Comic distribution in the 40s & 50s 2 2

[aardvark88]

1 hour ago, N e r V said:

 Also having a stack of gold and silver age comics just sitting there for someone to thumb through seems mind boggling by today’s standards but that’s how it was at times.

Since Vancouver, BC was a 'modern' city circa 1940, one could just ride one's bicycle down to the local Circulating Library (see stamp on back cover) and borrow the latest comics for reading pleasure:

[catman76]

I think a lot of publishers owned their own distribution companies. DC did, Marvel did. Martin Goodman owned Atlas News Company that distributed all marvel/atlas comics, all their pulps and other magazines until the mid 50s when Goodman had to shut down most of his companies and was forced to use the distribution company owned by DC. DC then limited them to only eight titles a month or something. Dell comics were distributed by Western Publishing, which eventually took everything from Dell and published comics themselves as Gold Key and Whitman comics. I think a lot of companies that published comics also owned distribution companies as well, which would explain why not all stores would have every publishers comics being sold. I doubt any of this stuff is very well documented anyway since publishers of comics and magazines had very shady stuff going on back then. They owned tons of different companies they published different titles under to avoid taxes etc and lots were connected to criminal stuff like Victor Fox, who owned Fox Features, had mob ties.

Edited January 18, 2020 by catman76

[Robot Man]

11 hours ago, aardvark88 said:

Since Vancouver, BC was a 'modern' city circa 1940, one could just ride one's bicycle down to the local Circulating Library (see stamp on back cover) and borrow the latest comics for reading pleasure:

I lived in a “modern city” but our public library did not have comic books. We were encouraged to read “real books” instead. Comics were considered trash. Pretty short sighted as I primarily learned to read with comics. 

[Robot Man]

12 hours ago, N e r V said:

Clothes pins are long before my time but I still remember a number of dealers back in the day displaying their golden age and key silvers up on peg board. Maybe not as harmful but I do remember them occasionally getting knocked off. Also having a stack of gold and silver age comics just sitting there for someone to thumb through seems mind boggling by today’s standards but that’s how it was at times. I used to buy sets of SA comics bundled with string around them at a local flea market too. I picked up a run of FF #12-30 that way...

I remember those days well. In-bagged piles and later comics under a plastic sheet to deter theft. Comics wern’t worth much back then by today’s standards and if you looked a bit, they were some what available. Word of mouth, garage sales and flea markets yielded quite a few if you worked at it. I even had quite a few simply given to me because I asked. I put up cards on bulletin boards and even at one time went door to for asking for them. Condition wasn’t much of a consideration. Finding 20 year old wartime era comics was a huge score. 

[PopKulture]

16 hours ago, N e r V said:

I really hate looking at photos like these. Makes me scan everything to see what I have including all the non comics stuff...

Probably could waste a few hours just browsing the photos for stuff...

I pretty much do the same.  

I'll save you a couple minutes at least - first issue of Auto with a cover by movie poster artist Reynold Brown: 

 

[lou_fine]

13 hours ago, aardvark88 said:

Since Vancouver, BC was a 'modern' city circa 1940, one could just ride one's bicycle down to the local Circulating Library (see stamp on back cover) and borrow the latest comics for reading pleasure:

You mean that you still haven't returned it back to the library after all this time, and it's no wonder my hold on the book hasn't come through yet.    

I can just imagine the overdue fines by now or did you just claimed that the book was lost and paid the token few dollars to keep the book.    

[shadroch]

13 hours ago, catman76 said:

I think a lot of publishers owned their own distribution companies. DC did, Marvel did. Martin Goodman owned Atlas News Company that distributed all marvel/atlas comics, all their pulps and other magazines until the mid 50s when Goodman had to shut down most of his companies and was forced to use the distribution company owned by DC. DC then limited them to only eight titles a month or something. Dell comics were distributed by Western Publishing, which eventually took everything from Dell and published comics themselves as Gold Key and Whitman comics. I think a lot of companies that published comics also owned distribution companies as well, which would explain why not all stores would have every publishers comics being sold. I doubt any of this stuff is very well documented anyway since publishers of comics and magazines had very shady stuff going on back then. They owned tons of different companies they published different titles under to avoid taxes etc and lots were connected to criminal stuff like Victor Fox, who owned Fox Features, had mob ties.

