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

[Prince Namor]

So what DID make Marvel the #1 publisher in 1972, despite all of those falling sales numbers...? 

In 1970, 49.3% of Marvel's line was REPRINTS. In 1971, 43.5%. 

Reprints consisting of mainly Kirby's work and Ditko and Romita - the FF and ASM were reprinted monthly, the X-men became all reprints, Sgt. Fury became all reprints, the Horror books all reprints, the Westerns all reprints, the Humor all reprints, the Romance all reprints...

The House of Ideas?

HE now worked at DC Comics. Lee had NOTHING. 

He was busy rewriting history in his 'History of Marvel Comics' book while the entire line was falling apart. He would go to Hollywood and spend 30 years NOT making any headway into Movies, while DC's Superman and Batman would give us 8 movies and even started work on a Batman reboot by the time someone ELSE at Marvel finally got a Spider-man movie made...

WHO saved comics???

[Prince Namor]

Here's an interesting article from the New York Times in mid 1971... it's very revealing the thoughts and perspectives at the time vs how they've been altered.

1. Goodman is NEGATIVE about sales while Infantino is positive! This is just before DC dumb 25 cent price mistake...

2. 'LEE's antiheroes' Sub-Mariner, Captain America... those are NOT Lee's creations...

3. He 'came to Timely Comics with some scripts and was hired by editors Joe Simon and Jack Kirby'. Ha ha ha. Look at Lee tell a blatant lie to try and give himself some credibility. Sick.

4. DC's 'relevance' in social issues in comics is given just as much mention, if not MORE (because let;s face it - it was written better) than Marvel... Marvel just tooted their own horn about it more for the next 50 years.

And...

[Prince Namor]

And it's KIRBY'S books who are being accepted by the college crowd. This article is VERY positive about Kirby's new books and spends a great deal of time talking about them... this is someone who hasn't been indoctrinated by the Marvel/Lee Zombie hype, but rather excited by what he sees with his own eyes... and what he sees is Kirby's magic.

No talk of the dialogue being off or any of that nonsense... in fact, students at Yale are reading transcripts over the radio of New Gods...

[Dr. Haydn]

On 3/15/2024 at 3:50 PM, Prince Namor said:

In 1970, 49.3% of Marvel's line was REPRINTS. In 1971, 43.5%. 

Reprints consisting of mainly Kirby's work and Ditko and Romita - the FF and ASM were reprinted monthly, the X-men became all reprints, Sgt. Fury became all reprints, the Horror books all reprints, the Westerns all reprints...

Given Marvel's modest sales figures at the time, I guess a lot of people missed these great stories when they first appeared.

But almost HALF reprints?? Astounding!

I guess it was cheaper than generating new material. Especially if the new material was a mediocre photocopy of the old.

[Dr. Haydn]

On 3/15/2024 at 3:24 PM, Prince Namor said:

Stan Lee would do his first college speaking appearance in 1964, but wouldn't really step it up until 1966 after the cartoons came out and he put on a toupee and got a tan to hide his liver spots. He was in showbiz now!

For the life of me, I can't see any proof that he increased the amount of college readers with his campus appearances. Wasn't he speaking to the already converted? As his appearances increased in 1970-72, sales of the comics actually went DOWN. I suspect the old Marvel stop motion Cartoons from 1966 did more to increase the overall awareness of the line of comics than anything Stan did on Campus. And that was because of how exciting the ART was - using Kirby's actual artwork.

In the spread sheet below, you can see how a couple lies from Lee are exposed... a) that comics were dead in 1960... far from it as Dell, Archie and especially DC were still selling big numbers (NOT WW2 numbers, but still bigger than we'd see for another 30 years).... b) that Marvel rose on it's own in the mid-60's... again untrue, as the whole comic publishing business rose during those middle years, and then EXPLODED after the Batman TV show brought even more awareness to the books.... and c) that Marvel became more successful in the 70's.... what???

