Alpha Flight Direct UPCs (and other oddities) 0

[David Buck]

On 6/9/2018 at 12:12 AM, Lazyboy said:

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:

 

 

Barcodes were run on The New Teen Titans 37-40 as well as The Legion of Super-Heroes 40-43 I believe - I have a few but not all of these issues, I'm not sure if copies exist for these issues without the barcode.  so were they a newsstand experiment ?

[divad]

Rather that start a new thread over one book. I thought that this might be the most appropriate thread to post in: Are there no direct edition copies of The Sensational She-Hulk #1 (May 1989)???

Edited September 26, 2018 by divad

[Lazyboy]

This is the perfect place to discuss the fact that every copy of Sensational She-Hulk #1 has a UPC.

[divad]

On 9/24/2018 at 11:14 PM, Lazyboy said:

This is the perfect place to discuss the fact that every copy of Sensational She-Hulk #1 has a UPC.

I was surprised to discover that not only that, but every other issue (#2 on) has both direct and newsstand issues.

Edited September 26, 2018 by divad

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 5/26/2018 at 10:11 AM, Lazyboy said:

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.

What must have been really obnoxious is that 1981 wasn't that far into the "comics specialty store" era that there weren't still a significant percentage of readers who only know of, and bought comics through, the newsstand, so Dazzler #2 might have left a good chunk of them scratching their heads, saying "how did I miss the first issue..?"

Can you imagine any other sort of industry getting away with something like that? Forcing their customers to different places to buy their products?

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 9/22/2018 at 9:38 PM, Lazyboy said:

"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)

 

So....was Doc Strange being sold, as the statement directly suggests, on some newsstands...?

Or did the editorial staff have no clue what the Circulation dept. did?

I still think the most likely theory is that the quasi-newsstand vendors like Waldenbooks, B&N, Borders, and the like, which were far bigger than the comics publishers, were telling them that they needed to have barcodes on their books, or the book sellers wouldn't sell them. But that leaves so many unanswered questions, like "how were these companies made aware of Marvel and DC's entire product line, when typical newsstands were in the "you get what you get" method of distribution?"Did Marvel, DC, and others pursue the big book sellers through their marketing departments? 

The one thing I know for sure is that the book sellers did get new Direct comics, because I saw them there, and those Direct comics that didn't have UPCs (like Legends of the Dark Knight) got stickered, which annoyed me to no end. But they also had newsstand comics, which they carried until the very end (2013 for Marvel, 2017 for DC.) So, did they operate through the newsstand system AND the Direct system? Or some strange hybrid system?

So many unanswered questions.

[sfcityduck]

34 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

But that leaves so many unanswered questions, like "how were these companies made aware of Marvel and DC's entire product line, when typical newsstands were in the "you get what you get" method of distribution?"Did Marvel, DC, and others pursue the big book sellers through their marketing departments? 

The one thing I know for sure is that the book sellers did get new Direct comics, because I saw them there, and those Direct comics that didn't have UPCs (like Legends of the Dark Knight) got stickered, which annoyed me to no end. But they also had newsstand comics, which they carried until the very end (2013 for Marvel, 2017 for DC.) So, did they operate through the newsstand system AND the Direct system? Or some strange hybrid system?

So many unanswered questions.

Have you read Brian Hibbs' bookscan yearly summaries?  It might answer some of your questions:

http://www.comicsbeat.com/tilting-at-windmills-268-looking-at-bookscan-2017-and-this-time-its-certified/

[divad]

On 9/26/2018 at 9:04 AM, sfcityduck said:

Have you read Brian Hibbs' bookscan yearly summaries?  It might answer some of your questions:

http://www.comicsbeat.com/tilting-at-windmills-268-looking-at-bookscan-2017-and-this-time-its-certified/

This is irrelevant to the time period in question.

[divad]

On 9/26/2018 at 8:26 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

So....was Doc Strange being sold, as the statement directly suggests, on some newsstands...?

Or did the editorial staff have no clue what the Circulation dept. did?

I still think the most likely theory is that the quasi-newsstand vendors like Waldenbooks, B&N, Borders, and the like, which were far bigger than the comics publishers, were telling them that they needed to have barcodes on their books, or the book sellers wouldn't sell them. But that leaves so many unanswered questions, like "how were these companies made aware of Marvel and DC's entire product line, when typical newsstands were in the "you get what you get" method of distribution?"Did Marvel, DC, and others pursue the big book sellers through their marketing departments? 

The one thing I know for sure is that the book sellers did get new Direct comics, because I saw them there, and those Direct comics that didn't have UPCs (like Legends of the Dark Knight) got stickered, which annoyed me to no end. But they also had newsstand comics, which they carried until the very end (2013 for Marvel, 2017 for DC.) So, did they operate through the newsstand system AND the Direct system? Or some strange hybrid system?

So many unanswered questions.

