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The 2nd Print Newsstand Phenom...or "This Shouldn't Exist!!"
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105 posts in this topic

4 minutes ago, Warlord said:

Extending the search a bit just to see if there is a trend in the handling of DC reprints, I did some checking on a small stack of them that were handy.  FWIW, none of these have color stripes except the Superman #75 4th print (as RMA previously noted).

Action #662 2nd, #683 2nd, #685 2nd
Adventures of Superman #496 2nd, #497 2nd, #498 3rd
Batman #500 2nd
Justice League America #70 2nd
Robin #1 3rd
Superman #73 2nd, #74 3rd, #75 2nd, 3rd, 4th (green stripe)
Superman, Man of Steel #17 2nd, #18 4th

That's awesome! Thanks for doing the legwork to confirm those additional copies. That's what research is all about. :cloud9:

Looks like, at least insofar as DC is concerned, Batman #492 2nd and Supes #75 4th are the exceptions. I think we've covered perhaps 75% of the reprints from DC in this era.

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1 hour ago, David Buck said:

 

Tiny Toon Adventures Magazine # 1  - note the change to the text in the yellow circle and the change on the month from Oct. to Nov. 

I don't own a copy so I can't confirm what the Indicia shows  - but note it's very close in time to the batman / Superman issues 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TTA 1 DIR.jpg

TTA 1NEWS.jpg

TTA1 NEWS 1st.jpg

Quick question: are these digest size? Magazine size?

If so, it's possible there's a whole world of these types of books that, while not traditional standard format comics, would still be informative as to what the publishers were thinking at the time.

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These are magazine size issues - I have a copy of the direct edition somewhere - the first 4 issues of this title and the first 6 issues of "Looney Tunes Magazine" were published by DC before they passed them over to "Welsh Publishing Group"; as I recall they were listed in Direct Currents - direct and newsstand editions exist for all of the DC editions I don't know of any other 2nd. prints   

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21 minutes ago, Warlord said:
6 hours ago, RCheli said:

The question is that are these "newsstand" copies or are they "UPC" copies? Were these comics ever actually on a newsstand?

If they exist in both direct and UPC versions, doesn't that indicate that the UPC versions were distributed to newsstands?  Otherwise, why make two versions?

Because Barnes and Noble asked for it?

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Just now, Warlord said:

Wouldn't B&N fall into the newsstand category of a retailer buying returnable copies?  Or did they buy on a direct/non-returnable basis? 

I think all they wanted was the bar-code, so the pricing and inventory was correct. We have heard several anecdotes about B&N employees dumpster diving.

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I talked to a manager at B&N during an inventory and says they moved to SBT mid to late 2000s from what they could remember.

then they asked why I cared and try to explain this debate. Wasn’t a ton of help beyond that as they said it was tough enough to care about the stuff they were actually responsible for.

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9 hours ago, Arf Art Arf said:

1990 is too early for me, but I can tell you about 1998-2003 when I worked as a Receiver for B&N. There wouldn't have been any employee dumpster diving at my store. That's because all comics and magazines were strip-cover returns where you only sent the covers back for credit. Employees were then allowed to take whatever coverless comics/mags they wanted. Only the ones nobody wanted were thrown out.

Do a search for Noble on the boards, and you'll see what your fellow employees at other stores said. But thanks, all input is welcome. I'm sure policies varied from store-to-store (and even to the poor saps who had the job of ripping the covers off (as in wtf am I doing this for?????)

 

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Robin #1 1991 2nd Print Newsstand CGC 9.8 for sale on Mycomicshop.com/eBay. For the paltry sum of $3199 (mycomicshop) or $3550 (ebay, same book/seller). 

It's high, but being the only one on the census - also seems like a reasonable price given the rarity.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Robin-1991-Limited-Series-1R-NEWS-CGC-9-8-2nd-Print-Newsstand-2018093001/362629002960

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39 minutes ago, topcat54 said:

Mine don't have the DCU logo but they are news stand.

Right, because those are first printings, and need the stripe. The DCUs were probably printed later...we don't know for sure...and wouldn't need the stripe to be included. We know by some of the DCUs that say "collector pack printing" that at least some of the DCUs were reprinted at a later date...it's circumstantial evidence that all of the DCUs were printed after the fact. The stripes being missing on most of the DCUs are also circumstantial evidence that they are reprints. I don't pretend to know every facet of printing, but I imagine removing that stripe isn't a simple 5 minute change. 

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On 4/12/2019 at 4:55 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

No, both of those books have a stripe. The Superman #50 1st should, while the Spiderman #1 Gold 2nd would be an example of a reprint having the stripe. I haven't checked as many Marvels, and I've seen a few reprints with, and a few without. Too little information to conclude anything, I think. There are a ton bunch of reprints from Marvel from this time period, so eventually compiling a list won't be hard.

My thinking is this: having the stripe is the default for all books that are distributed on the newsstand, regardless of whether they are newsstand copies or Direct market copies. Since the vast majority (all...?) Direct copies have the stripe since it was instituted in 1979 or so, even though such a stripe was totally unnecessary for Direct market copies, we can safely assume that it was SOP to print the stripe on all copies.

However...since reprints were not meant for the newsstand market, someone made the decision at some point in the printing process to purposely REMOVE the stripe, at least in most of the cases with DC, which is pretty powerful circumstantial evidence showing that these weren't meant for the newsstand market. Even the stripe on books such as Spiderman #1 Gold and Batman #492 2nd is evidence of this: someone just forgot to take those out, or didn't think it necessary to do so. But in the large majority of the cases (so far), we see the stripe removed from reprints.

Sooo....does this tie into the DCU/ZH/Bullet variants...? Those were never intended for the newsstand, either. Well, I found a handful and saw this:

Green Lantern #47 DCU - no stripe

Green Lantern #50 - stripe

Green Lantern #52 - no stripe

So then, I found an X-Men #303 Pressman...it has a stripe. Pressman X-Men #11? Stripe...same color as the 1st...even though the back cover (and, perhaps, other pages) were changed, and I'm fairly certain X-Men #11 Pressman was printed months after the 1st printing, and certainly wouldn't have ever appeared on any newsstand.

That confirms to me that the stripe is the default, and not having it requires a decision from somebody. And that tells me that, in the instances they are removed, it's because they are not intended for the newsstand distribution system...which means these books, in the normal course of things, would never exist without direction from somebody, either in-house circulation, or special request from an external source.

Your analysis makes me wonder about all those 2nd printings that were produced for 3 packs.  Most of them are indistinguishable from the 1st printing when only looking at the front cover (the back covers are usually different though).   Examples include:

Adv of Superman 463 and 467

Action 654 and 660

Superman (1987 series) 44, 51, and 52

Justice League America 36, 37 and 45

Justice League Europe 6, 10

Flash 40, 41, 44

Wonder Woman 47, 48

Superboy 1, 8

Batman 445, 446, 447 (I've yet to see the pack containing these by the way, it is the only one I have not found)

Batman 467, 468, 469

 

 

 

 

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Great stuff I learned a few things. I need to check my JLA 70 2nd print as well.

Found the Supergirl 1 3rd print really interesting didn't know it was that low.

Wish we all had more pictures of the Superman 75 day. I wish I would have taken
some. Nobody understands it unless they were there for days I had people at my 
work in college asking me to get them copies.

 

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