Stan, Jack, and Steve - The 1960's (1964) The Slow Build 5 5

[Prince Namor]

It didn't INFLATE the sales numbers, it DECREASED it. 

Affidavit fraud was about marking those books as UNSOLD, so that the newsstand distributor didn't have to pay for them - thus not counting toward the publishers 'Total PAID circulation' - the numbers I quote. The newsstand distributors could care less about that number, they just wanted free comics that were considered possibly 'hot' that a dealer could buy to sell on the secondary market.

DC could then look at a book like Green Lantern/Green Arrow, with Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil and say, "It's not selling", because on PAPER it wasn't - and end up canceling the book. Meanwhile thousands of copies are being sold on the secondary market because there IS a demand for it. 

Happened to Conan the Barbarian - sales numbers were supposedly terrible - yet there are seemingly unlimited numbers of the books on the market - same thing happened to Kirby's Fourth World books - for something that 'didn't sell very well' - no one has ever had a problem finding an issue of it on the back market. 

[Steven Valdez]

On 9/22/2023 at 4:44 PM, jimjum12 said:

I remember reading in Chuck's blog, "Tales From The Data Base", that the Mile High 2 warehouse had more to it and that the earlier part of the inventory from the early 60's into the 50's had already been sold before Chuck entered the picture. Anyway, my main point was that likely no one was paid much, if anything, for these, in fact they cost money to keep.

Beerbohm himself wrote an article in Comic Book Artist #6 (1999) called 'Secret Origins of the Direct Market - Affidavit Returns, the Scourge of Distribution'. He says that speculators like himself were buying comics by the boxload, starting at least from Daredevil #1 then on-selling them to collectors for double the price. I'm pretty sure that all the big-name dealers who advertised from the late '60s thru the '90s had similar roots. He wrote, "Speculation in comics began long before many so-called experts seem to think. We and other dealers were buying out local ID's entire allotments of hot items' in the 1960s and '70s. "The backdoor money never got back to the publisher, and the sales figures that were reported were surely bogus."

"A responsible publisher such as Carmine Infantino could only go by the sales figures presented to him. Consequently, series that were extremely popular with readers and collectors, like the O'Neil/Adams GL/GA and Kirby's Fourth World titles were cancelled due to 'lack of sales'."

So, due to criminal market manipulation by parasitic dealers and fraudulent distributors, the careers of some of the finest comic creators were derailed or severely impacted.
 

 

 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Steven Valdez

[Steven Valdez]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:30 PM, Prince Namor said:

Happened to Conan the Barbarian - sales numbers were supposedly terrible - yet there are seemingly unlimited numbers of the books on the market - same thing happened to Kirby's Fourth World books - for something that 'didn't sell very well' - no one has ever had a problem finding an issue of it on the back market. 

Robert Beerbohm: "One person I know [illegally] acquired over 25,000 copies of Conan #1 when it came out. By early 1973 I was giving him $600 for a sealed case of 300 copies and selling them for $5 a pop." His price per case doubled to $1,200 in 1974.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Steven Valdez

[Prince Namor]

But no one ever says, "Oh, Conan wasn't very good, because they were almost going to cancel it, or Green Lantern/Green Arrow must not have been good because they cancelled the book, it's ONLY when it pertains to Kirby, that Lee fans MUST embrace the idea that nothing could ever be as good without Lee directing it. It couldn't POSSIBLY have sold without the generic, repeated, laugh track of dialogue that Stanley added - Kirby CAN'T possibly succeed without SOMEONE holding his hand through the creative process. 

Affidavit fraud would be widely accepted and understood if not for THIS simple obstacle - to DOWNPLAY Kirby's talent as a creator. So infantile and small is the comic book information pipeline - that Houseroy and Lee could/can easily clog the path of information (with the help of an army of fanboys zombies) and cloud the facts for nearly 50 years. 

Just to pump up Lee's value and diminish Kirby's. Sick.

[Prince Namor]

AND: Jimmy Olsen went from bi-monthly to monthly under Kirby and was cancelled less than a year after he departed the title.

 

 

 

(Well, merged with LOIS LANE and SUPERGIRL to create SUPERMAN FAMILY, which retained JO’s numbering, but Jimmy Olsen, as we know it as a comic book, was done.)

[Zonker]

On 9/22/2023 at 2:44 AM, jimjum12 said:

Any high grade examples were almost surely leftovers that someone never sold.

