than that, Stan Lee has only ONE comic with his writing that is released to the newsstands, until January 5th, 1961. His dumb blonde comics disappear from the newsstands for all of November and December.

He’ll bring them back with a vengeance in January 1961, but most of them won’t have a good 1961, thanks again to what Kirby brings to the table…

For 1960, we have:

 

The Kirby books:

Journey Into Mystery - 9 issues

Strange Tales - 8 issues

Tales to Astonish - 8 issues

Tales of Suspense - 6 issues

 

The Colletta Books:

Love Romances - 6 issues

My Own Romance - 6 issues (becomes Teen Age Romance w #77)

 

Stan's Westerns:

Kid Colt Outlaw - 7 issues

Gunsmoke Western - 6 issues

Two Gun Kid - 6 issues

Rawhide Kid #17 - 4 issues (replaces Wyatt Earp)

 

Stan's 'Dumb Blonde' Books:

Patsy Walker - 5 issues

Patsy & Hedy - 5 issues

A Date with Millie - 5 issues (becomes Life with Millie w #8)

Kathy - 5 issues

My Girl Pearl - 3 issues (replaces Battle???)

Millie the Model - 5 issues

 

Cancelled titles:

Battle - #70 in January is the last issue

Wyatt Earp #29 in January is the last issue

 

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Edited by Prince Namor
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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

It seemed as though Marvel really didn't understand what they had in Ditko at this point, and... most of those reasons probably had to do with 'sinking ship' and all that, but in January of 1960, Sturdy Steve, along with writer Joe Gill would introduce a super hero at Charlton that would be successful for them, and show what Ditko could do with a 'hero' comic. 

Space Adventures #33 - Joe Gill -script, Steve Ditko pencils and inks. 

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

For January, Marvel would release 8 titles to the newsstand 

Stan Lee would write 3 of the titles for the month.

 

Wyatt Earp #29 - 3 stories with MR. Ayers and 1 with Don Heck. Final Issue

Gunsmoke Western #58 - 1 story each with Jack Keller, MR. Ayers, Don Heck, Ross Andru, and John Severin.

Patsy & Hedy #70 - with Al Hartley art 

 

The other 5 were:

Battle #70 Final Issue

Love Romances #87 

My Own Romance #75 

Journey Into Mystery #58

Strange Tales #75 

 

It's interesting to note that, Marvel would start cutting titles that weren't hacking it in January, and start a replacement in February or March. Stan's replacement for Battle and Wyatt Earp are a reboot of the Rawhide Kid (Western's are Goodman's favorite) and restarting 'My Girl Pearl, another dumb blonde book. He'd also restart 'Kathy' and change 'A Date with Millie' to 'Life with Millie'. 

None of the 'dumb blonde' comic decisions are beneficial, as My Girl Pearl is quickly cancelled the following January and neither Kathy or the 2nd Millie book make an impact. The proper move is obvious, but delayed...

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

Besides co-creating Captain Atom for Charlton, Steve Ditko did 2 stories for Marvel in January, one of them in Journey Into Mystery #58. 

But even more interesting, a rare COVER by Ditko for Marvel. He'd done two in November of 1958 (Tales to Astonish #2 and Strange World's #2), so maybe the original idea was to alternate... maybe not... but he hadn't done one since so, here it is!

Cover and story is penciled and inked by Steve Ditko. Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

Steve Ditko's other story for Marvel in January, was in Strange Tales #75. 

Rather than one of the last two stories in the book, this one directly follows Kirby's lead story. This story is continued from the previous issue. 

Penciled and inked by Steve Ditko. Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

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Welcome in the Silver Age area. I think one of the great attempts by you to explain how the "magic " happened in 1961 and above thru the examination of the footprints leading up to the creative "Big Bang" of late 1961-1963. As a collector who bought those very books we are heading towards...as a young collector I looked up to older collector who have probably 1000 comic books at the time. We would trade generally my 3 for his one as his and my parents were friends and were coin collectors together. However we did have discussion about FF4 when it had come out a few months prior and he stated this comics were different. I would estimate his age at 15 or 16 to my 6/7 and he was top heavy DC wise. the FF caught fire with all comic book collectors during after FF4 and it was cemented in FF5/FF6  which combined with 4 is possibly the greatest 3 issue homer runs in a row  until 48-50 and bingo the rest history. So on the  collector ground level there was a major shift afloat and it was when FF4 hit and was digested.I agree with you it is important to give credit where credit is due and so a big WELCOME and keep up the amazing job you are doing.

 

Edited by Mmehdy
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On 10/6/2022 at 11:45 AM, Prince Namor said:

ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

Steve Ditko's other story for Marvel in January, was in Strange Tales #75. 

Rather than one of the last two stories in the book, this one directly follows Kirby's lead story. This story is continued from the previous issue. 

Penciled and inked by Steve Ditko. Writer unknown. NOT written by Stan Lee. 

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somewhat similar to Kirby's Totem in Rawhide Kid 22

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

Jack Kirby was very busy for Marvel in 1960! After all his books seemed to selling better than anything they had, so why not spread him out as far as they could?

Ditko did the cover, but Kirby had TWO stories in Journey Into Mystery #58. Written and penciled by Kirby with D. Ayers inks.

Story One was the lead feature, as Zetora the Martian returns from the previous issue. (Both Kirby and Ditko had a continuation of a story from JIM #57...)

