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Post by Calidore on Jul 7, 2023 20:48:44 GMT -5
Humble Bundle now has a big ol' Red Sonja bundle that includes what looks like most to all of Roy Thomas' Marvel stories and the bulk of Dynamite's offerings, including their volumes 1, 2, 4 and 5 (all complete) and a bunch of minis and one-shots. I know what to expect from Roy's stuff, but are the Dynamite series worth it?
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Post by foxley on Jul 7, 2023 21:50:24 GMT -5
Humble Bundle now has a big ol' Red Sonja bundle that includes what looks like most to all of Roy Thomas' Marvel stories and the bulk of Dynamite's offerings, including their volumes 1, 2, 4 and 5 (all complete) and a bunch of minis and one-shots. I know what to expect from Roy's stuff, but are the Dynamite series worth it? Personal opinion: yes. I certainly enjoyed them. Good solid sword & sorcery.
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Post by Calidore on Jul 8, 2023 9:45:30 GMT -5
Humble Bundle now has a big ol' Red Sonja bundle that includes what looks like most to all of Roy Thomas' Marvel stories and the bulk of Dynamite's offerings, including their volumes 1, 2, 4 and 5 (all complete) and a bunch of minis and one-shots. I know what to expect from Roy's stuff, but are the Dynamite series worth it? Personal opinion: yes. I certainly enjoyed them. Good solid sword & sorcery. That is all I would ask for. Thanks!
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Post by MDG on Jul 11, 2023 9:08:52 GMT -5
Friday afternoon, I helped a couple friends selling at a comic show that was open noon-7 on Friday and, I think, 12-4 on Saturday. (Guests were Joe Rubinstein and Don McGregor.) No Sunday.
I've seen shows where they'll have a "preview night" for "power buyers" who want to get to the dealer's room early, but this is moving the first day to a work day. Anybody else seeing this trend?
I heard two guys there talking about how great it was, but the crowd was pretty thin, and I'd bet that >50% (maybe>66%) of the $$ exchanged was dealer-to-dealer. (Also hate to say it, but the first show in a long time when I think the average attendee age went down when I walked in.)
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 11, 2023 17:25:30 GMT -5
During last Sundays Zoom meeting we talked about Charlton comics and that they had their own printing press. I started to think - what if DC and Marvel had their own printing and coloring department in house? I'm certain that it would have been more cost effective for the companies. Extreme studios had their own coloring department and it revolutionized coloring for everyone. Marvel even was rumored to have bought out Malibu comics for that process.
Thought ?
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 11, 2023 17:49:23 GMT -5
Charlton had a printing press for all their output; comics were just a sideline. Neither Marvel or DC had the volume to keep a press running fulltime.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 11, 2023 18:19:56 GMT -5
Harry Donenfeld started out as a printer before venturing first into pulps then comics. It was by using Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's overdue printing bill as leverage that he and Jack Liebowitz gained control of DC in the first place. Although the details are unclear, Donenfeld had closed the printing operation by 1940, probably thanks to a certain cape-and-tights wearing money machine.
Cei-U! I summon the historical footnote!
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Post by berkley on Jul 11, 2023 19:38:53 GMT -5
Reading the discussion about the Shooter/Byrne dispute, the whole thing seems pretty funny to me, as I see them as similar kinds of person. I have no opinion on the subject - don't have a good impression of either guy and wasn't reading Marvel at the time anyway - but can anyone imagine how Byrne might have behaved as an editor in chief? I have a feeling he might have made me think maybe Shooter wasn't so bad after all!