Many, if not most, newsstands also functioned as bookies and numbers runners.  Comics were just another means for the mob to handle it's cash.

[N e r V]

1 hour ago, PopKulture said:

I pretty much do the same.  

I'll save you a couple minutes at least - first issue of Auto with a cover by movie poster artist Reynold Brown: 

 

Yep. Short lived title that unlike Motor Trend or Hot Rod failed to find its market (European autos) but left us with some nice covers. I think he did #1,2,3,4, and #6 in the run.

 

[rjpb]

A bit later, but my memories of the early 70s was that Marvel, DC, Harvey and Archie books were available anywhere comics were sold, but Charlton only where everything was carried. Some places had a limited selection from the big four, mostly top-sellers, but hit or miss on the lower interest titles. You had to go to a place with a big selection of magazines to find stuff like Warren mags, or the B/W Marvel mags, most places didn't carry them. I would ride my bike about 2 miles away to a pharmacy that had the fullest selection of comics. I'd put a bag full of the latest comics on my carrying rack over the rear tire on the ride home, probably not the best way to keep them minty fresh. 

[jimjum12]

On 1/13/2020 at 7:55 PM, lou_fine said:

Strongly doubt they were just ordered for Edgar hinself only, as I believed the Mile High codes indicate they were all multiple copies since the code also included a count of the number of copies ordered as the last number in the MH code.  

I believe that many of them, especially the earlier "coded" books, came from one source, which would have been unusual in those days. I strongly doubt that a distributor would have hand written a code on EACH copy of EACH issue that they sold..... that would literally be thousands of comics each month.... an item that the distributor likely only made a couple pf cents per. It would take days to annotate every copy distributed. It would make more sense to me that Edgar was purchasing someone's file or record copy that was used to keep track of how many were received to better facilitate the calculation of how many actually sold (by subtracting the number of returns from the number of delivered copies...). Edgar may have been buying these "record" copies after the returns were submitted. Edgar obviously had some sort of inside track on purchasing these with the high completion rate.  

My question has always been about the Duck books.... did Chuck ever discuss this in depth? Were they already gone when he got there ? I've lost my link to the Master List, were other non-Duck Four Colors there, for example ? GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) 

[AJD]

4 hours ago, jimjum12 said:

 

My question has always been about the Duck books.... did Chuck ever discuss this in depth? Were they already gone when he got there ? I've lost my link to the Master List, were other non-Duck Four Colors there, for example ? GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) 

Chuck does talk about that in his tales from the database memoirs of the purchase. He suspects, but doesn't know for sure that there was another room of comics that was thrown out before he got there. There were a few - but not many - funny animal and cartoon books mixed in with all the ones we know about, and a few gaps in the runs. He speculates that an empty room next door used to have the other part of the collection. It had only some mouldy pulps on one shelf when he checked.

[jimjum12]

4 minutes ago, AJD said:

Chuck does talk about that in his tales from the database memoirs of the purchase. He suspects, but doesn't know for sure that there was another room of comics that was thrown out before he got there. There were a few - but not many - funny animal and cartoon books mixed in with all the ones we know about, and a few gaps in the runs. He speculates that an empty room next door used to have the other part of the collection. It had only some mouldy pulps on one shelf when he checked.

