I think I found a new Centaur 2 2

[BangZoom]

We can partially confirm the Kable News connection (at least so far as distribution is concerned) wondered about in Stroup's linked research, because that comic book promotional flyer drugstore find that surfaced in the early 90s contained a Kable News flyer featuring Man of War #2 and Amazing Man 26 (see Overstreet's Advanced Collector #1). So, we know for sure they (or CCoA at that point, I guess) were using Kable at the end.

 

 

I took this photo at Geppi's Entertainment Museum earlier this year.

 

 

[buttock]

Could this be one of the GA Canadian reprints? Is there any distro info on the inside front or back covers? I would think Superior, Anglo American or Bell features might be the distributors if thats the case.

 

No distribution info, other than where it talks about it being part of a CMO package on the back. Nothing about this looks Canadian at all to me. Looks straight out of Chicago.

[PreHero]

Could this be one of the GA Canadian reprints? Is there any distro info on the inside front or back covers? I would think Superior, Anglo American or Bell features might be the distributors if thats the case.

 

I don't believe these are Canadian. They appear to be give aways sent with the CMO catalogs, plus they don't have a cover price.

[PreHero]

 

I've always read poor distribution was a contributing factor , but it also seems Centaur did not have a break out character or title. I wonder if they were just crowded off the newsstand by better financed new publishers in the wake of the success of Superman, Batman, Human Torch and Sub-Mariner?

 

I've seen the poor distro factor mentioned in various places too, but imo there's a problem with that line of reasoning.

 

We can partially confirm the Kable News connection (at least so far as distribution is concerned) wondered about in Stroup's linked research, because that comic book promotional flyer drugstore find that surfaced in the early 90s contained a Kable News flyer featuring Man of War #2 and Amazing Man 26 (see Overstreet's Advanced Collector #1). So, we know for sure they (or CCoA at that point, I guess) were using Kable at the end.

 

I've just taken the "poor distribution" as a fact, but you've made an excellent point. Back to the Internet! After doing some searching, Kable News appears to be still around, now called Kable Media Services, and still distributing periodicals to newsstands!

 

So I decided to do an unscientific survey of some of the pedigree collections from that timeframe - did they include Centaurs?

 

I checked out Heritage Auction's results for Centaurs and found examples from almost every one of the major pedigrees (Church (Denver), Larson (Nebraska), Reilly (SF), Denver, Crippen (Wash DC), Rockford (Illinois), Windy City (Chicago), Twilight (NY), Cosmic Aeroplane (Salt Lake City), Lost Valley, Hawkeye (Mason City , Iowa), Wright (Virginia) and even Pinnacle Hill (NY)).

 

The collections come from all over the country, including some rather small towns. Many of the collections, like Church, Larson and Wright contain long runs. Centaurs appeared to be on the newsstand, next to DC, Timely and the rest of the GA titles. Based on this, I suspect "poor distribution" was not a factor.

[markseifert]

Thanks so much for posting this!

 

I've always heard Geppi purchased the bulk of this find, which seems to be confirmed by the photos of the museum exhibits I've seen here and there over the years. I've been amazed by this find since it was first described in Overstreet Advanced Collector back in '93.

 

[markseifert]

The collections come from all over the country, including some rather small towns. Many of the collections, like Church, Larson and Wright contain long runs. Centaurs appeared to be on the newsstand, next to DC, Timely and the rest of the GA titles. Based on this, I suspect "poor distribution" was not a factor.

 

Mt. Morris IL is very near Rockford (and is the closest city of any size nearby, in fact), so presumably they had excellent availability of Kable-distributed titles. I've always wondered if that had any connection to the Rockford collection.

 

As a lifelong IL resident, there has always been local lore that dealers scoured the Sparta (where World Color moved it's comic printing in the Silver Age) area for potential Silver Age caches (perhaps from employees or the like) in the 70s and 80s, but I've never heard the same thing about Mt Morris

 

There is apparently a museum of Kable company history still there, which I'd love to take a look at some day.

[Scrooge]

$100,00 was a not inconsiderable chunk of change for those days, particularly for what was seemingly a small scale operation. Perhaps an indication that their sales were truly dismal?

 

I was just thinking about that angle too. A $48,000 print bill is a lot of comics.

 

So, it's 10 cents split 4 ways: publisher, printer, distributor, newsdealer -- and the pub and distro have to factor in returns. That's a pretty tiny unit cost (for the publisher buying from the printer). 3 or 4 cents per unit, plus or minus?

 

Could be around 1.5 million comics, maybe more.

 

Roughly how many titles per month was Centaur doing throughout 1940?

