Newsstands and Direct Editions (finally) get a video explainer... Version 1.2 8 8

[Poutine]

Never heard of "Direct Fresh Pages" on eBay yet.....

[valiantman]

On 7/26/2023 at 12:13 PM, Poutine said:

Never heard of "Direct Fresh Pages" on eBay yet.....

Nor in this topic. 

[Poutine]

On 7/26/2023 at 1:15 PM, valiantman said:

Nor in this topic. 

Have heard of "Newsstand Fresh Pages" on eBay though

[valiantman]

On 7/26/2023 at 12:17 PM, Poutine said:

On 7/26/2023 at 12:15 PM, valiantman said:

Nor in this topic. 

Have heard of "Newsstand Fresh Pages" on eBay though

Sounds like something that would be said by the weirdos who sniff comics. Beware of Comico de Bergerac! 

[Poutine]

On 7/26/2023 at 1:21 PM, valiantman said:

Sounds like something that would be said by the weirdos who sniff comics. Beware of Comico de Bergerac! 

I mean, personally I don't sniff comics but I suppose I'm not adverse to it

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 7/26/2023 at 12:21 PM, valiantman said:

Sounds like something that would be said by the weirdos who sniff comics. Beware of Comico de Bergerac! 

Hey! Congrats on the forumite win  

Spoiler

.................................................

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by ADAMANTIUM

[MAR1979]

On 7/26/2023 at 1:33 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Hey! Congrats on the forumite win  

  Reveal hidden contents

.................................................

 

Yes congrats! cgcdata is a huge service to the hobby and to me personally - Thanks!

The cachet of the recognition should permit you to proceed unabated in your Ultimate Plan

On 7/25/2023 at 11:34 AM, valiantman said:

Yeah, about 5% of the time. The rest of the time, I'm working on my scams with my fellow criminals for how we're going to sell mountains of newsstand books for major profits.

 

Edited July 26, 2023 by MAR1979

[MAR1979]

On 7/26/2023 at 1:21 PM, valiantman said:

Sounds like something that would be said by the weirdos who sniff comics.

 As for me I'll stick to the simple pleasures of sniffin' glue

Edited July 26, 2023 by MAR1979

[Lazyboy]

On 7/26/2023 at 12:17 PM, Poutine said:

Have heard of "Newsstand Fresh Pages" on eBay though

Which, of course, is not meant in any way that has anything to do with this topic, but your previous post was still funny.

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 7/26/2023 at 12:49 PM, MAR1979 said:

  As for me I'll stick to the simple pleasures of sniffin' glue

When there was a thread started about sniffers,"I resemble that remark!" But c'est la vie who doesn't love the smell of a good bookstore.  

 

All in good fun.

Edited July 26, 2023 by ADAMANTIUM

[ADAMANTIUM]

On 7/26/2023 at 12:45 PM, MAR1979 said:

Yes congrats! cgcdata is a huge service to the hobby and to me personally - Thanks!

I agree with the sentiment though! No more thread carping for me. A sincere congrats was intended.

[Beyonder123]

Fantastic thread. One of the most compelling I've read in a while. I think the principal problem here is an inability to agree on a definition for what constitutes a "Newsstand Edition" and a "Direct Edition". This should be a relatively easy problem to solve when you just list out all the different places of distribution and their correlating covers. 

Places comics were distributed:

Gas stations/convenient stores - newsstand

Book stores - newsstand

Newsstands - newsstand

Military bases - newsstand 

Comic stores - direct

By subscription - direct

People get so fixated on the variant and edition part of the picture, that they don't stop to think about the story the "newsstand" and "direct" cover indicators actually tell. 

What is the ultimate difference? A newsstand edition is any comic that was sold with a promise of credit upon destruction or return. A direct sale comic was not.

So now is it correct to say that any comic printed before the direct market system is automatically a newsstand? No, because comics before this time had other forms of distribution like subscription, not intended for return. But they are indistinguishable from one another. This could arguably be considered an early form of the direct market. 

It was not until the unreturnable distribution of books to comic stores that it became necessary to distinguish the two types with physical cover changes.

Here's another example. Marvel multipack comics. These all contained traditional "Direct Editions" as soon as they began to be printed. Even though they were often times sold in the exact types of locations (gas stations, book stores, etc) as their newsstand counterparts. Why? Because the multipacks were sold at a discounted price, and were therefore unreturnable. Not necessarily because of where they were sold.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Beyonder123

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 7/26/2023 at 1:33 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Hey! Congrats on the forumite win  

  Hide contents

.................................................

 

[Danno616]

On 7/26/2023 at 10:55 PM, Beyonder123 said:

Fantastic thread. One of the most compelling I've read in a while. I think the principal problem here is an inability to agree on a definition for what constitutes a "Newsstand Edition" and a "Direct Edition". This should be a relatively easy problem to solve when you just list out all the different places of distribution and their correlating covers. 