Thanks.... I vaguely remembered something about that, but didn't want to pontificate until I could validate …. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[jimjum12]

I'm probably a little younger than most boardies and I didn't start buying books off the stands until the later 60's. My first source was a store in Raleigh called simply "The Newstand" …. near what was an early shopping Mall called North Hills. There were no spinners that I recall.... everything was on wooden racks that held Marvel, D.C., Harvey, and Gold Key. In those days I was unaware that new books came out each week and sometimes missed issues that sold out. ASM, FF, and Thor were the ones that had a tendency to sell out the most often. The only other options of note were 7-11 and some Pharmacies. By this time I was already hearing rumors of used book stores downtown where early ASMs could be had for as much as $ 5 each … which was a King's Ransom for me at the time, as leaf raking and other yard work was netting me from 25 to 50 cents per day. We later moved to a very small town in Missouri (Pop. 2500) that only sold comics at one grocery store that I knew of, with many titles often selling out. Around this time I also discovered Mail Order, with Marvels from 1964 fetching a dollar each. The 1963's were in the $ 3 range and the 1962's were $5- $ 10. Around 1974 I started  going to local Conventions.... maybe 3 or 4 per year. I saw my first Action 1 back then for $ 1800 … maybe a Good Plus. By the mid 70's most of us grabbed our books at the convenience stores that were popping up all over the place. Around here the first back issues were being sold at a nearby Book Store in Phoebus called Bender's Books.This would be the late 70's. The Manager there, Dave, was given permission to store them behind the register and sell them there, making enough in a few years to buy the store. It is still in business today. Back issues were also sold in a few used book shops and also at Paul's Arts and Crafts … usually for 5 or 10 cents per.... a friend snagged an ASM 1 there once for a dime. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited January 19, 2020 by jimjum12

[buttock]

10 hours ago, jimjum12 said:

I believe that many of them, especially the earlier "coded" books, came from one source, which would have been unusual in those days. I strongly doubt that a distributor would have hand written a code on EACH copy of EACH issue that they sold..... that would literally be thousands of comics each month.... an item that the distributor likely only made a couple pf cents per. It would take days to annotate every copy distributed. It would make more sense to me that Edgar was purchasing someone's file or record copy that was used to keep track of how many were received to better facilitate the calculation of how many actually sold (by subtracting the number of returns from the number of delivered copies...). Edgar may have been buying these "record" copies after the returns were submitted. Edgar obviously had some sort of inside track on purchasing these with the high completion rate.  

It wouldn't be the distributor who coded the books, but rather the vendor.  It would be in their best interest to code every book if it was necessary for returns, or if they were tracking numbers for sales data.  I'm speculating a bit here, I don't know if that would be the reason.  But if you look at collections like the River City where there were multiple copies of some books, they were all hand coded so presumptively every book that came in was coded.  Now why wouldn't you get a stamp?  

[jimjum12]

25 minutes ago, buttock said:

It wouldn't be the distributor who coded the books, but rather the vendor.  It would be in their best interest to code every book if it was necessary for returns, or if they were tracking numbers for sales data.  I'm speculating a bit here, I don't know if that would be the reason.  But if you look at collections like the River City where there were multiple copies of some books, they were all hand coded so presumptively every book that came in was coded.  Now why wouldn't you get a stamp?  

I find topics like that interesting.... and my choice of the word distributor rather than vendor was poor, as I was inferring to the distribution process for distributing the books to the final consumer... us. We moved around a lot when I was young, different States even, and I never once bought a book at any of the many different vendors where any markings were on the books. It's a curious practice. As to the River City's... I've only had a few over the years, do they have the number of copies,  or rather just a date and a letter ? As to codes being used as an inventory control tool, it would seem that at least two copies like that would be needed, one for the distributor and one for the vendor. GOD LESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[buttock]

1 minute ago, jimjum12 said:

I find topics like that interesting.... and my choice of the word distributor rather than vendor was poor, as I was inferring to the distribution process for distributing the books to the final consumer... us. We moved around a lot when I was young, different States even, and I never once bought a book at any of the many different vendors where any markings were on the books. It's a curious practice. As to the River City's... I've only had a few over the years, do they have the number of copies,  or rather just a date and a letter ? As to codes being used as an inventory control tool, it would seem that at least two copies like that would be needed, one for the distributor and one for the vendor. GOD LESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Just a letter and a date for the RCs.  

