The "Newsstand Edition" Phenomenon 5 5

[Get Marwood & I]

4 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

More? Sure. Considerably more? Maybe, but remember that the unsold Newsstand copies were (theoretically) destroyed and it's likely that those unsold copies were the most damaged.

No, they are Canadian Newsstand editions. That's why they were produced and it's the most accurate description for them.

There is no article on that site that is accurate. Sure, there is some good information in most of the articles, but there is misinformation (usually a significant amount) in EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

I've seen you criticise this site a number of times @Lazyboy

Could you give a few examples of the misinformation you refer to please?

[The_Investor]

4 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

More? Sure. Considerably more? Maybe, but remember that the unsold Newsstand copies were (theoretically) destroyed and it's likely that those unsold copies were the most damaged.

No, they are Canadian Newsstand editions. That's why they were produced and it's the most accurate description for them.

There is no article on that site that is accurate. Sure, there is some good information in most of the articles, but there is misinformation (usually a significant amount) in EVERY. SINGLE. ONE.

I respectfully need to differ with you in regards to the Canadian Edition labels. "Canadian Edition" should refer only to the 1940's + comics because those books had some different content (cover page at times....and different ads) . Also, the printing slabs were shipped from the USA to Canada thus having a different origin altogether. On a different point, being a Canuck yourself ( I am as well) I'm certain you're aware that at the start of WW2 a law was passed in Canada that limited imports from the USA (this included comic books) therefore Canadians felt the need to create their own content  (i.e, thus the creation of Nelvanna , etc...)  

However, the 1980's is a whole different story. These comics were printed at the same time, same ink, same location with the same content as direct copies (except for the bar code and the price listed on the cover which was slightly higher to compensate for the falling loonie). These Canadian Price Variants were also sold in the USA in certain locations either testing the market with a higher cover price or to fill in under-supplied areas just south of the border (Some large Chain stores such as 'Toy's "R" Us ' sold these books in multi packs but having been shipped from Canada back to the USA the books were not in the best of conditions. Funny thing that we are discussing the "Canadian Edition" labels, rarecomics.wordpress.com  just released an article yesterday about this very topic and it's a very good read and accurate indeed.   

https://rarecomics.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/canadian-edition-vs-canadian-cover-price-variant/  

"Lazyboy" why don't you reach out to Doug Sulipa who lives in your neck of the woods. He will also tell you the exact same thing I mentioned above. He's a really nice man and is the most knowledgeable individual I know when it comes to understanding the 1980's cover price variants. Also reach out to Jon McClure who is a Comic Book historian and discovered the 30/35 cent cover price variants that we all collect today thanks to him. Jon is also saying the same thing . Both of these men are Senior Overstreet advisors as well.

It was great exchanging thoughts on this issue with you- thanks:)  Gotta run now, have a class to teach. Sorry for any spelling mistakes above...english is my third language.     

[cranky's]

19 hours ago, Marwood & I said:

Ta, but they are scans I kept of a collection long since sold alas. 

I'll do a fuller response another time unless someone beats me to it @Fiddy as I want to include pics and I'm on my tablet at the mo. I'm rubbish on my tablet. No jokes now. But as far as first printings go, there are only two regular versions here - newsstands and directs. If we take Amazing Spider-Man as an example, newsstands were there from the off and directs started at issue 165.  The directs appearance was hit and miss in the early days with blank, normal or slashed barcodes and diamond price boxes of various shapes and sizes until the directs settled into a standard format.

So, in those early days there were only 2 versions - newsstands and directs (if we ignore price variants) - so any books you have seen with reprint on them are just that - reprints. 

Marwood, I think you have to be careful calling whitman copies 'direct' as they were for a different market altogether than the direct to comic store approach, which from what I can tell began in June of '79 for Marvel, so ASM 193.  While they do share the diamond shape price-box, can't be classified as directs, IMO...

[cranky's]

3 hours ago, The_Investor said:

Funny thing that we are discussing the "Canadian Edition" labels, rarecomics.wordpress.com  just released an article yesterday about this very topic and it's a very good read and accurate indeed.   

https://rarecomics.wordpress.com/2017/10/25/canadian-edition-vs-canadian-cover-price-variant/  

Whoa, not just an article it seems... an extensive guide to prices.  That could stir things up 

[Get Marwood & I]

1 hour ago, skrank said:

Marwood, I think you have to be careful calling whitman copies 'direct' as they were for a different market altogether than the direct to comic store approach, which from what I can tell began in June of '79 for Marvel, so ASM 193.  While they do share the diamond shape price-box, can't be classified as directs, IMO...

Whoops, you're right @skrank, I meant to say 'Whitmans / Directs' started from ASM 165, not just 'directs'. The reason I say that is that I've never seen a definitive article that confirms what we should call the diamond shape books (ASM 165-192) which existed prior to the Direct market as we know it settling in. Many sites refer to all the early diamonds as Whitmans, some say that's wrong and that we should call them 'early directs'. I've forgotten more about it than I remember to be honest, but do recall a lot of debate about it (hence my earlier 'Whitman' police post ).

