Marvel UK Price Variants 16 16

[Get Marwood & I]

2 hours ago, Garystar said:

Now come on Gary, Moonstone is a classic. Did you not see the Klaw, Solarr (with two r's) and Wundarr (also with two r's)? I think they gave him two r's otherwise he'd have been an 'r' sole. 

 

 

[Garystar]

36 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Did you not see the Klaw, Solarr (with two r's) and Wundarr (also with two r's)?

...... but George Perez art. When/where I started collecting American comics were thin on the ground so I’d buy anything I could find - except Marvel Classics Comics which I’d leave on the shelf.

My Skull the Slayer issues are in the loft otherwise might have posted one of those. 

[Get Marwood & I]

9 minutes ago, Garystar said:

...... but George Perez art. When/where I started collecting American comics were thin on the ground so I’d buy anything I could find - except Marvel Classics Comics which I’d leave on the shelf.

My Skull the Slayer issues are in the loft otherwise might have posted one of those. 

Take your pick 

[Garystar]

8 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Take your pick 

I’ll open the box!

No pence copies of Man From Atlantis are there. 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 minute ago, Garystar said:

I’ll open the box!

No pence copies of Man From Atlantis are there. 

Alas, nay... 

[Get Marwood & I]

 

Changing tack, here's my vote for the single best Marvel UKPV of the 3,022 current confirmed candidates:

 

 

Close second:

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Some more Marvel pence related pontifications here, snaffled from my distribution review thread, including research that appears to disprove that shipping strikes were the cause of the first Marvel UKPV issue gaps  

 

6 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Morning my fellow Pencificators (look it up, it's in the dictionary and everything) 

I tell you, this can be hard work at times. I've been plotting this out for a few hours this afternoon and my head hurts. Kudos to @Garystar whose excellent Marvel analysis spreadsheet helped no end with what follows.

Now, I wanted to try and position some Marvel distribution research findings in a more clear, one page visual manner as sometimes it's hard to keep track of written explanations (especially some of mine which are, alas, necessarily detailed). Accordingly, here is the updated summary page that I posted earlier:

It's bloody complicated so I've failed miserably on the easy to follow front! Pictures are nice though.

What makes it difficult to plot is the nature of the three UKPV hiatuses, which are staggered by title over a few months. Here's what I mean. The first UKPV hiatus exists between October 1964 and August 1965 with most monthly titles experiencing a gap of 9 to 10 months during that 11 month window. As you can see from the extract, Spidey loses ten issues but JIM only nine:

The second hiatus covers only a three month window covering October, November and December 1966, and titles miss either one or two issues:

The third printed UKPV hiatus covers a whopping 17 month gap from November 1967 to March 1969 with most ongoing monthly titles missing between 16 and 17 consecutive issues:

So you can see how that makes it difficult to plot as the UKPV existence dates overlap.

Anyway, I had a go anyway and this is the result (again):

I want to focus for a second on the 'Second Printed UKPV Hiatus' as follows:

We already know from previous posts that there are 10d oblong stamps in existence that look like this:

So, looking at every title that has one or two UKPVs missing for those months, I found the vast majority have some form of stamp, sticker or handwritten price for their applicable missing issues. Here is a picture of the file in which they sit:

It's quite remarkable when you look at them all lined up. Only Daredevil and the X-Men are missing and the 10d oblong stamps are rife. So this tells us that someone took the trouble of importing and stamping up the missing issues. Who it was, and when they did it, will likely remain a mystery, but there was clearly an attempt.

This snapshot of Gary's spreadsheet, highlighted to show the UKPV issues between the first and third hiatuses, shows the absence of the second hiatus issues (in orange) but also the near total absence of stamped copies of any sort while the UKPVs existed:

So for this period's phases, the broad pattern is clear:

• When there was a UKPV, that was it. No stamped copies (accepting the Millers at the start)
• Where there was no UKPV, in came the stamped copies (from either T&P alone or them and 'a n other' if the oblong and other non-branded stamps aren't theirs)

As I noted earlier, the presence of the stamped copies means that the UKPV gaps cannot be down to shipping strikes, as previously suggested. 

That's quite cool isn't it, to work that out after all this time. I'm going to continue the exercise right up to the demise of UKPVs for Marvel, so we'll see what else turns up. Thanks again Gary for your spreadsheet and analysis. Let me know if anything on my one pager looks off mate

Now, does anyone know where I can get a new pair of eyes....? 

 

[rakehell]

On 11/13/2020 at 3:04 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Some more Marvel pence related pontifications here, snaffled from my distribution review thread, including research that appears to disprove that shipping strikes were the cause of the first Marvel UKPV issue gaps  

Interesting, especially the oblong stamp stuff. I'll deffo go back & read all of this when I get a spare six hours. 

[Get Marwood & I]

3 hours ago, rakehell said:

Interesting, especially the oblong stamp stuff. I'll deffo go back & read all of this when I get a spare six hours. 

Hmmm. Good point Gertrude 

Do you think I could market it as a cure for insomnia?

[rakehell]

3 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Hmmm. Good point Gertrude 

Do you think I could market it as a cure for insomnia?

I'm serious. Your threads are essential reading when I'm at work with nothing to do (or nothing I feel like doing). This is all some big obsessive co-enabling comfort thing, isn't it, really? I just hope you never use your extensive research skills for evil. 

[Get Marwood & I]

29 minutes ago, rakehell said:

I'm serious. Your threads are essential reading when I'm at work with nothing to do (or nothing I feel like doing). This is all some big obsessive co-enabling comfort thing, isn't it, really?

Yes. It's either this or death. Assuming one could tell the difference of course. 

