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Paul Greer
Byrne Robotics Security
Joined: 18 August 2004
Posts: 14186
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 9:44am | IP Logged | 1
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I recall buying # 137 off the racks at my local drug store. I had been buying the comic since 121 on a regular basis. The only toruble back then is that Uncanny wouldn't always show up at the same drug store or newstand. I had four different places I would check. Spider-Man I could always find in all four places, but it seemed like X-Men would only appear at certain newstands ever other issue.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132320
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 9:47am | IP Logged | 2
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The only toruble back then is that Uncanny wouldn't always show up at the
same drug store or newstand. I had four different places I would check.•• The Thrill of the Hunt. Another element of reading comics lost on modern
audiences. There are days when I think I would happily go back to my 1980 page rate
(adjusted for inflation!) and forego all the financial advances of the past
couple of decades, if we could just see an average comic selling 200,000 a
month again, and being on sale EVERYWHERE.
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Vinny Valenti
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 8042
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 9:52am | IP Logged | 3
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"Anyone who could not find the issue at his/her
LCS could have strolled down the block to the nearest drugstore and found
it on the spinner rack there."
--
My recollection was that during the 80's, if a comic book sold out in a direct sales store, all you had to do was wait about 3-4 weeks for it to turn up at the newsstands. That's how I bought a copy of Batman#428. The only thing was that you'd get the UPC code on the cover instead of DC's advertising or Spider-Man's image. That made it less desirable to many collectors.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 9:55am | IP Logged | 4
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The only thing was that you'd get the UPC code on the cover instead of
DC's advertising or Spider-Man's image. That made it less desirable to
many collectors.•• The early days of inventing "alternate covers", which reached it's zenith (or
is that nadir?) with the unajectived SPIDER-MAN 1, when I saw people in
CBG and the like searching for "variants" that were really just different
places the books were sold!
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 April 2004
Posts: 4548
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 1:18pm | IP Logged | 5
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Vinny Valenti wrote:
| My recollection was that during the 80's, if a comic book sold out in adirect sales store, all you had to do was wait about 3-4 weeks for itto turn up at the newsstands. |
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I don't recall there even being that much lag time. My LCS got new books Friday, and the newsstands and stores would generally put out the same books the following Monday or Tuesday, IIRC.
I'm pretty sure my dealer had extra copies for sale of X-Men #137... it was a top-selling book among fans at that point, although not the general public. I remember him having a big stack of them. I didn't see the book at many newsstands, but that was because in the town I lived in distribution for some reason was always spotty for any double-sized or larger books. My dealer went directly to the distributor for books, and he told me they didn't even bother putting out DC dollar comics for some reason. I don't know if it was that the stores didn't want them, or just the distributor thought the stores wouldn't want them.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 06 December 2009 at 1:25pm
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 30901
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 1:51pm | IP Logged | 6
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I remember it as Vinny does. Direct shops got books a month before newsstand or subscriptions got theirs. I remember my cousins getting books a month ahead of me because they could drive and go to the shop and I had to wait.
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Don Zomberg
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 23 November 2005
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 2:10pm | IP Logged | 7
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...selling 200,000 a month again. That's the really staggering thing--if the audience could even double its current numbers the industry would be in a much healthier place. Of course, a doubling of the number of today's typical fan would only make things worse.
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Jason Czeskleba
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | 8
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Maybe you guys are talking about the mid-to-late 80's? I stopped collecting new comics in 1985, and I sure don't remember my comic shop getting books 3-4 weeks earlier than newsstands in the early 80's.
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Brian Miller
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | 9
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I'm talking 82-85 was when I first noticed it. That's when my cousins were getting JB's FF and AF and the X-Men a month before I did. When I would get my new issues from either subscription or newsstand, they were gettin the next issue.
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Steven Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5626
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | 10
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I had a dozen or so subscriptions in the early-mid 80's, and I remember how at Mid-Ohio Con there would be the next month's issues on spinner racks for sale, weeks before I would recieve them in the mail. I started my X-Men collection with 138....just missed the "big one". I picked it up from a resaler for $7 around '84.
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Joe Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 29 August 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6604
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | 11
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I kinda lucked out, in a way, not being an X-fan until #172. The first time I read the DPhoenix storyline was in a squarebound Bill Seinkewicz covered paperback, which I believe was at a smaller size than normal comics. The cover hooked me, and when I got inside, John and Terry blew me away.
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Mike Norris
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4274
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| Posted: 06 December 2009 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | 12
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In the 80s I worked at a bookstore that received comics from a magazine distributor, though I bought mine from a comic shop. So I know there was a lag between the shops and the newsstand.
Edited by Mike Norris on 06 December 2009 at 4:18pm
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