I'd love to see that definitive confirmation if you know of it.

Meanwhile, I agree that ASM 193 is the first 'real' direct, if for no other reason than it's the first in the run of books that all looked the same (flat diamond with slashed barcode). To me, ASM 192 was the last 'Whitman':

    

 

Here's an extract of an old record of mine that I posted a while back which I'm posting again here just to show that I used to take it all really seriously! I'm looking at it now and seeing mistakes straight away (so new members ignore). Boy did I get anal over this stuff back in the day 

 

[cranky's]

4 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:

Whoops, you're right @skrank, I meant to say 'Whitmans / Directs' started from ASM 165, not just 'directs'. The reason I say that is that I've never seen a definitive article that confirms what we should call the diamond shape books (ASM 165-192) which existed prior to the Direct market as we know it settling in. Many sites refer to all the early diamonds as Whitmans, some say that's wrong and that we should call them 'early directs'. I've forgotten more about it than I remember to be honest, but do recall a lot of debate about it (hence my earlier 'Whitman' police post ).

I'd love to see that definitive confirmation if you know of it.

Meanwhile, I agree that ASM 193 is the first 'real' direct, if for no other reason than it's the first in the run of books that all looked the same (flat diamond with slashed barcode). To me, ASM 192 was the last 'Whitman':

Here's an extract of an old record of mine that I posted a while back which I'm posting again here just to show that I used to take it all really seriously! I'm looking at it now and seeing mistakes straight away (so new members ignore). Boy did I get anal over this stuff back in the day 

It's an interesting subject and I applaud your enthusiasm, I really enjoy your graphic additions.  As far as pre-06/79 diamonds, or whitmans go, I don't really know either, "early diamonds" maybe?  But sure to say that if they predate the direct market system they are different animal entirely.

[comix4fun]

Not sure if this has been covered (too lazy to read all the posts) but when I had my diamond account from the mid 80's to the mid  90's you could order as many of either newsstand or direct versions as you wanted and in whatever proportions. 

For at least 6-7 years I was ordering even amount of both types in my orders. 

I just wanted to mention it in case there was anyone left who thought newsstand really meant on a newsstand and not sold by comic dealers. 

[Get Marwood & I]

Just now, skrank said:

It's an interesting subject and I applaud your enthusiasm, I really enjoy your graphic additions.  As far as pre-06/79 diamonds, or whitmans go, I don't really know either, "early diamonds" maybe?  But sure to say that if they predate the direct market system they are different animal entirely.

Cheers @skrank - I've always liked mucking about with graphics. It's funny that after all this time we are all still unsure about so many things in the hobby. You think we'd know what to call them by now wouldn't you. 

[Get Marwood & I]

3 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

Not sure if this has been covered (too lazy to read all the posts) but when I had my diamond account from the mid 80's to the mid  90's you could order as many of either newsstand or direct versions as you wanted and in whatever proportions. 

For at least 6-7 years I was ordering even amount of both types in my orders. 

I just wanted to mention it in case there was anyone left who thought newsstand really meant on a newsstand and not sold by comic dealers. 

I didn't know that. Is there not a Marvel historian who knows all this stuff? The only explanations I've seen down the years have always come from fans or dealers - never from Marvel or the distributors?

[shadroch]

That's strange. I don't recall being able to split orders like that. In fact, my distributor made a big deal out of locating newsstand Spidey  Annual 21s for us, as it had a different cover than the direct. I do remember being able to order the newsstand Man of Steel #1 covers from my distro. 

When discussing the overall condition of newsstand copies, you have to keep in mind that many of the copies that exist today were never actually distributed to the stands. Whole bricks ( 100-200 copies bound together ) were diverted. Remember that the entire Mile High 2 collection is newsstand copies, and is just one of many such hoards. 

[revat]

5 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:

10 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

Not sure if this has been covered (too lazy to read all the posts) but when I had my diamond account from the mid 80's to the mid  90's you could order as many of either newsstand or direct versions as you wanted and in whatever proportions. 

For at least 6-7 years I was ordering even amount of both types in my orders. 

I just wanted to mention it in case there was anyone left who thought newsstand really meant on a newsstand and not sold by comic dealers. 

I didn't know that. Is there not a Marvel historian who knows all this stuff? The only explanations I've seen down the years have always come from fans or dealers - never from Marvel or the distributors?

I'm not sure there's any reason for anyone to dig through all the old stuff to find out, even for someone with access.  Not really a topic enough people are interested enough to be lucrative.  I guess if you got some type of phd student interested in comic history you might have a chance to get them to do the research....

[comix4fun]

1 minute ago, shadroch said:

That's strange. I don't recall being able to split orders like that. In fact, my distributor made a big deal out of locating newsstand Spidey  Annual 21s for us, as it had a different cover than the direct. I do remember being able to order the newsstand Man of Steel #1 covers from my distro. 

