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Can we all agree that Marvel Whitmans are not a thing?
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240 posts in this topic

2 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

This is not something you know.  This is something you believe.

Just like you believe that these were only available in 3-packs months after the regular release, because that's all you, with your extremely limited perspective, saw? Yeah. Exactly.

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6 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

This is not something you know.  This is something you believe.  Many have claimed this but it's not well supported from experience of the time.  These books weren't available at the same time as newsstand copies and then kept on the shelves fro months.  They didn't even show up for sale until months afterward.

If dairy farmers could figure out how to sell milk past the expiration date, they'd definitely pull some to the side when the cows are making it and keep it to sell later.  But that would be ridiculous, right?  That would imply the direct edition books are like... what?  Some kind of cheese industry?  Who ever heard of cheese?

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2 minutes ago, Randall Dowling said:

You're certainty about things you can't know makes it difficult to continue this.  You're entitled to your opinion, which ultimately, is all this is.

lol You'res ((:) is much, much worse.

I'm sure you have a great explanation for why some were marked as reprints but the rest weren't.

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1 hour ago, Randall Dowling said:

This is not something you know.  This is something you believe.  Many have claimed this but it's not well supported from experience of the time.  These books weren't available at the same time as newsstand copies and then kept on the shelves for months.  They didn't even show up for sale until months afterward.

Actually, when I first started going to comic shops instead of picking up my books at the newsstand, multiple months of a title were available at cover price. Would those have been reprints as well? If you look at the proof that has been presented here in regards to colours used in the price boxes on some books seem to indicate that they were all done in one run, with changes made to the plates. When western printed their own books, they did packs with consecutive issues. Were all the earlier issues reprinted just for the packs? No. They were stockpiled and put into packs. In some cases they did reprint a few issues, but the ads changed to reflect the month/year they were reprinted in. That’s not the case with all the early direct editions you refer to as reprints. All marvel reprints I’ve bought over the years had different ads than the first prints. 

 

Edited by bellrules
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It's just not accurate to call the books "reprints" when they went to press at the same time as newsstand copies, with only the UPC box and a few other cover elements switched out.  I was having this argument with an LCS owner more than 3 decades ago.  Some things are widely accepted in the collecting community.  You are confusing "variant" with "reprint" in this case...!!  A reprint has nothing to do with distribution -- it is a case of either going BACK to press for a particular issue or other re-use of previously printed material.  

Comics professionals in production have VERIFIED how Whitman variants were handled.  It's not a matter of opinion,  It's a matter of accurate terminology.  Lazyboy is just being accurate in this case.  

 

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7 hours ago, Lazyboy said:

lol You'res ((:) is much, much worse.

I'm sure you have a great explanation for why some were marked as reprints but the rest weren't.

The reprints of the earliest Marvel Star Wars issues are a great example of this, in that case clearly marked REPRINT on the covers.

The distribution commentary by Randall is not an accurate way to differentiate variants from reprints.  For example, Western began their Gold Key/Whitman variant system in 1971.  It took a while, but the collecting community now OVERWHELMINGLY agrees that the books were simply variants, distributed differently -- look, if you want to talk about how long they stayed on racks, know that that has NOTHING to do with accurate reprint vs. variant terminology.

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2 hours ago, EC Star&Bar said:

The reprints of the earliest Marvel Star Wars issues are a great example of this, in that case clearly marked REPRINT on the covers.

Since comic interior pages are not necessarily printed at the same time as the covers (different paper, different machines), is there reason to believe that interiors which do not say "reprint" (or "second printing", etc.) are possibly original run interiors, even when the outer cover states "REPRINT"?  Star Wars has books with "REPRINT" on the cover and "REPRINT" on the interiors, but there are books with "REPRINT" on the cover and no indication on the interior.  

I believe there is a common industry practice today to print interior pages with significant overrun at the same time as the first printings, to be used for trade paperbacks for years, or in the event of demand, second and third printings of single issues.  The question is how early did the interior overrun process start?

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19 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Since comic interior pages are not necessarily printed at the same time as the covers (different paper, different machines), is there reason to believe that interiors which do not say "reprint" (or "second printing", etc.) are possibly original run interiors, even when the outer cover states "REPRINT"?  Star Wars has books with "REPRINT" on the cover and "REPRINT" on the interiors, but there are books with "REPRINT" on the cover and no indication on the interior.  

I believe there is a common industry practice today to print interior pages with significant overrun at the same time as the first printings, to be used for trade paperbacks for years, or in the event of demand, second and third printings of single issues.  The question is how early did the interior overrun process start?

Afraid not. Here is the indicia from first and second print of Thor 2. (Current series) If they were printed at the same time, in the same batch...why are they different? If books are reprints, you can tell by the indicia, info on the cover or the ads in the books. (The Thor book indicates it on the cover and the indicia)  The early direct editions, (apart from the early Star Wars reprints) have no indicating marks identifying them as reprints. This has been consistent with Marvel over the years. 