29 minutes ago, rakehell said:

I just hope you never use your extensive research skills for evil. 

Me? Considered using my skills for evil?

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-hah!

 

No, I haven't actually. Although some would likely say a proliferation of pence threads are evil I suppose.

A murder of crows....

An evil of pence threads.

 

[Garystar]

On 2/2/2020 at 7:07 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

My good boardie chum @Gnasher Bob sent me this interesting article from an old UK fanzine recently:

It's not often you find any distribution data that helps with your research but this did. Firstly, it correctly identifies that the Incredible Hulk would stop being distributed in the UK at issue #152. This ties in nicely with the presence / absence of pence copies:

'Distributed in the UK' and actual price variants are two different things of course, but it's still a neat tie in. 

Secondly, the article mentions that only ten titles per month were distributed in the UK which, again, ties in with some research I had been doing - and have done for a few of the seven pence publishers - namely the 'how many titles per cover month' assessment - evidence here:

 

Was February 1971 the first month with 10 titles distributed? If so it would seem to be the date World Distributors took over from T&P. 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, Garystar said:

Was February 1971 the first month with 10 titles distributed? If so it would seem to be the date World Distributors took over from T&P. 

No, the ten book average goes all the way back to April 69 Gary, when the UKPVs start up again after their third hiatus. 

[Garystar]

1 hour ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

2 hours ago, Garystar said:

Was February 1971 the first month with 10 titles distributed? If so it would seem to be the date World Distributors took over from T&P. 

No, the ten book average goes all the way back to April 69 Gary, when the UKPVs start up again after their third hiatus. 

 

Oh well that’s that theory out the window. The article presumably printed not long before hulk 153, july 1972, says T&P stoped handling them some months ago so presumably sometime in 1971???

[Pantodude]

Revisiting a topic raised here a few months ago querying whether UK variants were printed ahead of (and thus with fresher ink than) the regular 12-centers in that initial print run in 1962, here's exhibit A:

That this 2.5 retained such robust reds, bright yellows, and deep blacks is consistent with the pence variants having been printed ahead of the 12-centers?  

Edited December 8, 2020 by Pantodude

[rakehell]

10 hours ago, Pantodude said:

That this 2.5 retained such robust reds, bright yellows, and deep blacks is consistent with the pence variants having been printed ahead of the 12-centers? 

Compelling, for sure. Especially given the battering most comics took just getting here. My guess is that the pence copies may well have been printed first, but not consistently. There were too many variables to guarantee a firm plan to print one set of covers before another on every run. Different guy on the press, different print runs, different ink levels depending on cover graphics, etc., etc. Also, when you get into the 70s & you have 3 or 4 variants in a print run (30c, 35c, 12p, Whitman), trying to pick out which was first off the press will just melt your eyeballs.

Still, good bump. 

[Get Marwood & I]

15 hours ago, Pantodude said:

Revisiting a topic raised here a few months ago querying whether UK variants were printed ahead of (and thus with fresher ink than) the regular 12-centers in that initial print run in 1962, here's exhibit A:

That this 2.5 retained such robust reds, bright yellows, and deep blacks is consistent with the pence variants having been printed ahead of the 12-centers?  

That's a nice copy Panto. Matt Nelson called it a 'deeper colour strike' when we were discussing this by email around the time of the labelling change to 'UK Price Variant'. 

As I noted earlier in the thread, I think it's likely that some pence copies were printed first and some weren't - as Rakehell said above, I doubt the order was consistent in the early years. I've posted printing examples in this and other threads, linking in with the US Price Font Variants, which sort of imply a printing order on certain books, but there's nothing definitive.

If you're interested, I posted this thread some time back to see what people thought either way if it were proven:

 

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, Get Marwood & I said:

Matt Nelson called it a 'deeper colour strike'

Fixed that for me 

[gadzukes]

I've been going thru a collection of UK "weekly" Super Spiderman comics.

They are black & white reprints of US comics and they look to have come out about a year after the US versions.

They are about 1" wider & 1" taller than US comics.

Overall, I'm not loving the format.... the spines are shifted to the short sides so it feels awkward to open & read them.

However.... there is one thing that I LOVE about these comics.  They all have a full spread centerfold (poster) of artwork that looks to be original to this format.

For that alone I think they are a cool collectible.

What did you Brits think of these when they came out?

Here's some examples:

 

 

Edited December 10, 2020 by gadzukes

[Get Marwood & I]

5 hours ago, gadzukes said:

I've been going thru a collection of UK "weekly" Super Spiderman comics.

They are black & white reprints of US comics and they look to have come out about a year after the US versions.

They are about 1" wider & 1" taller than US comics.

Overall, I'm not loving the format.... the spines are shifted to the short sides so it feels awkward to open & read them.

However.... there is one thing that I LOVE about these comics.  They all have a full spread centerfold (poster) of artwork that looks to be original to this format.

For that alone I think they are a cool collectible.

What did you Brits think of these when they came out?

Here's some examples:

Funny you should mention the posters - I posted this in another thread the other week:

On 12/5/2020 at 10:59 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

I've been pondering that recently Gaard, and remembering when I was a kid buying comics with my big brother. They were some of the happiest collecting days that I can recall. Even though the books themselves - old UK reprints - had no real value, the excitement came from sharing the experience. The UK weeklies used to have centrespread posters and we would buy a handful of books each - they were priced at 1p and 2p in dirty great marker pens - and we would look excitedly through them to see who got the best posters on the way home. Hulk, Spidey, Galactus etc got a 'wow, look at that!', lesser characters a groan. It was such fun. 

I loved the old weeklies, especially the long ways ones. They're part of my comic history, my first introduction to Marvel and Spider-Man.