I've never heard how people came to the conclusion about the extra number on Church books, deciding that it notes the number of each book received.  If you sold through, then you wouldn't be able to review that information.  Maybe, and this is complete conjecture, since the Church collection was so complete, he was getting them from somewhere before they hit the newsstand, and that person used the number for inventory reference?  

[Aman619]

Based on all that I’ve read and discussed, Back in the early days, magazines and comics had distribution deals set up. Either a sole distributor, or a wider arrangement with more than one.  Similarly  a newsstand or store would receive magazines including comics from one distributor, and would receive what the distrib selected for them, or work with more than one who also chose for them, or, in some cases could give feedback to personalize their order. It was all returnable for credit, so the sales outlets were more like profit partners with the distribs who paid for and owned the stuff! And had to take it back and deal with the piles of returned mags. The stores made money, but the distribs had coin in the game and made the decisions. 

over the past 90 years — wow, comics are close to 100 year anniversary! — this all got streamlined of course, but the further you go back the more arcane it was handled where any possible combination was going on somewhere in the large cities down to the smallest burgs in the boondocks. 

[jimjum12]

1 hour ago, buttock said:

Just a letter and a date for the RCs.  

I've never heard how people came to the conclusion about the extra number on Church books, deciding that it notes the number of each book received.  If you sold through, then you wouldn't be able to review that information.  Maybe, and this is complete conjecture, since the Church collection was so complete, he was getting them from somewhere before they hit the newsstand, and that person used the number for inventory reference?  

It has to be something like that.... and a larger regional distributor at that.... as evidenced by the many photos available from those days where no retailers seemed to have a full selection of everything. We also have Marty Mann's first hand recollection of having to "News Stand Hop" to get everything. Another thing I always wondered was if Edgar even had to pay for them, he may have taken them off someone's hands as they would quickly accumulate as an inventory/distribution record. Church would have spent enough over 20 years to almost buy a home in those days..... for example, I had an old friend (R.I.P.) who purchased a house WITH a Marina in the mid 60's for 12K …. the 2K that Edgar's collection would have retailed for was a fortune back then. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

Edited January 19, 2020 by jimjum12

[jimjum12]

48 minutes ago, Aman619 said:

Based on all that I’ve read and discussed, Back in the early days, magazines and comics had distribution deals set up. Either a sole distributor, or a wider arrangement with more than one.  Similarly  a newsstand or store would receive magazines including comics from one distributor, and would receive what the distrib selected for them, or work with more than one who also chose for them, or, in some cases could give feedback to personalize their order. It was all returnable for credit, so the sales outlets were more like profit partners with the distribs who paid for and owned the stuff! And had to take it back and deal with the piles of returned mags. The stores made money, but the distribs had coin in the game and made the decisions. 

over the past 90 years — wow, comics are close to 100 year anniversary! — this all got streamlined of course, but the further you go back the more arcane it was handled where any possible combination was going on somewhere in the large cities down to the smallest burgs in the boondocks. 

What makes it even more complicated to decipher is the possible connection between periodical distribution and the laundering of Bootleg and Gambling profits back in the early days … if true, then what records do exist still may be less than accurate. GOD BLESS....

-jimbo(a friend of jesus)

[Badger]

16 hours ago, rjpb said:

A bit later, but my memories of the early 70s was that Marvel, DC, Harvey and Archie books were available anywhere comics were sold, but Charlton only where everything was carried. Some places had a limited selection from the big four, mostly top-sellers, but hit or miss on the lower interest titles. You had to go to a place with a big selection of magazines to find stuff like Warren mags, or the B/W Marvel mags, most places didn't carry them. I would ride my bike about 2 miles away to a pharmacy that had the fullest selection of comics. I'd put a bag full of the latest comics on my carrying rack over the rear tire on the ride home, probably not the best way to keep them minty fresh. 

I never saw Charlton anywhere except when I went to Oklahoma to visit my Grand parents. Its seems like one of the supermarkets, Safeway?, had Charlton, if memory serves.