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World's Finest 96 variant?
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15 posts in this topic

I picked up a low grade copy of this at ECCC today; and it was only when I got home to put it with my other Kirby Green Arrow issues that I realized that it had an October cover date, which is incorrect.  A glance at the bay suggests that the October version is less common, but there are some around.  But I couldn't find any reference to it otherwise.  Does anybody here know anything about this one off the top of their head, or is this a previously undocumented variant?  (Admittedly, a boring one, but it's still fun to come across something like this.)

WF_96.jpg

Edited by OtherEric
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My guess... and it is purely a guess... is they accidentally printed part of the run with the OCT. on the cover, but somebody noticed the error before the run was done and corrected the remaining copies.  Alternative theory:  for some bizarre reason they had to print more copies; and because of the delay they wound up changing the cover date to keep it on the stands longer.  We'll probably never know at this late date, given that it apparently took 58+ years for somebody to even notice the variant existed.  (Although if anybody can find an earlier reference to it, I would love to hear about it.)

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6 hours ago, pemart1966 said:

In the absence of any actual evidence, your first guess makes the most sense to me.  As far as anyone noticing before now, GCD does make reference to the variant...

The GCD reference is brand new, I added it when I discovered the book. 

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pretty cool.  I looked around to try and figure this out... and saw that the next issue, #97, also has a cover date of OCT.

 

I charted all the cover dates for World's Finest issues 90 thru 110. And I think I found a clue to the double printing... Sept/Oct was the month that WF was bumped up from 6x a year (bi-monthly) to 8 issues a year. There might have been some confusion at DC due to the change, when to slot the extra issues within their distribution system which spread out 30+ titles with varying #s of issues a year.... into a shipping schedule to newsstands that was either weekly, or bi-weekly.   When you ship by the week -- not the month -- but use a MONTHLY code on the cover, the actual printed dates are less meaningful than for 12x a year monthly periodicals.  Possibly, due to a change in slotting the next issue, DC messed up the first issue #96. At the old 6x issues a year schedule it would have been OCT.  Maybe someone mistakenly dated it with SEPT jumping the gun on the upgrade to 8x a year.  Or vice versa:  meaning it shipped with OCT first but they later decided to also ship it again with SEPT to set up the new 8x schedule (or caught the change while still on press and just shipped all the copies with different dates) ...  (If they dod print and ship it twice wouldn't have been a total loss since it was kids summer vacation season, so they may not have minded shipping more Superman/Batman comics to the kids!).

 

But, looking at the next issue #97, it gets more confusing.  It also has an OCT cover date! No way they'd use the same date twice on purpose!  This was an error, compounded by seeing that there is no NOV at all.  Looking at the next years' issues, Worlds Finest was assigned their "2 months on, then skip a month" scheduling pattern.  Therefore #97 should have been a NOV cover issue.   DC used 2 different 8x a year schedules: "2 months on, one off" (World's Finest, Wonder Woman and others)  and "3 months on, skip a month, then 3 months again" (Batman and others.)  DC had a fairly complicated release schedule. Juggling their whole lineup into Monthly cover dates, and weekly shipments. (Marvel dealt with this too, but simplified it during the Marvel Age of comics in the Sixties, shipping all their titles in 2 batches, one every other week.)  

 

Wonder Woman came out 8x a year, with cover dates:  JAN, FEB, (skip) APR, MAY, (skip)  JULY, AUG, (skip) OCT, NOV.  

Batman also shipped 8x a year, but on a different cover date system:  FEB, MAR, APR (skip)  JUNE,  (skip)  AUG, SEPT, OCT  (skip) DEC

And here's the World's Finest cover dates:  (clearly there was a brain fartt at DC between Sept and Dec cover dates)

#90  OCT

#91  DEC

#92  FEB

#93  APR

#94  JUNE

#95  AUG

#96  SEPT and OCT

#97 OCT !? (not NOV)

#98 DEC

 #99 FEB

#100  MAR

#101  MAY

#102  JUNE

#103  AUG

#104  SEPT

#105  NOV

#106  DEC

#107  FEB

#108  MAR

#109  MAY

#110  JUNE

 

gee that was fun!  Just wish I solved something with all this time and effort!

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I think you did solve the reason for the incorrect date.  The indicia starts: "WORLD'S FINEST COMICS, No. 96, September, 1958.  Published monthly, with the exception of January, May, July, and November..." .  So, if that's where the change from 6x to 8x occurs, it makes perfect sense that the cover had what would have been the correct date before the change in schedule.  The 97 then has the correct October date, both on the cover and in the indicia, and both the 97 and 98 have the same list of skip months.  I don't have a copy of 99 to check, but I'm guessing by 101 they decided to evenly space the skip months, so April rather than May is skipped.

Thank you for the research, mystery at least partly solved!

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Maybe they did a second print instead of a new issue when they changed to the new shipping dates? Who was shot calling at the time? The cover is sweet enough to be used twice though, nice eyes :) 

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Sorry about the thread necromancy; but I was curious if anybody had seen another copy of the October variant on this one.  There were a couple on the bay when I first found my copy, but ever since then there haven't been any when I happen to go look.  There's only one in the Heritage archives I've seen.  So, was just wondering if anybody here had turned one up over the last few years.

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