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Edited by Prince Namor
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Those published sales figures aren’t really accurate. That’s been discussed and known for years. The first time I had that pointed out to me was from Archie Goodwin in the very early 1980’s when I first inquired about them. Any number of pros since have dismissed them.

From Mark Evaniers website:

 

”The sales figures published in the little Statement of Ownership boxes that ran in some comics were sometimes rough approximations and occasionally pure fiction.”

 

There is absolutely no way to tell how close or really far off they were then or now.

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On 10/6/2022 at 10:51 PM, N e r V said:

Those published sales figures aren’t really accurate. That’s been discussed and known for years. The first time I had that pointed out to me was from Archie Goodwin in the very early 1980’s when I first inquired about them. Any number of pros since have dismissed them.

From Mark Evaniers website:

 

”The sales figures published in the little Statement of Ownership boxes that ran in some comics were sometimes rough approximations and occasionally pure fiction.”

 

There is absolutely no way to tell how close or really far off they were then or now.

I'm well aware of what has been said in regards to these numbers, and for the first part of my response, I'll state it specifically to THESE 1960's numbers.

Falsifying them, was a federal crime. So I would suspect, in the first year they were obligated to do them, they probably ran closer to what they actually were, than later on. (Evanier would've been 9 years old when these ran in 1960.)

Secondly - the fact that Marvel increased Kirby's work load, because he did the only thing Goodman cared about - SALES - tells me that relates pretty specifically to the numbers stated. 

As for how they stack up overall across the history of them being posted... I've always suspected that most people OVERSTATE the extent to which that happened, but hey, I'll let the expert answer that (John Jackson Miller) from his web site comichron.com: 

Q: How valid is the information in comic book Statements of Ownership? 

A: 
Validity differs from reliability in that it answers the question, "is this statistic really reporting what it says it is?" And whether Statements are telling the real sales truth has been a subject of debate for many years, since fans started collecting them in the 1960s as a means of figuring out which comics were selling the best. It's a federal crime to falsify the numbers — so, in theory, you might expect the information to be accurate. But there have been cases where negligence or misunderstanding led to errors in the Statements — and there have been many occasions where computational errors have crept in. (Easily rectified errors have been corrected for the Comics Chronicles reports.) 

While there have been suspicions from time to time of publishers fiddling with their Statements to improve their numbers or because of apathy — MR. Giordano said that Charlton simply "made them up" during his editorship in the late 1960s — little evidence has been found of it being widespread, especially as other sources of comics circulation figures have become available for comparison. Gross exaggeration would have to be done uniformly across time and across several information channels not to be seen.

And, the filing of Statements is, again, a postal obligation, usually more of a bookkeeping afterthought than an opportunity to market a publisher's sales story. It's the advertisers who care most about how many copies publishers are selling — and those people are getting their information from audit bureaus, not the backs of comic books! 

 

So in truth, there's no way to really prove that "Those published sales figures aren’t really accurate.". There's the word of a few creators on one side (none of which were responsible or LIABLE to Federal Law in posting them) and on the other side you have the threat of a felony and other sources that back up most of the figures. 

In many ways this is another example of someone saying something in the early days of fandom, and it's simply been handed down like it's some kind of 'fact'. It's NOT. 

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

For Battle #70 (the final issue), Jack did the cover and two stories, writing and penciling. Probably finished at the last minute, he's inked by three different people -- D. Ayers on the cover (presented here), Steve Ditko on Story ONE (presented here) and Joe Sinnott on Story Two. 

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

For Battle #70 (the final issue), Jack did the cover and two stories, writing and penciling. Probably finished at the last minute, he's inked by three different people -- D. Ayers on the cover, Steve Ditko on Story ONE, and Joe Sinnott on Story TWO (presented here). 

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ON NEWSSTANDS JANUARY 1960

Jack Kirby also pencils the cover for four other books in January - Gunsmoke Western #58, Love Romances #87, My Own Romance #75 and Wyatt Earp #29 (the final issue). Marvel had always been a publisher who placed great emphasis on the covers as a sales tool - seeing it as more important than the content inside the book* - and here, they take the one weapon they have (undervaluing Ditko) and have him do 6 of the 8 covers for the month.

Marvel has seen the numbers, and they're going to utilize that talent of Kirby's to their advantage. 

 

 

*I mean... that makes sense I guess. You could have the greatest story ever told, and if it has a crappy cover no one will buy it. Goodman saw these comic books like pulps - the only thing that mattered was putting out something that sold as much as possible in that small window of opportunity on a crowded newsstand. 

Having said that, I resented Marvel in the 70's when I first began really buying comics for how many times I bought a comic that had a great cover, only to be extremely disappointed with an interior artist I thought was terrible. I want BOTH to be good!

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On 10/6/2022 at 7:51 PM, N e r V said:

Those published sales figures aren’t really accurate. That’s been discussed and known for years. The first time I had that pointed out to me was from Archie Goodwin in the very early 1980’s when I first inquired about them. Any number of pros since have dismissed them.

From Mark Evaniers website:

 

”The sales figures published in the little Statement of Ownership boxes that ran in some comics were sometimes rough approximations and occasionally pure fiction.”

 

There is absolutely no way to tell how close or really far off they were then or now.

Are you suggesting that numbers from mobbed up distributors to mobbed up publishers shouldn't be considered as accurate? 

I, personally, think they are just as accurate as the rest of the "facts" here, but everyone is welcome to their opinion. 

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