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Post by Chris on Jul 11, 2023 19:45:52 GMT -5
During last Sundays Zoom meeting we talked about Charlton comics and that they had their own printing press. I started to think - what if DC and Marvel had their own printing and coloring department in house? I'm certain that it would have been more cost effective for the companies. Extreme studios had their own coloring department and it revolutionized coloring for everyone. Marvel even was rumored to have bought out Malibu comics for that process. Thought ? Let's ask Dick Giordano! From his "Meanwhile..." column from December 1983 (big image but necessary to make the text clear) As for Marvel buying Malibu, founder Tom Mason says "Marvel bought Malibu out of fear." He also says - Marvel didn't buy Malibu for its coloring department. After Marvel bought the company, they tried to dismantle the coloring department immediately by bringing in a group of consultants to crunch numbers to prove it was too expensive to maintain. Marvel had a long-term agreement with a coloring house in Ireland and preferred to send books out of house instead of using inhouse technology. Also, the head of Marvel's manufacturing department at that time was from the old school and had no idea how computers worked.
It was only after the place in Ireland was overloaded and a couple of Marvel editors were trying to get late books back on schedule that they reluctantly shipped books to Malibu for coloring. When that worked out well, word got around and other editors started pulling books from Ireland and requesting Malibu's coloring.The mythology of the Marvel's coloring desires and the goal of a west coast presence were created by Malibu as a way of slowing down rumors that Marvel would just cancel the UV titles as soon as the deal closed. The real reason that Marvel bought Malibu was to keep the company out of the hands of DC which had been negotiating to buy the company since April/May of 1994.(Emphasis mine) More details here.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 11, 2023 20:53:55 GMT -5
Yeah I covered the Marvel & Malibu situation in my other guys thread, as well as Charlton. Western/Dell/Gold Key also owned their own presses. The thing was, Charlton made their money from their song magazines, which printed lyrics of pop songs. They published other magazines, which also out-performed the comics. They printed cereal boxes and other products to keep the presses going. Starting and stopping the presses cost a lot of money and it is easier to keep them running, with continual jobs, aside from basic maintenance. In Western's case, they started out as printing and lithographer (the official name was Western Printing & Lithography). They printed the Little Golden Books and other books for a client who couldn't pay. They ended up with possession of the titles and sold them themselves, to make back the money they lost. They started printing and selling the Little Golden Books, themselves and expanded the line. They also produced other Golden Books titles. Using the Whitman brand name, they were one of the biggest printers and distributors of board games, coloring books and buzzle books in the country. They produced licensed product for popular entertainment. They got into comics to keep the presses going and offer other licensed products to their clients, like Disney, Warner Brothers, Walter Lantz Studios, etc. They partnered with Dell, to handle financing and distribution, but Western hired the writers and artists and did all of the production. In the 1960s, they broke with Dell and took all of their licenses with them and started Gold Key. Dell then started producing their own comics, with new licenses. Dell limped along for another decade, before calling it quits in the comic book field. Their bread and butter, though, was puzzle magazines and paperback books.
Western and Charlton both distributed their own books, instead of using newsstand distributors. For years, DC had the advantage of owning their own distribution company. Timely/Atlas' distributor went out of business, leading to Martin Goodman having to turn to Independent News, owned by Donenfeld & Liebowitz, who owned DC. That is why they were limited to 8 titles per month, to keep them from glutting the stands with knockoffs, as had been their standard MO. It was only when Goodman found new distribution, in the mid-60s, that the gloves came off.
Western and Charlton had their own avenues for selling their comics, beyond just newsstands, as Western sold to toy stores and department stores, treating comics the same as coloring books or jigsaw puzzles. With their contacts and customers, they could have dominated the comic book market, if they had chosen to pursue that idea. However, to them, it was just a sideline. Same at Charlton. They did their own distribution, which is why they were spotty, in certain areas of the country.
In the long term, Charlton and Western's high overhead did them in, in the comic book world. In Charlton's case, they did not upgrade their presses and they became more and more costly to maintain and they had fewer and fewer clients, because their quality was low. They finally shut things down by the early-mid 80s. Western abandoned newsstand distribution, in favor of selling to stores, via the Whitman distribution, using that brand name; but, clients would buy so many units, in total, then not buy again for another quarter or 6 months, or longer. Demand would fluctuate heavily. meanwhile, the company changed hands and so did focus, with Golden Books eventually going bankrupt, by the 90s. Western shut down around the same timeframe as Charlton. DC and Marvel are still going. Marvel tried bringing most of their production and distribution in-house and it killed their cash flow and pushed them into bankruptcy. Even a giant like Disney finds it more cost effective to license t than produce in-house. They tried taking their comic license back from Gladstone and made a complete mess of trying to be comic book publishers and went back to Gladstone with hat in hand. The purchase of Marvel had nothing to do with comics and everything to do with gaining intellectual property that appeals to young males, between ages 7 and 14, based on the rating for the X-Men cartoons on the Disney Channel. Same for their purchase of Star Wars.