 

 

Mark,

 

not been following this thread but your post above prompted me to dig out this I posted back in 2010. Some musings I had along the same line but for the '50's. Make of it what you will. I don't recall receiving any replies back in 2010

 

"Re: Will testimony from the business manager before the UnitedStates Sentate suffice? Froehlich Senate Testimony

 

The tax consideration has to be important in the picture. As similar situation changed the way the Studio System evolved in Hollywood. When the Revenue Act of 1941 came into effect, the top bracket came down to $200,000 and the marginal tax rate was 90%. For the highest paid stars, that was a significant bite out of their earnings. As a result, top talents started to “pursue profit-sharing and one-picture deals whereby their salaries could be invested into a picture and taxed at capital gains at a rate of only 25 percent” (as per Thomas Schatz in The Genius of the System, p. 299).

 

Consequently, it’s easy to assume that having one company own all other companies in the Goodman system allowed profits from each of the outfit to be passed relatively unscathed by a tax bite into the main entity.

 

If one wants to estimate how much money is involved, Froehlich provides some good information.

 

We know that in the ‘50’s the profits from a comic book were split as follows: Publishers charges the Distributors 5.5¢ who charges the wholesale 6.5¢ who charges the retailer 7.5¢.

 

The unknown number here is the publisher cost. Looking at the Bible Tales exposition of Froehlich, we can infer that the printing cost might be 3.5¢ per comic.

 

With that in mind, a sole publisher’s profit margin is 2¢ / 3.5¢ or about 57% and a publisher-distributor like the Marvel Comics Group is 3¢ / 3.5¢ or about 86% (hence the importance of having your own distribution arm).

 

Now take Froehlich’s print run and sell through numbers: 350,000 print run and average sell through of 62%. Assume no advertising revenue for simplicity and a cost of production of the book itself at $1,080, i.e. 36 pages of content at a total cost of $30 a piece (to pay all talent: editor, penciler, inker, writer, … I might be off on that). For the average comic book selling 62%, revenue is $14,105 (350,000 * 0.62 * 0.065) and costs are $1,080 for content and $12,250 for printing cost, leaving you with a net of $775 per average title.

 

Atlas distributed about 60 titles, so on any given month, that’s about 50 books (counting quarterlies and bi-monthlies) or $38,750 and on an annual basis $465,000. The tax structure now plays an important part in trying to shelter as much of that profit as possible.

 

If a title is popular and, let’s say, warrants a 500,000 print run and still sells through 62%, the profit off that one book is $1,570 per month or $795 more than the average title. Publishers could easily afford to pay that talent more than other talent!"

[jbcomicbox]

$100,00 was a not inconsiderable chunk of change for those days, particularly for what was seemingly a small scale operation. Perhaps an indication that their sales were truly dismal?

 

I was just thinking about that angle too. A $48,000 print bill is a lot of comics.

 

So, it's 10 cents split 4 ways: publisher, printer, distributor, newsdealer -- and the pub and distro have to factor in returns. That's a pretty tiny unit cost (for the publisher buying from the printer). 3 or 4 cents per unit, plus or minus?

 

Could be around 1.5 million comics, maybe more.

 

Roughly how many titles per month was Centaur doing throughout 1940?

 

 

Mark,

 

not been following this thread but your post above prompted me to dig out this I posted back in 2010. Some musings I had along the same line but for the '50's. Make of it what you will. I don't recall receiving any replies back in 2010

 

"Re: Will testimony from the business manager before the UnitedStates Sentate suffice? Froehlich Senate Testimony

 

The tax consideration has to be important in the picture. As similar situation changed the way the Studio System evolved in Hollywood. When the Revenue Act of 1941 came into effect, the top bracket came down to $200,000 and the marginal tax rate was 90%. For the highest paid stars, that was a significant bite out of their earnings. As a result, top talents started to “pursue profit-sharing and one-picture deals whereby their salaries could be invested into a picture and taxed at capital gains at a rate of only 25 percent” (as per Thomas Schatz in The Genius of the System, p. 299).

 

Consequently, it’s easy to assume that having one company own all other companies in the Goodman system allowed profits from each of the outfit to be passed relatively unscathed by a tax bite into the main entity.

 

If one wants to estimate how much money is involved, Froehlich provides some good information.

 

We know that in the ‘50’s the profits from a comic book were split as follows: Publishers charges the Distributors 5.5¢ who charges the wholesale 6.5¢ who charges the retailer 7.5¢.

 

The unknown number here is the publisher cost. Looking at the Bible Tales exposition of Froehlich, we can infer that the printing cost might be 3.5¢ per comic.

