The "Modern" Comics (late '70s Charlton reprints) Archaeology/Appreciation Thread... 1 1

[jools&jim]

7 minutes ago, Readcomix said:

I have to see if I have any laying handy; worth a look at the indicia to see what it says...

Here's the indicia from the Modern reprint of Midnight Tales #12:

[Readcomix]

7 minutes ago, jools&jim said:

Here's the indicia from the Modern reprint of Midnight Tales #12:

Thanks! Looks like Unisystems is still around: http://www.buzzfile.com/business/Modern-Publishing-212-826-0850

[ADAMANTIUM]

Hey guys just wanted to say I've been reading the back and forth, good to see there is some excitement  

I have one Charlton maybe, and I have seen a few that are easy enough to get around town for reading. 

I think Marwood was going to get to a Charlton thread eventually.

anyway carry on

Edited October 6, 2018 by ADAMANTIUM

[jools&jim]

8 minutes ago, Readcomix said:

Thanks! Looks like Unisystems is still around: http://www.buzzfile.com/business/Modern-Publishing-212-826-0850

   Thanks...!!!!

[jools&jim]

1 minute ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

Hey guys just wanted to say I've been reading the back and forth, good to see there is some excitement  

I have one Charlton maybe, and I have seen a few that are easy enough to get around town for reading. 

I think Marwood was going to get to a Charlton thread eventually.

anyway carry on

  Welcome aboard!

But...it's still not clear that these "Modern" reprints are Charltons, in the sense that Charlton had anything to do with them, other than (maybe) licensing stuff for another publisher to reprint...

 

[iganatz]

1 hour ago, jools&jim said:

So here's my first question: does anyone remember seeing these for sale, as single issues and at cover price (35¢), in traditional retail outlets for comics (i.e., drugstores, convenience stores, newsstands, etc.) back in the late 1970s?

Second question: does anyone else remember seeing them for sale or buying them in bagged 3-packs (as Tom Brevoort claims he did) during the same period?

 

46 minutes ago, jools&jim said:

If you found it locally, that makes a lot of sense.

The (now long gone) Woolworth's where I first ran across a HUGE stash of these back in the summer of '78 (see the link in my first post) is currently the large (and I think still vacant) property between the old drug store to the south and the pizza joint to the north...

 

29 minutes ago, Readcomix said:

These Moderns are how I first discovered the Charlton characters. I was in grade school in the 70's and I remember finding them available as singles at the local K-Mart, which come to think of it may have been a Grant's at that point in time. I do not recall coming across 3-packs there, just singles.

Wow, this thread just brought a flood of memories, thanks!  I was 10-11 when I started finding these in '77 and '78, and immediately became among my favorites.  They're also how I discovered Blue Beetle, Captain Atom and E-Man.  I lived in North Jersey and would buy singles at the candy/soda fountain shop in Bloomfield and, when I was lucky enough to find them, 3 packs at Woolworth's.  Occasionally, they could be found at the big bookstore (don't remember the name, but one of the big chains of the '70s) in the same bin with the Whitman DC and Marvel packs.

[Readcomix]

10 minutes ago, jools&jim said:

  Welcome aboard!

But...it's still not clear that these "Modern" reprints are Charltons, in the sense that Charlton had anything to do with them, other than (maybe) licensing stuff for another publisher to reprint...

 

Thank YOU for getting this great thread going! It seems from that link they are not Charltons but the paper and print job sure as heck screams Charlton. I wonder if the Unisystems principals were former Charlton execs? Maybe this publishing venture is what they did after Charlton comics folded?

[bronze_rules]

Pretty cool topic. Brings back various memories.

 

not sure if you guys have seen this... may be of interest.

http://www.ramonschenk.nl/charltoncomics/moderncomics.htm

looks like q3 has been answered here!

also the 1970s American comic book chronicles discusses it a bit. Ron gold approached a flailing Charlton in the late 70s and licensed the old printing plates to reprint the issues with modified advertising.  Would be interesting to compare ads.  Departments could set their own prices for the three packs. And the first batch did well enough to encourage more prints from modern and charlton. Just loosely paraphrased, but you can read the preview section on google books.

 

edit. Reading over the thread i see j&j did indeed find the thread from Ramon.

Edited October 6, 2018 by bronze_rules

[jools&jim]

14 hours ago, Readcomix said:

Bam! K-Mart sticker!

[Get Marwood & I]

14 hours ago, ADAMANTIUM said:

I think Marwood was going to get to a Charlton thread eventually.