DC had the most control over their books, from creation to newsstand; but, their advantages didn't stop Western/Dell from surpassing them, in the post-War era and didn't stop Marvel from catching and leaving them behind, when they got better distribution.
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Post by badwolf on Jul 12, 2023 7:47:12 GMT -5
Reading the discussion about the Shooter/Byrne dispute, the whole thing seems pretty funny to me, as I see them as similar kinds of person. I have no opinion on the subject - don't have a good impression of either guy and wasn't reading Marvel at the time anyway - but can anyone imagine how Byrne might have behaved as an editor in chief? I have a feeling he might have made me think maybe Shooter wasn't so bad after all! Well, Secret Wars would have been better.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 12, 2023 8:50:45 GMT -5
Great summary cody.
Any one else reading Chaykin's Hey Kids, Comics! ? And if notm you should. A wonderful Roman a Clef of comics history with cast of all our favorite scoundrels. The "fictional" characters are based on a single person, or a combination of a few. But the stories are all based on the stuff that happened and how badly so many were treated. As Kirby said "Comics will break you heart,"
A quick question, in the latest issue he has Jim Shooter stand in Chuck Stilwell see a panel that says "Fuck Chuck" in the background. He then fires the artist. This sounds familiar, but I can't remember who was involved IRL. Was it Byrne?
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 12, 2023 10:26:15 GMT -5
Great summary cody. Any one else reading Chaykin's Hey Kids, Comics! ? And if notm you should. A wonderful Roman a Clef of comics history with cast of all our favorite scoundrels. The "fictional" characters are based on a single person, or a combination of a few. But the stories are all based on the stuff that happened and how badly so many were treated. As Kirby said "Comics will break you heart," A quick question, in the latest issue he has Jim Shooter stand in Chuck Stilwell see a panel that says "Fuck Chuck" in the background. He then fires the artist. This sounds familiar, but I can't remember who was involved IRL. Was it Byrne? It happened after Shooter's departure, but... as I recall, Al Milgrom was fired for hiding a message in a comic he drew. On the spines of books in a bookshelf, in the background of an image, titles read "Harras, ha ha, he's gone! Good riddance to bad rubbish, he was a nasty S.O.B". That was after editor Bob Harras had himself been fired. That might be what Chaykin is referring to, despite the chronology not being right.
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Post by Ozymandias on Jul 12, 2023 10:36:50 GMT -5
(Guests were Joe Rubinstein and Don McGregor.) One of my favorite inkers from the 80's, nice.
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Post by kirby101 on Jul 12, 2023 12:23:10 GMT -5
Great summary cody. Any one else reading Chaykin's Hey Kids, Comics! ? And if notm you should. A wonderful Roman a Clef of comics history with cast of all our favorite scoundrels. The "fictional" characters are based on a single person, or a combination of a few. But the stories are all based on the stuff that happened and how badly so many were treated. As Kirby said "Comics will break you heart," A quick question, in the latest issue he has Jim Shooter stand in Chuck Stilwell see a panel that says "Fuck Chuck" in the background. He then fires the artist. This sounds familiar, but I can't remember who was involved IRL. Was it Byrne? It happened after Shooter's departure, but... as I recall, Al Milgrom was fired for hiding a message in a comic he drew. On the spines of books in a bookshelf, in the background of an image, titles read "Harras, ha ha, he's gone! Good riddance to bad rubbish, he was a nasty S.O.B". That was after editor Bob Harras had himself been fired. That might be what Chaykin is referring to, despite the chronology not being right. Perhaps, this isn't a straight historical telling, but a picture of the industry.
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