Can we all agree that Marvel Whitmans are not a thing? 4 4

[MyNameIsLegion]

can any of you fine gentlemen confirm the existence of a Whitman 3-pack that contained"

Avengers #156

Marvel Premiere #37

Thor #261

I got the above for Xmas that year, and I've been trying to figure out if it was actually a 3-pack.

TIA!

 

[Lazyboy]

17 hours ago, NP_Gresham said:

It is not that hard to reprint the price box.

perhaps you are not aware of pence copies?

Pence copies aren't reprints either. You're not helping the point you're trying to make.

[Lazyboy]

11 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

What convinces you that pence copies are reprints NP? Have I not done my job properly or what? 

Nobody reads your threads.

[Get Marwood & I]

2 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

Nobody reads your threads.

You can't blame them really. They're rubbish 

[Warlord]

18 hours ago, MYNAMEISLEGION said:

can any of you fine gentlemen confirm the existence of a Whitman 3-pack that contained"

Avengers #156

Marvel Premiere #37

Thor #261

I got the above for Xmas that year, and I've been trying to figure out if it was actually a 3-pack.

TIA!

 

Here's as close as I can find, it has 2 out of 3!  It's the only pack I know of that has MP #37.   Thor #261 also appears in another variation of this pack with Cap 211 again, but a different comic in the middle.  I don't have any record of a pack with Avengers #156 in it.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2020 by Warlord

[Lazyboy]

On 3/5/2020 at 2:04 PM, NP_Gresham said:

There is at least 1 dealer in the area who was actually in business at the time

He insists there were NO Marvel direct edition books at the time of the Whitman 3 packs

Further I KNOW when these 3 packs came out, as I am old enough to remember first hand

These were REPRINTS in the 3 packs, they came out 6 months after newsstand release

Call them what they are

Whitman exclusive reprints

Printing means printing.

Distribution means distribution.

Printing and distribution are different things.

[MyNameIsLegion]

9 hours ago, Warlord said:

Here's as close as I can find, it has 2 out of 3!  It's the only pack I know of that has MP #37.   Thor #261 also appears in another variation of this pack with Cap 211 again, but a different comic in the middle.  I don't have any record of a pack with Avengers #156 in it.

 

 

Thanks!  Maybe I had this one, because I had this issue of Cap as well around that time, and would not have otherwise chosen it. 

[Warlord]

Quote

These were REPRINTS in the 3 packs, they came out 6 months after newsstand release

 

On 3/7/2020 at 6:43 PM, Lazyboy said:

Printing means printing.

Distribution means distribution.

Printing and distribution are different things.

For packs that contained 3 consecutive issues, it would be a minimum of 2-3 months after printing before Western would have accumulated the issues and could package them.  M&I shared a pic of a Spider-Man pack containing #181, #184, and #185.  A weird grouping, to be sure, and it would require holding inventory for 4-5 months if they were getting them from the printer at the same time the newsstands were published, which I suspect they were.  ASM #181 showing up in a pack Whitman pack 5 months after the newsstand issue had been on the stands would certainly give the impression that it was a later printing, which I suspect they were not.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Warlord

[rakehell]

On 3/7/2020 at 2:16 AM, NP_Gresham said:

The Whitmans are just one more kind of reprint, similar to Pence copies.

[rakehell]

On 3/7/2020 at 1:44 AM, Randall Dowling said:

Of course, that’s all it took to create these reprints.  But, unfortunately, you’re arguing with beliefs.  The pro “Whitman books are the first direct market editions and as such should be worth more” posters in this thread have a desired outcome and are twisting/distorting logic to legitimize their preconceived notion.  None of it is based on rational thought process or evidence based understanding or even knowledge of the time period.  It’s all just imagine this and probably that and “Tada!  What I always wanted to be true actually is!  Hooray!”

Hmmm...

I used to believe pence variants were reprints. Then I looked into it and found a whole bunch of evidence that made me change my belief. That's the funny thing about facts; they remain facts whether you believe them or not.

For arguments sake, we'll use my favorite example (again!) of Star Wars 2 from August, 1977. The standard US (30c), price experiment US (35c) & UK pence (12p) were all run off the press at the same time. The inside pages of these are from the same run. They all have the same standard US price indicia: 30c. The only way they vary from each other is the changed price slug (changed, mind you, not reprinted), which only required a pause in printing, rather than a stop, wait.... wait.... wait & eventually (3 months later? 6?) restart.

I have very little interest in the Whitman question. They don't come up all that often in the UK. I wish they did; I remember buying multi-packs when I was a kid in the US. It was a good way to bulk out my pile.

Thinking about it though, I find it makes more logical sense for Marvel to make 2 (or 3 or a dozen) changes to a single print run than to dig the old plates out & reset a separate run for a comparatively tiny batch of reprints. 

[NP_Gresham]

23 minutes ago, rakehell said:

Hmmm...

I used to believe pence variants were reprints. Then I looked into it and found a whole bunch of evidence that made me change my belief. That's the funny thing about facts; they remain facts whether you believe them or not.