 

With that in mind, a sole publisher’s profit margin is 2¢ / 3.5¢ or about 57% and a publisher-distributor like the Marvel Comics Group is 3¢ / 3.5¢ or about 86% (hence the importance of having your own distribution arm).

 

Now take Froehlich’s print run and sell through numbers: 350,000 print run and average sell through of 62%. Assume no advertising revenue for simplicity and a cost of production of the book itself at $1,080, i.e. 36 pages of content at a total cost of $30 a piece (to pay all talent: editor, penciler, inker, writer, … I might be off on that). For the average comic book selling 62%, revenue is $14,105 (350,000 * 0.62 * 0.065) and costs are $1,080 for content and $12,250 for printing cost, leaving you with a net of $775 per average title.

 

Atlas distributed about 60 titles, so on any given month, that’s about 50 books (counting quarterlies and bi-monthlies) or $38,750 and on an annual basis $465,000. The tax structure now plays an important part in trying to shelter as much of that profit as possible.

 

If a title is popular and, let’s say, warrants a 500,000 print run and still sells through 62%, the profit off that one book is $1,570 per month or $795 more than the average title. Publishers could easily afford to pay that talent more than other talent!"

 

Yeah!! What he said.......jb

[Sqeggs]

$100,00 was a not inconsiderable chunk of change for those days, particularly for what was seemingly a small scale operation. Perhaps an indication that their sales were truly dismal?

 

I was just thinking about that angle too. A $48,000 print bill is a lot of comics.

 

So, it's 10 cents split 4 ways: publisher, printer, distributor, newsdealer -- and the pub and distro have to factor in returns. That's a pretty tiny unit cost (for the publisher buying from the printer). 3 or 4 cents per unit, plus or minus?

 

Could be around 1.5 million comics, maybe more.

 

Roughly how many titles per month was Centaur doing throughout 1940?

 

 

Mark,

 

not been following this thread but your post above prompted me to dig out this I posted back in 2010. Some musings I had along the same line but for the '50's. Make of it what you will. I don't recall receiving any replies back in 2010

 

"Re: Will testimony from the business manager before the UnitedStates Sentate suffice? Froehlich Senate Testimony

 

The tax consideration has to be important in the picture. As similar situation changed the way the Studio System evolved in Hollywood. When the Revenue Act of 1941 came into effect, the top bracket came down to $200,000 and the marginal tax rate was 90%. For the highest paid stars, that was a significant bite out of their earnings. As a result, top talents started to “pursue profit-sharing and one-picture deals whereby their salaries could be invested into a picture and taxed at capital gains at a rate of only 25 percent” (as per Thomas Schatz in The Genius of the System, p. 299).

 

Consequently, it’s easy to assume that having one company own all other companies in the Goodman system allowed profits from each of the outfit to be passed relatively unscathed by a tax bite into the main entity.

 

If one wants to estimate how much money is involved, Froehlich provides some good information.

 

We know that in the ‘50’s the profits from a comic book were split as follows: Publishers charges the Distributors 5.5¢ who charges the wholesale 6.5¢ who charges the retailer 7.5¢.

 

The unknown number here is the publisher cost. Looking at the Bible Tales exposition of Froehlich, we can infer that the printing cost might be 3.5¢ per comic.

 

With that in mind, a sole publisher’s profit margin is 2¢ / 3.5¢ or about 57% and a publisher-distributor like the Marvel Comics Group is 3¢ / 3.5¢ or about 86% (hence the importance of having your own distribution arm).

 

Now take Froehlich’s print run and sell through numbers: 350,000 print run and average sell through of 62%. Assume no advertising revenue for simplicity and a cost of production of the book itself at $1,080, i.e. 36 pages of content at a total cost of $30 a piece (to pay all talent: editor, penciler, inker, writer, … I might be off on that). For the average comic book selling 62%, revenue is $14,105 (350,000 * 0.62 * 0.065) and costs are $1,080 for content and $12,250 for printing cost, leaving you with a net of $775 per average title.

 

Atlas distributed about 60 titles, so on any given month, that’s about 50 books (counting quarterlies and bi-monthlies) or $38,750 and on an annual basis $465,000. The tax structure now plays an important part in trying to shelter as much of that profit as possible.

 

If a title is popular and, let’s say, warrants a 500,000 print run and still sells through 62%, the profit off that one book is $1,570 per month or $795 more than the average title. Publishers could easily afford to pay that talent more than other talent!"

