Alpha Flight Direct UPCs (and other oddities) 0

[RockMyAmadeus]

5 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

On 5/24/2018 at 9:18 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

Who knows? They were doing "Direct only" as early as 1981 with Dazzler, Micronauts, and Kazar. It was quite weird, and had little rhyme or reason.

AF went direct, Doc Strange (1988 series) started as direct. I don't recall other series that were direct only, but there were a few. 

Dazzler began (Mar 81) as a Direct-only title and stayed that way through the entire first issue! 

Micronauts started with issue 38 (Feb 82), Ka-Zar the Savage with issue 10 (Jan 82), and Moon Knight with issue 15 (Jan 82).

All of those books were published in 1981....

[cranky's]

15 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

DC had way more early Direct-only titles, although a bunch of them were limited series.

Doom Patrol was one of the very few that changed from full distribution to Direct-only.

For Dc, the titles were chosen largely based on content.

Camelot 3000 (Dec 82, 12 issues)
Omega Men (Apr 83, 38 issues)
Ronin (Jul 83, 6 issues)
Green Lantern/Green Arrow (Oct 83, 7 issues)
Thriller  (Nov 83, 12 issues)
Vigilante (Nov 83, 50 issues)
Infinity, Inc. (Mar 84, 53 issues)
Legion of Super-Heroes (v.2) (Aug 84, 63 issues)
New Teen Titans (v.2) (Aug 84, 130 issues)
DC Challenge (Nov 85, 12 issues)
Outsiders (Nov 85, 28 issues)
Electric Warrior (May 86, 18 issues)
Lords of the Ultra-Realm (June 86, 6 issues)
Watchmen (Sep 86, 12 issues)
The Question (Feb 87, 36 issues)
Spectre (v.2) (April 87, 31 issues)
Young All-Stars (June 87, 31 issues)
The Shadow (Aug 87, 19 issues)
Silverblade (Sep 87, 12 issues)
Outcasts (Oct 87, 12 issues)
Slash Maraud (Nov 87, 6 issues)
Sonic Disruptors (Dec 87, 7 issues)
Wasteland (Dec 87, 18 issues)
Hellblazer (Jan 88, 300 issues)
Peacemaker (Jan 88, 4 issues)
Forever People (v.2) (Feb 88, 6 issues)
Green Arrow (Feb 88, 139 issues)
Checkmate (Apr 88, 33 issues)
Cinder and Ashe (May 88, 4 issues)
Animal Man (Sep 88, 89 issues)
Doc Savage (Nov 88, 24 issues)
Dr. Fate (Winter 88, 41 issues)
Sandman (v.2) (Jan 89, 75 issues)

There are more, but this is what I already had recorded.

Dazzler began (Mar 81) as a Direct-only title and stayed that way through the entire first issue! 

Micronauts started with issue 38 (Feb 82), Ka-Zar the Savage with issue 10 (Jan 82), and Moon Knight with issue 15 (Jan 82).

That is great, thank you!  Interesting to see DC beginning to cater to a more mature audience through the direct market in the 80s while Marvel's effort consisted of what, MarvelFanfare basically?

One thing I thought isthere would be more of a correlation between the direct market new content and the introduction of Vertigo but it seems they were putting out like material for years before they started branding it Vertigo.

Good stuff here, I think I'm gonna keep an eye out for some Camelot 3000....

[cranky's]

15 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

Doom Patrol was one of the very few that changed from full distribution to Direct-only.

Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing are the only ones I've noticed.  There are Wonder Woman issues I can't find newsstands for but I think they're out there.

[cranky's]

10 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

 Yes, as mentioned, DC went whole hog on the Direct only titles.

For example: both the Shadow and Spectre minis of 1986 and 1987 were Direct only. Then there was Wrath of the Spectre, Shadow of the Batman, and Saga of Ra's al Ghul. All sorts of fun stuff. Oddly enough, Dark Knight (it's NOT "Dark Knight Returns"...that's only the title of the FIRST book) were also sold on newsstands, as was Longbow Hunters, but Killing Joke was not (considering the subject matter, though tame today.)