I don't think characterizing the big block retailers as "quasi-newsstand vendors" is accurate, but I do agree that they were (probably) telling them ( the comic publishers) that they needed to have barcodes on their (comic) books, or the book sellers wouldn't sell them. I would also suggest that comics were of very little interest to their bottom line at any time between 1981 and 1992. I would also agree and suggest that the only reason they even knew about comic books, and thus Marvel and DC's entire product line, was through their (Marvel and DC's) marketing departments. It's not like they commanded their attention from an economic standpoint. 

[Lazyboy]

On 9/23/2018 at 6:16 AM, David Buck said:

Barcodes were run on The New Teen Titans 37-40 as well as The Legion of Super-Heroes 40-43 I believe - I have a few but not all of these issues,

Interesting. The #37 I posted is the only one of those issues that I own.

On 9/23/2018 at 6:16 AM, David Buck said:

I'm not sure if copies exist for these issues without the barcode.

I would bet against it.

On 9/23/2018 at 6:16 AM, David Buck said:

  so were they a newsstand experiment ?

Doubtful.

[sfcityduck]

2 hours ago, divad said:

This is irrelevant to the time period in question.

The annual reports cover 2003-2017.  RMA has questions about practices that he says extended up to 2017.

Edited September 27, 2018 by sfcityduck

[Lazyboy]

7 hours ago, sfcityduck said:

The annual reports cover 2003-2017.  RMA has questions about practices that he says extended up to 2017.

As interesting as Hibbs' BookScan analysis is, it has nothing to do with anything posted in this thread

[RockMyAmadeus]

On 9/28/2018 at 12:30 AM, Lazyboy said:

As interesting as Hibbs' BookScan analysis is, it has nothing to do with anything posted in this thread

Agreed.

[David Buck]

I mentioned in the Canadian newsstand thread that Who's Who #17 appears to have a Newsstand misprint (with direct market pricing) that might have precluded there being a difference between US and Canadian Newsstand editions - today I found a US Newsstand  on ebay-  so this issue is rather odd - I know no other 1980's DC like this, in theory there's a $1.35 CNS to add to these 3

 

[FlyingDonut]

On 5/23/2018 at 10:52 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

Who knows? It was all very bizarre, and made little sense.

The only possible theory I have is that book sellers, like Waldenbooks, DID have Direct editions of books (they did sell them), and it's possible it was an attempt to test out putting UPC codes BACK on Direct only books. I would imagine some of the larger chains complained that they had to sticker those books. There are many, many books from that era that were Direct only that got stickered with UPCs so they could be scanned in their systems.

In fact, I think that's the most plausible theory....but the few who did know have probably forgotten.

The interesting case of Secret Defenders 7.

Newsstand with no price sticker:

Newsstand with price sticker removed:

Newsstand with additional price sticker;

Direct sales edition:

Edited January 28, 2019 by FlyingDonut

[Get Marwood & I]

24 minutes ago, FlyingDonut said:

Newsstand with additional price sticker;

 

 Here's a US copy, 'corrected' with an 'official' looking AUS sticker:

Got up to some strange things didn't they...

Edited January 29, 2019 by Get Marwood & I

[HarrisonJohn]

On ‎9‎/‎26‎/‎2018 at 11:12 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

What must have been really obnoxious is that 1981 wasn't that far into the "comics specialty store" era that there weren't still a significant percentage of readers who only know of, and bought comics through, the newsstand, so Dazzler #2 might have left a good chunk of them scratching their heads, saying "how did I miss the first issue..?"

Can you imagine any other sort of industry getting away with something like that? Forcing their customers to different places to buy their products?

There's a Dazzler pin-up in the back of issue #2 and at the bottom there's a message about hearing that some of you are having trouble finding issue #1, write to our circulation department for a list of retailers selling issue 1 at cover price.

Edited January 29, 2019 by HarrisonJohn

[RockMyAmadeus]

22 minutes ago, HarrisonJohn said:

There's a Dazzler pin-up in the back of issue #2 and at the bottom there's a message about hearing that some of you are having trouble finding issue #1, write to our circulation department for a list of retailers selling issue 1 at cover price.

Thanks for the info, John. I think I recall something like that. 

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 5/26/2018 at 12:44 AM, RockMyAmadeus said:

 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.)

Outsiders/Adventures of the Outsiders followed this format too, with the Baxter title being reprinted after about a year in the cheaper newsstand comic. None of the reprint titles survived all that long. It must have been nice to have been a fan of any of those titles and suddenly have two new books every month, at least for a while.

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

I started another thread to compile a checklist. I know it's sort of duplicating what's being discussed here, but maybe we can keep discussion about the topic here and compilation there.

One thing I noticed while starting a list is that a lot of the books that were direct only start to include UPCs when there's a line-wide crossover (Inferno, Acts of Vengeance, Infinity Gauntlet, etc.) for the crossover issues and then sometimes for a few issues after. Maybe these crossover issues were also distributed to newsstands so readers who only bought at the newsstand could read the whole story (similar to the reason for the Quasar and Dr. Strange/Ghost Rider books), and perhaps tested them for the following issues as well?