When discussing the overall condition of newsstand copies, you have to keep in mind that many of the copies that exist today were never actually distributed to the stands. Whole bricks ( 100-200 copies bound together ) were diverted. Remember that the entire Mile High 2 collection is newsstand copies, and is just one of many such hoards. 

The first time I really paid attention to it was the Marvel 25th anniversary books. I ordered those heavily and split the order down the middle between newsstand and direct. As long as we got our orders in on time we could have whatever we wanted. 

And yes, so many newsstand copies were never touched. 

[Get Marwood & I]

12 minutes ago, skrank said:

It's an interesting subject and I applaud your enthusiasm, I really enjoy your graphic additions.  As far as pre-06/79 diamonds, or whitmans go, I don't really know either, "early diamonds" maybe?  But sure to say that if they predate the direct market system they are different animal entirely.

Found a few more on the flash drive. I'm surprised the men in white coats never came for me. Look at that key! FD / DP / G  

 

[ygogolak]

1 minute ago, shadroch said:

That's strange. I don't recall being able to split orders like that. In fact, my distributor made a big deal out of locating newsstand Spidey  Annual 21s for us, as it had a different cover than the direct. I do remember being able to order the newsstand Man of Steel #1 covers from my distro. 

When discussing the overall condition of newsstand copies, you have to keep in mind that many of the copies that exist today were never actually distributed to the stands. Whole bricks ( 100-200 copies bound together ) were diverted. Remember that the entire Mile High 2 collection is newsstand copies, and is just one of many such hoards. 

Mile High 2 was a NY warehouse which is said to have been bought / hoarded under not so legal terms. Who knows how much / many that represents.

[shadroch]

I don't recall which distributor I was using at that point. I'd started with Phil at Seagate. When they went bellyup, I switched to Comics Unlimited.  They wrote a nasty article about a Marvel suit and Marvel pulled their ability to sell Marvel books so I switched to Crown.  Then Diamond came in and pretty much drove Crown out of business. 

Now, in the mid-1980s, we would get DM books approx.  three weeks before the same book would appear on the newsstands. Did you get both editions at the same time or were these reorders that came in later?

[comix4fun]

2 minutes ago, shadroch said:

I don't recall which distributor I was using at that point. I'd started with Phil at Seagate. When they went bellyup, I switched to Comics Unlimited.  They wrote a nasty article about a Marvel suit and Marvel pulled their ability to sell Marvel books so I switched to Crown.  Then Diamond came in and pretty much drove Crown out of business. 

Now, in the mid-1980s, we would get DM books approx.  three weeks before the same book would appear on the newsstands. Did you get both editions at the same time or were these reorders that came in later?

We got them at the same time. I think that's why we didn't have an issue with ordering both types, my distributor was getting everything at once. Sounds like yours had to go to different sources for them. 

I have to go back and see if I have an of the paperwork. I know I worked with Friendly Franks and Capital City for a while in there, but I was almost positive it was Diamond. 

[shadroch]

12 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

Mile High 2 was a NY warehouse which is said to have been bought / hoarded under not so legal terms. Who knows how much / many that represents.

Absolutely.  MH2 was the result of one mobbed up distributor illegally diverting books. A rather small distributor, in fact.  So, if one mobbed up distributor did it, and there were hundreds ,if not thousands of such mobbed up distributors across North America, what are the chances that dozens or more such hoards existed. It's just that most buyers of stolen goods don't shoot their mouths off like Chucky Woodchuck, or brag about committing bank fraud to do so. 

Edited October 26, 2017 by shadroch

[shadroch]

Friendly Franks

I bought a lot from them before I opened my first shop, but with Seagate offering free pickup, it didn't make sense to use them for new books. 

[mosconi]

51 minutes ago, comix4fun said:

Not sure if this has been covered (too lazy to read all the posts) but when I had my diamond account from the mid 80's to the mid  90's you could order as many of either newsstand or direct versions as you wanted and in whatever proportions. 

For at least 6-7 years I was ordering even amount of both types in my orders. 

I just wanted to mention it in case there was anyone left who thought newsstand really meant on a newsstand and not sold by comic dealers. 

Very interesting, I had never heard of this.  Wouldn't this method of ordering allow comic dealers to return unsold newsstand copies if they wanted, which they weren't supposed to be able to do?  Wonder if this method of ordering occurred in the late 70's and early 80's as well? I was of the mindset that newsstand copies meant just that, since they were refundable if unsold  

Edited October 26, 2017 by mosconi

[comix4fun]

2 minutes ago, mosconi said:

Very interesting, I had never heard of this.  Wouldn't this method of ordering allow comic dealers to return unsold newsstand copies if they wanted, which they weren't supposed to be able to do?  Wonder if this method of ordering occurred in the late 70's and early 80's as well? I was of the mindset that newsstand copies meant just that, since they were refundable if unsold  

Probably not, at least not with my orders. We couldn't make any returns, regardless of the type of issue when I was ordering. I know some guys did that before my time, but that got shut down pretty fast.