It's pretty easy to see how numbers went DOWN once Kirby left Marvel. Lee was still writing FF and ASM, but those books PLUMMETED. By the time Lee jumped ship midway through 1972, the FF was down 100,000 copies a month and the ASM 80,000+ copies a month (it seriously missed Romita's much under valued writing and art on the book). The price increases didn't help, but those are some serious drops in sales.

Cancellations of Nick Fury, Silver Surfer (Kirby ideas, no longer held together by Kirby), Sub-Mariner (would hold out until 1974)... by the end of the decade, the Marvel line of comics was a mess...

So what DID make Marvel the #1 publisher in 1972, despite all of those falling sales numbers...? (continued...)

Just glanced at the spreadsheet. 1968, the last full year at the 12-cent price, is interesting. Neal Adams supposedly took over X-men the following year because it was "Marvel's weakest title"--at 273,360 copies, it was about the same as Avengers, Hulk, and Captain America, and slightly ahead of Dr. Strange in 1968. Yet in 1969, X-men (the acclaimed Adams-Thomas run) went down about 40,000 copies. Of course, most of the rest of the line suffered too, except for the two flagship titles (Spidey and FF). I suppose the kids were buying fewer titles across the board.

Incidentally, Marvel increased the price to 25 cents right around the beginning of 1974, which makes it all the more interesting that their sales stayed about the same level they had been in 1973. (DC stayed at 20 cents for the first half of 1974, if memory serves.)

Edited March 15 by Dr. Haydn
added 12 cent price

[bc]

On 3/15/2024 at 5:18 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

Given Marvel's modest sales figures at the time, I guess a lot of people missed these great stories when they first appeared.

But almost HALF reprints?? Astounding!

I guess it was cheaper than generating new material. Especially if the new material was a mediocre photocopy of the old.

Those reprints helped this kid get addicted to the late Atlas/early Marvel stories.

I was too young to go to an LCS or con to be exposed to the originals, so I absorbed all those reprint books until I had the ways and means to afford them.

 Never realized that it was nearly 1/2 of the sales, and agree on the profit factor involved.

-bc 

[Zonker]

On 3/15/2024 at 5:41 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

Neal Adams supposedly took over X-men the following year because it was "Marvel's weakest title"--at 273,360 copies, it was about the same as Avengers, Hulk, and Captain America, and slightly ahead of Dr. Strange in 1968. Yet in 1969, X-men (the acclaimed Adams-Thomas run) went down about 40,000 copies.

There is of course the theory-- promoted perhaps not surprisingly by Neal Adams himself-- that fan-favorite titles, like supposedly the Adams/Thomas X-Men, were victims of affidavit fraud.  Copies would fall off the truck before ever reaching the newsstand and be sold through a back door to aspiring comic book dealers.  Often used as a partial explanation for the commercial failure of the original X-Men, Deadman, GL/GA, Kirby's Fourth World, and the near-cancellation of the BWS Conan run.  

[Dr. Haydn]

On 3/15/2024 at 5:02 PM, bc said:

Those reprints helped this kid get addicted to the late Atlas/early Marvel stories.

I was too young to go to an LCS or con to be exposed to the originals, so I absorbed all those reprint books until I had the ways and means to afford them.

 Never realized that it was nearly 1/2 of the sales, and agree on the profit factor involved.

-bc 

I started reading marvels in late 1973. Same deal--I much preferred the Silver Age reprints. FF, Thor, and Spidey were reprinting 1968 stories. (Tales of Suspense/Tales to Astonish a bit earlier.) Great stuff.

[Prince Namor]

On 3/16/2024 at 5:02 AM, Zonker said:

There is of course the theory-- promoted perhaps not surprisingly by Neal Adams himself-- that fan-favorite titles, like supposedly the Adams/Thomas X-Men, were victims of affidavit fraud.  Copies would fall off the truck before ever reaching the newsstand and be sold through a back door to aspiring comic book dealers.  Often used as a partial explanation for the commercial failure of the original X-Men, Deadman, GL/GA, Kirby's Fourth World, and the near-cancellation of the BWS Conan run.  