For arguments sake, we'll use my favorite example (again!) of Star Wars 2 from August, 1977. The standard US (30c), price experiment US (35c) & UK pence (12p) were all run off the press at the same time. The inside pages of these are from the same run. They all have the same standard US price indicia: 30c. The only way they vary from each other is the changed price slug (changed, mind you, not reprinted), which only required a pause in printing, rather than a stop, wait.... wait.... wait & eventually (3 months later? 6?) restart.

I have very little interest in the Whitman question. They don't come up all that often in the UK. I wish they did; I remember buying multi-packs when I was a kid in the US. It was a good way to bulk out my pile.

Thinking about it though, I find it makes more logical sense for Marvel to make 2 (or 3 or a dozen) changes to a single print run than to dig the old plates out & reset a separate run for a comparatively tiny batch of reprints. 

[NP_Gresham]

On 3/7/2020 at 10:27 AM, Lazyboy said:

You've chosen to ignore content by Lazyboy. 

[RCheli]

On 3/7/2020 at 6:43 PM, Lazyboy said:

Printing means printing.

Distribution means distribution.

Printing and distribution are different things.

This is a great point, though. Marvel was in the printing business. Seuling, Whitman, and the local companies were in charge of distribution. In theory, Marvel would be happy to reprint any comic at any time if some company was willing to pay for them. But Whitman wasn't stupid. They had a very successful business model, and knew what they had to pay per book to make money, and a special printing with a low circulation would be cost prohibitive.

[RCheli]

13 hours ago, Warlord said:

 

For packs that contained 3 consecutive issues, it would be a minimum of 3 months after printing before Western would have accumulated the issues and could package them.  M&I shared a pic of a Spider-Man pack containing #181, #184, and #185.  A weird grouping, to be sure, and it would require holding inventory for 5 months if they were getting them from the printer at the same time the newsstands were published, which I suspect they were.  ASM #181 showing up in a pack Whitman pack 5 months after the newsstand issue had been on the stands would certainly give the impression that it was a later printing, which I suspect they were not.

Whitman had a lot of multi-issue packs from publishers other than Marvel, of course: Battle of the Planets, the Black Hole, etc. And even though the issues in those packs had different publication months, I am not knowledgeable enough to know if they were actually printed at different times (so was Battle of the Planets #7 which has a date of October 1980 actually printed a month before #8 which has a date of November 1980). If they were printed at different times (which I suspect), then Whitman would certainly have a warehouse capable of holding onto numbers issues of a single title and then packaging them together when they had 3 copies available.

Edited March 9, 2020 by RCheli

[Get Marwood & I]

On 3/7/2020 at 7:14 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

On 3/7/2020 at 2:16 AM, NP_Gresham said:

The stridex reprints, and ALL detergent copy of ASM #184 - more reprints.

The Whitmans are just one more kind of reprint, similar to Pence copies.

Not that hard to reprint books.

 

What convinces you that pence copies are reprints NP? Have I not done my job properly or what? 

Again, @NP_Gresham, what makes you think that pence copies are reprints? I'm intrigued

[Lazyboy]

2 hours ago, NP_Gresham said:

On 3/7/2020 at 12:27 PM, Lazyboy said:

You've chosen to ignore content by Lazyboy. 

There's no helping the willfully ignorant.

[Get Marwood & I]

4 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

There's no helping the willfully ignorant.

Maybe I'm on ignore too? I don't mind people stating their views if they are prepared to stand by or justify them and debate them when challenged. Very few seem up for the challenge though. I'll file NPG in with NerV if I hear no more...

[Lazyboy]

34 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Again, @NP_Gresham, what makes you think that pence copies are reprints? I'm intrigued

He knows! He was there!

He ran the printing presses, inspected Whitman's warehouse, and swam the pence copies reprints over to you guys (that's why it really took so long)!

[Get Marwood & I]

11 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

He knows! He was there!

He ran the printing presses, inspected Whitman's warehouse, and swam the pence copies reprints over to you guys (that's why it really took so long)!

If we ever prove that some of the early pence copies were printed first, some people are going to have coronaries...

[RCheli]

47 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

If we ever prove that some of the early pence copies were printed first, some people are going to have coronaries...

I have heard people say that the colors on the Silver Age pence copies were brighter so that meant that they were printed first. I don't know if that's true or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was. Why, you ask? Well, printers often give you quotes with a +/- 10% number. It takes a lot to start/stop these presses -- especially older ones from the 1960s. You don't just put a number in a computer and press a button. The print masters are eying this up. They know, generally speaking, how many can be printed every minute, and they're guessing when to stop the run. You say you want the print run to be 100,000, you can get 90,000 or you can get 110,000. (This is not true with digital printing, which prints to a specific number and usually overprints at a much smaller amount, and that's mostly due to having some extras due to bad printing/cuts/tears/etc.)

So if Fantastic Four #15 had a pence and a US version. if they're going to over or under print, at the end, it's going to be for the version that has the most copies. There were (again, I don't know the real numbers, but this is a guess) 10,000 pence and 190,000 cent. They run the 10,000, stop the press, change the screen, run 190,000, run a few more for your overage. 

I have no idea if this is how they did it, of course. But this is based on working in advertising for a long time, and going to the places where they had these HUGE offset printing presses, but I suspect that's why they did the pence first.