Tom and The Nurses

 

[Get Marwood & I]

16 hours ago, jools&jim said:

I've been fascinated by these things for exactly 40 years now, and still don't have any more information about them than I did back in the day.

Before we start, here's a post of mine from a few years ago which delineates the origin of my obsession with what is, at best, a footnote in BA comics history (click the "right arrow" icon in the upper right-hand corner to read it):

 

 

Great thread, as is the embedded one. I spotted the Modern reprints when I started my pence research but they were dated after the final pence copies so I never got round to investigating further. Nice to learn a little more about them here. 

[jools&jim]

On 10/5/2018 at 10:31 PM, Readcomix said:

But I know I always assumed it was Charlton reprinting their own, due to the obvious production values of the final printed product -- looks and feels straight outta Derby, Connecticut, after all. 

Very true...I never really thought about it that way.  The Modern books absolutely do look and feel like "real" Charltons.

So maybe it's just as simple as this:

• the "Modern"-branded reprints were produced by Charlton, possibly through an intermediary, solely for distribution in multi-packs to the discount chain-store market (as with the DC, Marvel, and Whitman multi-packs), and were never intended for single-issue newsstand sale.

• the multi-packs ultimately couldn't compete with the better product offered by DC & Marvel, and the program was cancelled.

• leftover "loose" inventory was then blown-out in bulk at very low wholesale prices to the same chains, which accounts for single issues (and those huge "un-circulated" stacks at my local Woolworth's) put out for sale back in the day.

 

Edited October 8, 2018 by jools&jim

[ADAMANTIUM]

1 hour ago, Get Marwood & I Live! said:

Tom and The Nurses

 

Ah Thanks for the link  I missed that one...EDIT: as it is in SA section, that may be why I missed it, I usually only look at this week in the collection  

I'll try and do better!

Edited October 6, 2018 by ADAMANTIUM

[jools&jim]

Per bronze_rules, here is the entry from American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s (TwoMorrows Publishing, 2014):

Edited October 6, 2018 by jools&jim

[jools&jim]

And here is some mildly inaccurate information, courtesy of the "Charlton Comics" Wikipedia entry:

Quote

Final years

By the 1980s, Charlton was in decline. The comic book industry was in a sales slump, struggling to reinvent a profitable distribution and retail system. Charlton's licensed titles lapsed, its aging presses were deteriorating towards uselessness, and the company did not have the resources to replace them. In 1981, there was yet another attempt at new material, with a comic book version of Charlton Bullseye serving as a new-talent showcase that actively solicited submissions by comic book fans, and an attempt at new Ditko-produced titles. A number of 1970s-era titles were also reprinted under the Modern Comics imprint and sold in bagged sets in department stores (in much the same way Gold Key Comics were published under the Whitman Comics moniker around the same time). None of these measures worked, and in 1984 Charlton Comics suspended publication.

The Modern books reprinted both '60s and '70s material, and were clearly on sale several years before the 1980s began...

[davidpg]

I picked up a number of 3 packs 20-odd years ago while going through a box of them at a random pop-up liquidation store.  I grabbed all the nice undamaged packs and opened the all up...and how I have a pile of super high grade various issues.  I can post some pics tonight.

[the blob]

On ‎10‎/‎5‎/‎2018 at 9:29 PM, jools&jim said:

So here's my first question: does anyone remember seeing these for sale, as single issues and at cover price (35¢), in traditional retail outlets for comics (i.e., drugstores, convenience stores, newsstands, etc.) back in the late 1970s?

Second question: does anyone else remember seeing them for sale or buying them in bagged 3-packs (as Tom Brevoort claims he did) during the same period?

Yes, a local newsstand type place sold them and a few other random comics. I remember buying some of the E-Man issues there.

[the blob]

My dim recollection is that a lot of the Modern Comics Blue Beetle 1s were printed and maybe Captain Atom 1s, I really don't feel like those were just in multipacks.

[Brian48]

I had never heard of them nor seen them for sale back in the day.  I did come across these two a couple of years ago in a dollar bin.  Thought they were pretty cool, especially the early Byrne stuff in Doomsday+1, so I picked them up.

[jools&jim]

1 hour ago, Brian48 said:

I had never heard of them nor seen them for sale back in the day.  I did come across these two a couple of years ago in a dollar bin.  Thought they were pretty cool, especially the early Byrne stuff in Doomsday+1, so I picked them up.

 

Thanks for sharing these.

Very cool...another "blow out" price sticker on the Monster Hunters!  Is it 8 or 6 for a dollar?