Beyonder123

I was recently searching for Mark Jewelers Inserts when I came across a Newsstand copy of Superman #421 from July of 1986 with the following insert. it's probably the longest insert I've seen in a comic at 12 glossy pages. I also found one in Tales of the Teen Titans #66 from June of 1986, this one being a direct edition. Anyone know anything about it?

Yes and yes. The interior ads and checklists are different and line up with the first printings of later issues giving a good estimate of when each multi pack was released. The Smurfs so far is the only other title I've been able to find with different ads and no printing noted in the indicia. I've actually held back getting some of mine graded because I want the correct notation of "Multipack Edition/Second Print, etc" on the label. CGC isn't very consistent with their notation of these.

I'm back from a long stint of not being on the forums. I'm glad to see my thread is being referenced. I need to dive back into my research on these!

Couldn't find many of these on the bay'. Picked mine up at a local show. L Miller, 1959.

Same here. Thought it was because one of the payments didn't go through but I guess not if other people are having problems.

Old thread but I have a copy of Legionaires Three #3 with the Waldenbooks insert.

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

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.

I'm suprised CGC doesn't notate 2 names written on each cover. Just 2 names written on cover.

Printed with 2 sets of internals and many uncut pages.

Ah! I knew there was one but there were no results for "printing error" or "misprint". Thank you!

I couldn't find a thread dedicated to this, but let me know if there already is one. I've had this one for a while. Printed with two sets of guts and isn't cut in some spots.

I had a subscription back in 2014 or 15 for a couple years. I was suprised when they came with the outer cover since I had never seen them like that before. I rarely see them, especially the 90s ones. So that causes me to search them out. I'd be happy to take your copies off your hands if you don't want them 😁

Does anyone here collect mad subscription copies? I never hear anyone talking about them but I always am buying them. I can post more photos of others if people are interested.

Additional photos courtesy of eBay.