Places comics were distributed:

By subscription - direct

I had subscriptions through Marvel to Avengers, Rom, Alpha Flight, Marvel Two-in-One, and Thing circa 1980 through the mid-80s, and all of them were newsstands with the barcode.

[Microchip]

On 7/28/2023 at 12:03 PM, Danno616 said:

I had subscriptions through Marvel to Avengers, Rom, Alpha Flight, Marvel Two-in-One, and Thing circa 1980 through the mid-80s, and all of them were newsstands with the barcode.

No one gets that excited about 80's newsstand copies.  They are not the rarities we see in the modern era.

Mid 80's is all about CPV's, and price variants for rarities.

[valiantman]

On 7/27/2023 at 9:35 PM, Microchip said:

No one gets that excited about 80's newsstand copies.  They are not the rarities we see in the modern era.

Mid 80's is all about CPV's, and price variants for rarities.

There's not going to be a "catch-all" answer using dates or types, especially for high grade copies.

Newsstand on Thor #337 (1983) is the most common, Direct Edition Thor #337 is second, and the "rarest" is Canadian Newsstand Thor #337 (75 cent cover).

Newsstand on Wolverine #1 (Limited, 1982) is the least common, Direct Edition Wolverine #1 is the most common, and Canadian Newsstand does not exist.

We're still going to be dealing with a "depends on the book" situation, even after everyone learns to recognize the differences by sight.

 

[Beyonder123]

On 7/27/2023 at 7:03 PM, Danno616 said:

I had subscriptions through Marvel to Avengers, Rom, Alpha Flight, Marvel Two-in-One, and Thing circa 1980 through the mid-80s, and all of them were newsstands with the barcode.

Interesting. I assumed they had always been direct and at least were by the late 90s.

[Microchip]

On 7/29/2023 at 1:44 AM, valiantman said:

There's not going to be a "catch-all" answer using dates or types, especially for high grade copies.

Newsstand on Thor #337 (1983) is the most common, Direct Edition Thor #337 is second, and the "rarest" is Canadian Newsstand Thor #337 (75 cent cover).

Newsstand on Wolverine #1 (Limited, 1982) is the least common, Direct Edition Wolverine #1 is the most common, and Canadian Newsstand does not exist.

We're still going to be dealing with a "depends on the book" situation, even after everyone learns to recognize the differences by sight.

 

From what I've seen the ratio for CPV's for that era does actually look pretty consistent across the time period.    The big event books of that era, that were promoted ahead of their release dates, with storyline buildup series and issues, all have very strong census submission numbers in CPV's.   For these books the direct to CPV ratio still seems to be intact, which is interesting to see.    Reading through the contributors to the topic, the ratio in it's broadest estimates CPV's sits in the 1-5% range of direct editions

The big three books from the early 80's;

Secret Wars #8 2% CPV ratio

Direct submissions 23,258, CPV submissions 366

ASM #252 3% CPV ratio

Direct submissions 19,853, CPV submissions 658

Thor #337 6% CPV ratio

Direct submissions 9,314, CPV submissions 598

Then taking time looking at non key issues, or unprompted books from the CPV time period, the ratio's all sit around the similar percentages.   There are of course a few books with low direct edition submission numbers, which even a few CPV submissions make the ratio look high, circa 20% etc.    But overall things look fairly consistent.   

CPV's in that era, do look consistently represented in volume, and submission ratio's seen on your database.   We all know the census does not represent all direct editions in existance, and there are unacknowledged CPV issues in the direct edition numbers, and there is of course the competitions own census numbers to consider.   But there is an abundance of data points, across multiple years, big and small issues submission books, popular, and non-popular books and titles (I'm looking at you X-Factor #5, & #6) that consistently illustrate the ratio of CPV's to direct editions out there. 

But looking forward, there is a ton of newsstand books out there, that will need to be resubmitted to gain the slab notation, and  inclusion in your database.   But that will very likely be multi decade process, to see significant numbers of books returned to CGC for label updates. 

Returning to the Wolverine Limited series, the books had a huge amount of promotion leading up to their release, the CPV ratio's for all three issues sits squarely on 1%.   Which is why it's abundantly clear that Canadians hate Wolverine.   Just checking who's still reading.

 

 

 

[Cat]

On 7/29/2023 at 12:27 PM, Beyonder123 said:

Interesting. I assumed they had always been direct and at least were by the late 90s.

OT: Such a shame they wasted the awesomely talented Jeff Matsuda on this dog of a book. X-Factor got so bad around this time all thanks to Howard Mackie (I don't know if his name is on the censor list, it bloody should be it's an affront to humanity in how offensive it truly is) yet it had such gorgeous art. C'est La vie. 

[valiantman]

On 7/28/2023 at 9:28 PM, Microchip said:

But looking forward, there is a ton of newsstand books out there, that will need to be resubmitted to gain the slab notation, and  inclusion in your database.

For the numbers coming from the CGC Census, we know that books were not identified correctly all the time... but for numbers coming from @gpanalysis identification of newsstand and CPV, we're not relying on CGC's labels.