 

 

 

But that's exactly the point.  Per the affidavit system then in place, any unsold "leftovers" were pledged to have been destroyed.  So if high grade examples exist as "never sold" leftovers, that means they exist as the result of affidavit fraud. 

[Steven Valdez]

Around 30+ years ago, a well known east-coast dealer was selling long-box size cases of comics in bulk. They were mystery boxes, and all genres were available. You could buy Bronze or Silver Age assortments. He had Marvel/DC cases that were guaranteed to contain a reasonable percentage of major superhero titles. 

Condition range of the comics was described as VG+ to mint, I think. I can't recall how much the boxes cost, but they were cheap enough for a part-time working student such as myself to afford a couple + postage to Australia.

I do distinctly recall the highlight was getting 5 x pristine mint unread copies of Amazing Spider-Man #64. I don't have them any more, so would hate to think what they're worth now in CGC 10.0!

There were some Kirby Fourth World books too, as well as a Demon issue. Lots of horror anthology books, and 'lesser' Marvels like Man-Thing, Werewolf By Night etc.

I vividly recall that the only defects on the lower grade books were corner dings, consistent with being in boxes thrown on and off distributors' trucks. NONE of the books had any reader wear, such as rolled spines, stains, rips or dog ears.

I realised in later years that these could only have been examples of the notorious affidavit 'return' days.

Edited September 22, 2023 by Steven Valdez

[Dr. Haydn]

On 9/22/2023 at 4:48 AM, Steven Valdez said:

Robert Beerbohm: "One person I know [illegally] acquired over 25,000 copies of Conan #1 when it came out. By early 1973 I was giving him $600 for a sealed case of 300 copies and selling them for $5 a pop." His price per case doubled to $1,200 in 1974.

Bob is still active on other Facebook groups. I wonder what he would have to add to the current discussion? He was there when a lot of the shady stuff was going on, in the late Silver Age.

[Prince Namor]

Saw this on Facebook:

Jack Hamm

"Tales of Suspense #36 (December 1962), with a Kirby cover depicting a lead story drawn by Don Heck, is the first issue to carry a Lee plot/Lieber -script credit. The name of Kirby's Manhunter story from Adventure Comics #75 (June 1942, same issue as the Sandman story with the Thor prototype) makes me suspect that the basic idea came from someone else.

The name isn't the only similarity, by the way. The 1940s Mr. Meek has a ray gun that solidifies objects and ends up being turned into a stone statue, while the 1960s one has the Midas touch and turns people into golden statues."

[jimjum12]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:38 AM, Zonker said:

But that's exactly the point.  Per the affidavit system then in place, any unsold "leftovers" were pledged to have been destroyed.  So if high grade examples exist as "never sold" leftovers, that means they exist as the result of affidavit fraud. 

Books could also be bought in bulk(wholesale) by large dealers like Bell and Rogofsky to be sold in the future. If you're buying in bulk at 15 cents and then selling at  a dollar, it's a sound practice. They did a LOT of stockpiling. If affidavit returns were as rampant as some suggest, the industry would have gone under. It's easy to use "affidavit return" as a talking point when the only verification is hearsay from individuals who have demonstrated that they ALREADY have an ax to grind. All I know is that 4th World books would still be 3 months deep on the spinner around here ... now it's always possible that 7-11 was procuring inventory through affidavit returns ... yeah. If they were returned for credit by retailers as unsold, I doubt they were still in mint condition, after all the kids pawed through them, hoping there were better comics hidden in the back. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited September 23, 2023 by jimjum12

[Zonker]

On 9/22/2023 at 9:31 PM, jimjum12 said:

Books could also be bought in bulk(wholesale) by large dealers like Bell and Rogofsky to be sold in the future. If you're buying in bulk at 15 cents and then selling at  a dollar, it's a sound practice. They did a LOT of stockpiling. If affidavit returns were as rampant as some suggest, the industry would have gone under. It's easy to use "affidavit return" as a talking point when the only verification is hearsay from individuals who have demonstrated that they ALREADY have an ax to grind. All I know is that 4th World books would still be 3 months deep on the spinner around here ... now it's always possible that 7-11 was procuring inventory through affidavit returns ... yeah. If they were returned for credit by retailers as unsold, I doubt they were still in mint condition, after all the kids pawed through them, hoping there were better comics hidden in the back. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

I'm still not sure we're talking about the same thing when you say "affidavit returns."  Maybe in the old, old days the distributors had to physically return unsold copies, I'm not sure.  But at some point everyone realized the shipping costs for sending back unsold junky old comics was prohibitive.  So then the requirement became to strip off the cover logos for all unsold copies, and just mail back to the publishers an envelope filled with all the stripped-off cover logos to get credit for these unsold items.  Yet all of us here have seen examples of low-grade comic books with only the bottom half of the front cover still intact-- those are almost certainly copies sold 2nd hand after already being fully credited by the publishers.  That's an earlier generation of fraudulent back-issue dealing clearly evident to this day.  

