Blank box Amalagam 0

[shadroch]

Going through a collection and came across this oddity. All the others in the run have direct market boxes but this one is blank. I saw two on eBay, one had an astronomical price, but it's mile high chuck.

It seems like a strange book to reprint. Please educate me about these. Thanks

[kenaran]

I've always considered these to fall into the same category as the DCU logo variants.  That places them as originally sold in some sort of multi-pack.  Most, but not all of the DCU's have no printing info in the incedentia (de facto first print).  These would probably follow suit and be mostly or entirely be first prints.  The blank boxes should only be on the issues that DC published (probably half of them).  DC and marvel had subtly different UPC formatting in that era, so if you're interested you can research it with an image search (fonts, barcode size, that sort of thing).

[Qalyar]

There's some indication that at least some of these blank box books were intended for distribution via specific outlets (Barnes and Noble is often cited as a possibility) that wanted their own barcodes rather than using the normal ones everyone else does. Rather than print specific store variants, blank boxes were produced instead, with the idea that the stores would apply their own UPC stickers. But if course that didn't always happen.

Now, it's equally possible that this was a multi-pack book like DC Universe stuff, until more information arises one way or the other 

But broadly speaking, that's the two ways books like this came into existence.

[Qalyar]

On 2/1/2024 at 10:59 PM, Qalyar said:

There's some indication that at least some of these blank box books were intended for distribution via specific outlets (Barnes and Noble is often cited as a possibility) that wanted their own barcodes rather than using the normal ones everyone else does. Rather than print specific store variants, blank boxes were produced instead, with the idea that the stores would apply their own UPC stickers. But if course that didn't always happen.

Now, it's equally possible that this was a multi-pack book like DC Universe stuff, until more information arises one way or the other 

But broadly speaking, that's the two ways books like this came into existence.

And then after writing all that, I found the answer:

This was from one of the three "Amalgam Comics 3-Issue Collector's Sets". This one had JLX, Doctor Strangefate, and Legends of the Dark Claw.

[kenaran]

I did not know about the possible B&N possible connection, that's good to know! 

I have a few of these blanks, but it's more of a passive thing while wading through cheap bins.  There have been a few side conversations in other threads. Once upon a time I did dig into it a bit, someone had mentioned it was just the DC published issues, and I came to that conclusion as well.

[shadroch]

On 2/1/2024 at 10:08 PM, Qalyar said:

And then after writing all that, I found the answer:

This was from one of the three "Amalgam Comics 3-Issue Collector's Sets". This one had JLX, Doctor Strangefate, and Legends of the Dark Claw.

Interesting. The collection included both of those books but regular copies.  The guy I bought the collection from doesn't recall buying any multi-packs but it had a bunch of DCU variants, as well.  While most of his collection is supposedly original purchases from comic shops, he did pick up some small collections over the years. 

He wasn't aware of the DCU differences until I pointed them out.

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 2/1/2024 at 5:37 PM, kenaran said:

incedentia

[masterlogan2000]

@archivist had a nice post a few months back about these blank UPC Amalgam books.