AND, in fact, both the Legion and New Teen Titans began, after a little over a year, to REPRINT the stories told in the "Direct only", baxter paper books in the newsprint titles, starting with issues #59 (NTT) and I want to say #321 for LOSH, but that's probably wrong. Thereafter, the new stories would appear in the Direct only (and much more expensive) titles, and those new stories would be reprinted a month or two later in the newsprint titles, which were renamed "Tales of the New Teen Titans" and "Tales of the LOSH." Probably got very confusing for a while there. This continued until the cancellation of the "reprint" titles in 1987 (LOSH) and 1988 (NTT.)

You want a REAL thrill...? Put together a Canadian set of those titles. Good luck!

I'm working on it... only two more to go!

[Lazyboy]

11 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

All of those books were published in 1981....

Of course. All I really wanted to do was make fun of the single Direct-only issue of Dazzler, but I figured that I might as well add the rest of the information to the post.

[divad]

(Alpha Flight) So now we have a collectible sub-set of an otherwise uncollectible title?

 

Edited May 26, 2018 by divad

[divad]

8 hours ago, s.krank said:

Interesting to see DC beginning to cater to a more mature audience through the direct market

That's a non-sequitur 

[Lazyboy]

20 hours ago, divad said:

(Alpha Flight) So now we have a collectible sub-set of an otherwise uncollectible title?

No, I don't think so.

[Lazyboy]

On 5/26/2018 at 10:35 AM, s.krank said:

There are Wonder Woman issues I can't find newsstands for but I think they're out there.

I'm sure they're out there. Which ones are you having trouble finding?

[cranky's]

On May 26, 2018 at 4:37 PM, divad said:

(Alpha Flight) So now we have a collectible sub-set of an otherwise uncollectible title?

 

Hey they're affordable now...

[cranky's]

9 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

I'm sure they're out there. Which ones are you having trouble finding?

https://www.comics.org/issue/52162/

And a couple others I can't remember, but from the Bolland cover run as well.  

[RockMyAmadeus]

11 hours ago, s.krank said:

Hey they're affordable now...

But there's no "subset"...it's not like there are multiple versions of these books. There's quite literally only ONE version, it just happens to be with a UPC code, what people have called "newsstand." That's one of the reasons why a definition of "newsstand vs. Direct" isn't as clear cut as it appears.

[cranky's]

7 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

But there's no "subset"...it's not like there are multiple versions of these books. There's quite literally only ONE version, it just happens to be with a UPC code, what people have called "newsstand." That's one of the reasons why a definition of "newsstand vs. Direct" isn't as clear cut as it appears.

Agree.  Bad joke.  

And not the case with the two in the photo I posted last page, 63 & 64.  Two versions, of which UPC much harder to find.

[RockMyAmadeus]

2 minutes ago, s.krank said:

Agree.  Bad joke.  

And not the case with the two in the photo I posted last page, 63 & 64.  Two versions, of which UPC much harder to find.

That is very cool. I wonder what the circumstances are behind their creation, since AF went Direct with issue #52...

[cranky's]

Those two issues are in a transition between the first run of directs that have no boxes at all and those 65 and after which all have boxes, either UPC or spidey head.  Maybe the UPCs for 63/64 were later in the print run once they'd decided on the change?  I dunno, but there are UPC variant covers again after a long stretch starting with issue 113.  

[divad]

3 hours ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

That is very cool. I wonder what the circumstances are behind their creation, since AF went Direct with issue #52...

So which one am I looking for again?

[Lazyboy]

It looks like Power Pack became a Direct-only title with issue 26, but again, a bunch of later issues have UPCs.

Then there's the interesting case of New Teen Titans (v.2) 37:

 

 

[divad]

And what's special about that?

 

[Lazyboy]

It's a DC Direct-only issue from 1987. There shouldn't be a UPC anywhere near it.

[Lazyboy]

"Since DR. STRANGE isn't sold on most newsstands, while GHOST RIDER is, we also published a DR. STRANGE/GHOST RIDER #1 (and only), so as not to leave all those newsstand readers in the lurch, without a chance to see how the story came out." - (part of an) editorial reply from the letters page of Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme 33 (emphasis mine)

Then again, another reply on the same page says that "Stan Lee refused to use vampires, werewolves and their ilk" in early Dr. Strange stories to build his own mythos apart from other popular supernatural elements, rather than because of the Code.