Then later people decided it wasn't even worth the effort to count out those stripped off cover logos to determine what to credit the distributors.  So they just instituted an honor system that the distributors would pledge they had scrapped all unsold copies.  And the distributors just had to sign an affidavit saying they had done so to get credit.  Nothing was actually returned. I'm sure some distributors were honest, but we are told by folks like Beerbohm and Rozanski that some distributors couldn't resist the temptation to sell those books twice: once for full credit from the publishers as unsold, and again to some less-than-scrupulous emerging dealer-collectors out there. 

I can't dispute what you saw on the spinner racks back in 1971/1972.  I wasn't buying comic books until a few years later.  But I'd be hard pressed to remember today what was left unwanted on those spinner racks so long ago.  I'm much more likely to remember what I had trouble finding in the mid-1970s.  Stuff like the Aparo/Fleisher Spectre issues of Adventure Comics-- I could never find those in the usual locations, only at the G. C. Murphy department store, unfortunately a very infrequent shopping expedition for my mom.  

[jimjum12]

On 9/22/2023 at 10:15 PM, Zonker said:

I'm still not sure we're talking about the same thing when you say "affidavit returns." 

We're talking about the same thing ... my point is just that not all minty copies are food snatched from the mouths of a comic artist's children. They also don't automatically mean they were sold off the back of a truck and then stockpiled, nor are they automatically fraudulent affidavit returns.  To be honest, when the 4th World debuted, we were living in a small town in Missouri(pop. 2500) and the only place that carried comics was often sold out of the good stuff and I don't remember much, if any, D.C. product for sale. When we moved back East, the Kirby Verse was well under way and not selling well at all around here. I tried a few Demon issues but couldn't make much sense of it but loved the art. I DID pick up almost every Kirby issue of Kamandi as they came out, but it was obviously a "borrowed" concept from Planet Of The Apes. My one and only published letter appeared in an issue of Kamandi, so I'm not a Kirby hater by any means. GOD BLESS ... 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Steven Valdez]

On 9/23/2023 at 6:30 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

Bob is still active on other Facebook groups. I wonder what he would have to add to the current discussion? He was there when a lot of the shady stuff was going on, in the late Silver Age.

He was 'buying in bulk' since Daredevil #1 in 1964. Many of the biggest dealers of the 60s-90s seem to have built their empires on affidavit fraud.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Steven Valdez

[Steven Valdez]

On 9/23/2023 at 11:31 AM, jimjum12 said:

Books could also be bought in bulk(wholesale) by large dealers like Bell and Rogofsky to be sold in the future.

Who were they buying in bulk from? The publishers didn't sell directly to dealers in those days and they still don't. There were no legitimate comic book wholesalers until the direct market began in the early 1980s.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Steven Valdez

[Dr. Haydn]

On 9/22/2023 at 9:15 PM, Zonker said:

I'm still not sure we're talking about the same thing when you say "affidavit returns."  Maybe in the old, old days the distributors had to physically return unsold copies, I'm not sure.  But at some point everyone realized the shipping costs for sending back unsold junky old comics was prohibitive.  So then the requirement became to strip off the cover logos for all unsold copies, and just mail back to the publishers an envelope filled with all the stripped-off cover logos to get credit for these unsold items.  Yet all of us here have seen examples of low-grade comic books with only the bottom half of the front cover still intact-- those are almost certainly copies sold 2nd hand after already being fully credited by the publishers.  That's an earlier generation of fraudulent back-issue dealing clearly evident to this day.  

Then later people decided it wasn't even worth the effort to count out those stripped off cover logos to determine what to credit the distributors.  So they just instituted an honor system that the distributors would pledge they had scrapped all unsold copies.  And the distributors just had to sign an affidavit saying they had done so to get credit.  Nothing was actually returned. I'm sure some distributors were honest, but we are told by folks like Beerbohm and Rozanski that some distributors couldn't resist the temptation to sell those books twice: once for full credit from the publishers as unsold, and again to some less-than-scrupulous emerging dealer-collectors out there. 