 

Not exactly on topic, but kinda related ... I was looking at the back cover of a WDC&S from the late 1940s the other day and was struck by how substantial a discount they offered to subscribers. I can't quite remember the details, but I think if you went out three years -- the longest sub they were offering -- you were down to about 7.5 cents an issue. Kind of makes sense if the publisher was only getting 5.5 cents per issue from the distributor, but the mailing costs must have been extremely low.

[Scrooge]

Exactly right. With this cost structure, Dell really wanted those subs. Take the typical one-year sub at $1 for 12 issues. Great deal for the publisher. Recall too that this is without taking into account advertising revenues (though these didn't exist for Dell but given how large their print run was, they certainly didn't need them).

 

Anyone know why Dell didn't sell any advertising for the longest time anyway?

[markseifert]

Great info

 

So... if the 3.5 cent per unit cost from the printer was about the same the previous decade, then yeah, Centaur's 48,000 unpaid print bill amounted to 1.4 million comics.

 

But you know... I think GCD tells the tale, here. Looks like they started about 5 titles in the late Summer / early Fall of 1940 (so, this would have been titles launched very shortly before bankruptcy): Arrow, Detective Eye, Fantoman, Masked Marvel, Super Spy.

 

They rolled the dice on doing a big expansion and lost. When the print bills started coming in on those books, they were sunk.

 

I think PreHero made a good point earlier re the rapid expansion of other publishers plus not having a big hit superhero title. It's pretty clear in hindsight that Jacquet leaving them to form Funnies Inc in 1939, and taking Bill Everett and Carl Burgos (among others) with him, hurt Centaur's prospects in this regard, as their talents were then employed on the behalf of many other publishers as well.

 

Now take Froehlich’s print run and sell through numbers: 350,000 print run and average sell through of 62%. Assume no advertising revenue for simplicity and a cost of production of the book itself at $1,080, i.e. 36 pages of content at a total cost of $30 a piece (to pay all talent: editor, penciler, inker, writer, … I might be off on that). For the average comic book selling 62%, revenue is $14,105 (350,000 * 0.62 * 0.065) and costs are $1,080 for content and $12,250 for printing cost, leaving you with a net of $775 per average title.

 

Atlas distributed about 60 titles, so on any given month, that’s about 50 books (counting quarterlies and bi-monthlies) or $38,750 and on an annual basis $465,000. The tax structure now plays an important part in trying to shelter as much of that profit as possible.

 

If a title is popular and, let’s say, warrants a 500,000 print run and still sells through 62%, the profit off that one book is $1,570 per month or $795 more than the average title. Publishers could easily afford to pay that talent more than other talent!"

[sacentaur]

Nice find Dan (I personally have never seen nor heard of that particular book before), and fascinating background discussion on the Centaur line, too.

 

[adamstrange]

Kind of funny that in the reprint the heroes go from being world famous to just being popular in America.

 

And it's a new one on me.

 

Not to mention the one of the American heroes is Canadian.

 

I know it's a tiny county and hard to locate on a map, but Canada is in North America

[buttock]

Kind of funny that in the reprint the heroes go from being world famous to just being popular in America.

 

And it's a new one on me.

 

Not to mention the one of the American heroes is Canadian.

 

I know it's a tiny county and hard to locate on a map, but Canada is in North America

Quiet you.

[BOOT]

I can't find any reports of this book existing anywhere. I've pored over years of OSPGs and googled like crazy. Nothing on GCD.

 

What this appears to be is a reprint of World Famous Heroes Magazine #2 that was re-titled and distributed as an incentive for CMO (see the back cover ad). It has CMO ads in the inside front cover, and both back & front covers, which is different from WFHM #2. There is no indicia.

 

I've now found a second copy, so it's not unique, but it doesn't seem to be common at all. Anyone else know of a copy?

 

 

What a great find! A great discovery!

 

That's what's really exciting about comic collecting - there are still great finds to be made!

[Michael Henry]

On 9/29/2012 at 8:30 PM, BangZoom said:

 

I took this photo at Geppi's Entertainment Museum earlier this year.

 

 

Hello

I am so very sorry about bringing up a very deceased topic however I would like to know more about this flyer. So does anyone have any information/links to this flyer? Also, any higher resolution copies I can get?

Thank yall for your time.

[adamstrange]

24 minutes ago, Michael Henry said:

Hello

I am so very sorry about bringing up a very deceased topic however I would like to know more about this flyer. So does anyone have any information/links to this flyer? Also, any higher resolution copies I can get?

Thank yall for your time.

The Geppi museum is shut down and he is donating the contents to Library of Congress.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/entertainment/bs-fe-geppis-20180529-story.html