It's a bit stronger than a theory, but... I suppose Neal would support it a great deal because he's seen there is no shortage of copies of any of those books of his that he's signed over the years that supposedly 'didn't sell' at the time they came out.

This has always been a pretty shady business, especially back in those days, and the idea that once publishers no longer required the torn off logo from an unsold book, but simply a note saying, "Yep, this is how many we didn't sell!" from the newsstand... that someone WOULDN'T take advantage of that...

Look at the 1971 Fan Awards:

Kirby in the Top Three of the Favorite Artist, WRITER, and Editor with New Gods also finishing #3 as Favorite Comic

Neal Adams and Barry Smith as #1 and 2, Favorite Artist - Conan and Green Lantern #1 and #2 Favorite Comic

Denny O'Neil Favorite Writer

Stan Lee is favorite editor and yet none of his work is listed... Hmmm

Favorite Comic book story - 2 of them are Conan, 2 are GL/GA, and the other is Adams story in Avengers #93...

Favorite Comic Character... Conan and Green Arrow #1 and #2

And yet... they didn't sell???

[Prince Namor]

On 3/16/2024 at 4:18 AM, Dr. Haydn said:

I guess it was cheaper than generating new material. Especially if the new material was a mediocre photocopy of the old.

I loved those reprints. It was all we had back in the day.

But I don't think they did it just to save costs... they HAD no one who could do the work. Thomas brought in more fan boy writers like himself, but those guys couldn't save Marvel and the artists they had to work with either got tired of the crappy work environment and poor pay or just couldn't deal with the Marvel Method of doing all the work and not get credit for the writing. 

John Buscema, Gene Colan, Herb Trimpe - great artists... not good writers. 

Marvel could've kept Barry Windsor Smith, but... they treated that guy like such . Mike Ploog wasn't enough of a storyteller himself, and saw the pay just didn't compare to what he could make elsewhere. Jim Starlin WAS an artist/writer and was one of the few that DID manage to create some worthy material.

But really... until Marvel found an influx of creative people more inspired by Kirby, than Lee... who were artist/writers themselves... in particular Byrne and Miller... Marvel floundered. 

The gap between Kirby leaving and the arrival of Miller and Byrne shows itself hugely in the sales. (Sales went up for those two, as well as Claremont and, to some degree Simonson. At a certain point, Byrne was one of the few that could go to ANY book and raise its sales).

[Dr. Haydn]

On 3/15/2024 at 6:03 PM, Prince Namor said:

 

Look at the 1971 Fan Awards:

 

Stan Lee is favorite editor and yet none of his work is listed... Hmmm

 

--And 85 people voted for Roy Thomas as favorite editor--yet none of the books in 1971 gave him an editor credit. (That would come in 1972.)

Did people in the know realize that Thomas was the de facto editor of the books he dialogued?

[Prince Namor]

On 3/16/2024 at 10:17 PM, Dr. Haydn said:

--And 85 people voted for Roy Thomas as favorite editor--yet none of the books in 1971 gave him an editor credit. (That would come in 1972.)

Did people in the know realize that Thomas was the de facto editor of the books he dialogued?

Good question. 

Maybe in the fanzines is the answer.

In 1970-71, Marvel put out more new books - with actual NEW MATERIAL in it (that actually stuck around for a bit) than they had since the Atlas years, and most of it was spearheaded by Thomas. Not sure how fans would know that, but...

Conan the Barbarian - Captain Marvel's New Look - Astonishing Tales - Amazing Adventures - Savage Tales (listed as Associate Editor) - Kull - Marvel Spotlight (Werewolf by Night) - Marvel Premiere (Warlock) - Marvel Feature (Defenders) - New stories, some new characters, some revamped characters....

Stan meanwhile was still bringing out junk like reprints of Petey, Chili, Homer the Happy Ghost, Lil Kids, Harvey... (There's SOME reasoning behind it - I mean, Rawhide Kid in the 1971 Statement showed 204,000 copies per month! As far as creativity though... pretty much bankrupt.) Reprint annuals... FF was getting lame... ASM lame...