I can't dispute what you saw on the spinner racks back in 1971/1972.  I wasn't buying comic books until a few years later.  But I'd be hard pressed to remember today what was left unwanted on those spinner racks so long ago.  I'm much more likely to remember what I had trouble finding in the mid-1970s.  Stuff like the Aparo/Fleisher Spectre issues of Adventure Comics-- I could never find those in the usual locations, only at the G. C. Murphy department store, unfortunately a very infrequent shopping expedition for my mom.  

By the mid-1970s, they had 3-packs of comics sold at a discount, with the covers defaced by a black pencil. (My copy of Giant-Size X-Men #1 was like that--which I regrettably no longer have. Oh well.)

I suppose that was the equivalent of ripping off all/part of the cover, as they were supposed to do with unsold copies back in the 1960s?

Edited September 23, 2023 by Dr. Haydn
added some details

[jimjum12]

On 9/22/2023 at 11:36 PM, Steven Valdez said:

Who were they buying in bulk from? The publishers didn't sell directly to dealers in those days and they still don't.

I seem to recall Bell saying that he did. My friend Lewis tracked him down when he sold out and moved to Florida and interviewed him for Comic Book Marketplace in the issue that featured Detective Dan on the cover. The interview was edited for space, but the full tapes are on his website. He occasionally posts here under the name The_Leader_Knows and there is a link to his website there. Today almost ALL of wholesale business is done with dealers through distributors, who are also dealers. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[jimjum12]

On 9/22/2023 at 11:47 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

By the mid-1970s, they had 3-packs of comics with the covers defaced by a black pencil. (My copy of Giant-Size X-Men #1 was like that--which I regrettably no longer have. Oh well.)

I suppose that was the equivalent of ripping off all/part of the cover, as they were supposed to do with unsold copies back in the 1960s?

Back in the 60's they had what were called "jobbers" who repurposed unsold books into 3 and 4 packs at a slight discount to cover. These packs were often sold at the same place the new issues came from. My first experience buying these had a DD 23 in it, even though DD was already numbering in the upper 50's. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

... I have a friend who is a LCS owner who bought a warehouse from one of these guys. There were tons of 50's and 60's Charltons in rather nice shape. He still sprinkles them in his show stock today. 

[Steven Valdez]

On 9/23/2023 at 1:48 PM, jimjum12 said:

I seem to recall Bell saying that he did. My friend Lewis tracked him down when he sold out and moved to Florida and interviewed him for Comic Book Marketplace in the issue that featured Detective Dan on the cover. The interview was edited for space, but the full tapes are on his website. He occasionally posts here under the name The_Leader_Knows and there is a link to his website there. Today almost ALL of wholesale business is done with dealers through distributors, who are also dealers. GOD BLESS ...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

But again, who was he buying in bulk from? As far as i know, the distributors had exclusive rights to wholesale sales of periodicals... that, and they were run by the mob, who nobody wanted to mess with. I'd like to read that article you allude to.

Edited September 23, 2023 by Steven Valdez

[jimjum12]

On 9/22/2023 at 11:54 PM, Steven Valdez said:

But again, who was he buying in bulk from? As far as i know, the distributors had exclusive rights to wholesale sales of periodicals... that, and they were run by the mob, who nobody wanted to mess with. I'd like to read that article you allude to.

Here's a link to Lewis' website ... there are hours and hours of 1st class journalism devoted to comicfandom from a collector of over 60 years. I've also seen him eat an entire large Italian Pizza by himself, I'm talking meat-lovers'. 

THE LEADER'S REPORT

The tapes from the Bell interview can be downloaded from there. 

Here is the issue that the edited interview appeared in. I may be remembering the details wrong, but the interview is VERY in depth.

GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited September 23, 2023 by jimjum12

[Steven Valdez]

On 9/23/2023 at 2:02 PM, jimjum12 said:

Here's a link to Lewis' website ... there are hours and hours of 1st class journalism devoted to comicfandom from a collector of over 60 years. I've also seen him eat an entire large Italian Pizza by himself. 

THE LEADER'S REPORT

The tapes from the Bell interview can be downloaded from there. 

Here is the issue that the edited interview appeared in. I may be remembering the details wrong, but the interview is VERY in depth.

GOD BLESS...

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

 

Fantastic, thank YOU sir!