FA33D8C1-9AAE-48FA-B177-806FB67EC411.jpeg

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43 minutes ago, bellrules said:

The early direct editions, (apart from the early Star Wars reprints) have no indicating marks identifying them as reprints. This has been consistent with Marvel over the years. 

I think we're saying the same thing.  If there are no markings (or ads or other changes) indicating a reprint, then there's no reason to believe it's a reprint.

What I was asking is whether a book like Star Wars #5 REPRINT having no indication of being a reprint on the interior might be a newly-printed cover (stating REPRINT) wrapped around original interior pages? 

Edited by valiantman
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The Star Wars reprints were all identified as reprints. All other ones were either direct or newsstands. http://www.bipcomics.com/showcase/StarWars/Marvel/StarWars/001-006.html

Marvel books that were reprinted that didn’t have an indication on the cover, would have different ads inside, or a marking in the indicia. This would indicate to me that they didn’t stockpile interiors in the hopes that they might have to put out more copies to meet demand. 

Edited by bellrules
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I think an "overrun" practice would've been pretty rare in the 1970s.

In fact, press time was allotted in a strict way back then -- that's why it was so critical that a given issue was ready to go to press on time (and we got reprint "fill-in" issues of Conan and FF a few times, deadline trouble).

 

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5 hours ago, valiantman said:

I believe there is a common industry practice today to print interior pages with significant overrun at the same time as the first printings, to be used for trade paperbacks for years, or in the event of demand, second and third printings of single issues.

I've never heard of such a thing, but I can think of a few problems that would prevent it from being feasible.

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9 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:
5 hours ago, valiantman said:

I believe there is a common industry practice today to print interior pages with significant overrun at the same time as the first printings, to be used for trade paperbacks for years, or in the event of demand, second and third printings of single issues.

I've never heard of such a thing, but I can think of a few problems that would prevent it from being feasible.

Maybe it's not common.  The two "Second Print Variants" of Ultimate Fallout #4 from Marvel are clearly coded "1st Print, 3rd Cover" and "1st Print, 4th Cover" in the UPC boxes, so "going back to the presses for a reprinting" was probably not necessary when Marvel "claimed" Second Printing boldly on those covers in 2011.

Edited by valiantman
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53 minutes ago, valiantman said:

Maybe it's not common.  The two "Second Print Variants" of Ultimate Fallout #4 from Marvel are clearly coded "1st Print, 3rd Cover" and "1st Print, 4th Cover" in the UPC boxes, so "going back to the presses for a reprinting" was probably not necessary when Marvel "claimed" Second Printing boldly on those covers in 2011.

What does it say in the indicia?

 

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55 minutes ago, bellrules said:
1 hour ago, valiantman said:

Maybe it's not common.  The two "Second Print Variants" of Ultimate Fallout #4 from Marvel are clearly coded "1st Print, 3rd Cover" and "1st Print, 4th Cover" in the UPC boxes, so "going back to the presses for a reprinting" was probably not necessary when Marvel "claimed" Second Printing boldly on those covers in 2011.

What does it say in the indicia?

Maybe someone has it handy to take a look. Mine are in "cold storage". 

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On 7/9/2020 at 6:04 PM, Randall Dowling said:

Whitman was a subsidiary of Western Publishing.

I'm not even entirely convinced we can say this, with complete certainty about what it means... Whitman Publishing was also a company incorporated in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada that published comics in some kind of relationship with Western for many years. Subsidiary? Licensee? Producer of knock-offs? Acquisition of the brand as Western went into decline? Who knows.

Their books included French-language translations of U.S. comics (like "Au Dela du Reel") in the 1960s, unusual Disney and other digest comics in the 1970s, and - just possibly - many of the scarce 8-12 pre-pack books and scarcer DC Whitman variants in the early 1980s. I'm not arguing that this is definitely the case - though others do - just that our understanding of the publishing history of this company in this period is pretty sketchy.

As always, if you have evidence of your statements, I'm all ears - I'm ready to be convinced. You say that all Whitmans are reprints? Great... show us your evidence. You say that all Fat diamonds were distributed by Whitman, and no one else? Great, show us your evidence.

I, for one, am really interested in solving this riddle.

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On 7/20/2020 at 1:19 AM, bellrules said:

Ahem. From Comics Journal #69 , December 1981, well after the big diamond books were distributed by Whitman. 

2BAF1225-6DD6-457D-9B3E-3CA1D93A2725.jpeg

What an amazing wealth of information... thanks for posting!

And my mind boggles at the notion of a Thundarr the Barbarian comic. That series was always one of my favourites. interesting that of everything listed, I think only it and Astral Frontier were never published.

 

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On 7/20/2020 at 1:19 AM, bellrules said:

Ahem. From Comics Journal #69 , December 1981, well after the big diamond books were distributed by Whitman. 

2BAF1225-6DD6-457D-9B3E-3CA1D93A2725.jpeg

:applause:  Awesome find of that little piece of history.  Thanks for the post.  

Paging Wally Green!  That's someone who could provide some fascinating info and stories I would bet.

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