 

[Steven Valdez]

When I started collecting Marvel in 1976 it seemed the general public was aware of Batman and Superman, but the Marvel characters were practically unheard of. I recall a kid at school asking me if I was into that 'Captain Spider-Man garbage'. This was in Australia, may have been different in the US.

[Steven Valdez]

On 3/17/2024 at 4:14 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

Show us on the doll where Stan hurt you

You really need to can it with your pedo 'joke'.

[Steven Valdez]

On 3/16/2024 at 9:02 AM, Zonker said:

There is of course the theory-- promoted perhaps not surprisingly by Neal Adams himself-- that fan-favorite titles, like supposedly the Adams/Thomas X-Men, were victims of affidavit fraud.  Copies would fall off the truck before ever reaching the newsstand and be sold through a back door to aspiring comic book dealers.  Often used as a partial explanation for the commercial failure of the original X-Men, Deadman, GL/GA, Kirby's Fourth World, and the near-cancellation of the BWS Conan run.  

Chuck Rozanski freely admits his Mile High II collection (of MILLIONS of books) consisted of the fruits of affidavit 'return' fraud. The co-owner of National Comics up to 1967, Irwin Donenfeld, also knew full-well that it was going on and is on the record as acknowledging it.

 

[Hepcat]

 

On 3/15/2024 at 4:33 PM, Prince Namor said:

Again... when they stopped doing the Cartoons, it coincided with the comic book numbers going DOWN. Smilin' Stan is still writing and swinging with the youngsters on the campus 'scene', but... sales are DOWN. 

You're right! Stan's time would have been much better served promoting comics to the most promising target market, i.e. elementary school kids.

Edited March 18 by Hepcat

[Hepcat]

On 3/15/2024 at 4:50 PM, Prince Namor said:

WHO saved comics???

I didn't realize comics needed to be "saved".

Hopefully though you're not trying to argue that it was Jack Kirby who did the saving....

[Hepcat]

On 3/15/2024 at 6:02 PM, Zonker said:

There is of course the theory-- promoted perhaps not surprisingly by Neal Adams himself-- that fan-favorite titles, like supposedly the Adams/Thomas X-Men, were victims of affidavit fraud.  Copies would fall off the truck before ever reaching the newsstand and be sold through a back door to aspiring comic book dealers.  Often used as a partial explanation for the commercial failure of the original X-Men, Deadman, GL/GA, Kirby's Fourth World, and the near-cancellation of the BWS Conan run.  

Sounds like a bunch of hokum to me, i.e. an oldtime conspiracy theory.

[Hepcat]

On 3/15/2024 at 7:03 PM, Prince Namor said:

Look at the 1971 Fan Awards:

Why? That fan boy stuff wasn't reflective of the mass market for comics.

On 3/15/2024 at 7:03 PM, Prince Namor said:

And yet... they didn't sell???

Clearly not. Otherwise they would not have been cancelled.

[Prince Namor]

On 3/18/2024 at 10:38 AM, Steven Valdez said:

When I started collecting Marvel in 1976 it seemed the general public was aware of Batman and Superman, but the Marvel characters were practically unheard of. I recall a kid at school asking me if I was into that 'Captain Spider-Man garbage'. This was in Australia, may have been different in the US.

It was. Spider-man had a very popular cartoon series (the exceptional 1967-68 series) that ran through... I think 1971 and then made it's rounds on after school kids TV reruns (which is where I first saw it). 

But yeah, when Superman got a movie made in 1978, no one was like "How can that be? Spider-man is so much more popular!). No one in the mainstream cared about the sales of Marvel Comics. Superman was the much better known hero because he had a 30 year head start and had been in TV and cartoons throughout his time. 

And even in comics for 1978, Superman's title still wasn't far off Marvel's best, Spider-man in terms of sales 223,222 to 258,156. Much of the 'Marvel changed the course of comic history' is hyperbole... what we actually see in the real world of what happened is much different.