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| Have Amazing Adventures #1, think I had #11 |
Here we go again with one of Big-hearted BARRY PEARL's guest blog posts, this time featuring photos from his very own collection of '70s MARVEL comics that were cancelled within a very short time if they didn't sell as well as expected. Let's hear from Barry...
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My favourite Marvel era was the 1960s. One of the reasons was that it was unique, in that only one superhero comic (The Incredible Hulk) was cancelled. Marvel did change series - The Human Torch in Strange Tales and Ant-Man in Tales to Astonish, but those characters carried on in other books.
Usually, rather than cancel a comic in the 1960s, Marvel worked on character development. Iron Man was radically changed, costume and all, in Tales of Suspense #48; Ant-Man became Giant-Man and Thor, when Jack Kirby returned to the series, was no longer Earthbound, fighting characters like Mr. Hyde and The Cobra, but was more in Asgard and other planets.
Having time this week to fix up my closets of comics, I noticed that Marvel had so many more cancellations and such in the 1970s. They had new owners, a new publisher, new distributors - and a new philosophy. Put a lot comics out there and if any titles don't sell, quickly cancel and replace. Even their magazine line, mostly, did not last long. Here are a few of their cancelled comics and series.
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| Have Astonishing Tales #1, had #25 |
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| Have Black Panther #1 & Black Goliath #1 |
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| Had Shanna The She-Devil #1, have The Cat #1 |
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| Have Creatures On The Loose #22 |
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| Have them in reprint editions |
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| Have Crazy #1 |
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| Have Machine Man #1 |
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| Have Eternals #1 |
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| Have both these issues |
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| Nah, don't have either of them |
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| Don't have any of these titles |
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| Don't have any of these ones either |
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| Again, only have reprints |
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| Had Marvel Spotlight #28 |
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| Don't think I have any of them |
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| Have The Monster Of Frankenstein #1 |
Well, whaddya make of that lot, pilgrims? Hasn't Barry done us proud in sharing these classic collectables from his vast collection. I have complete sets of some of the titles on display, the longest-lasting being, I think, The ETERNALS at 19 issues (and one Annual), followed by The MONSTER Of FRANKENSTEIN at 18. If there are any here that survived longer I'm certain Barry will let us know. (Just remembered - NOVA had 25 issues.) I'm sure you'd all like to show your appreciation to him for this post, and I'm also sure he'd very much appreciate your appreciation. No standing out on your doorstep and applauding though, 'cos he's too far away to hear you - just leave a comment.
12 comments:
Nice selection of comics, I had about 60% to 70% of these at the time but probably only have about 7 of them now in my collection. My longest runs were Eternals, Marvel Presents and Astonishing tales. Was interesting to read how Marvel worked on their characters on the 60s to make them a success but in the 70s that wasnt the case which I had forgotten about.
I've only got 12 of them myself, McS, but I wouldn't have seen every one of the mags Barry shows back in the day. Some of them may not have been so readily available in the UK as they were in the States. Whether '60s or '70s though, most characters usually ended turning up again somewhere.
I bought both the first issues of Marvel Chillers and Marvel Presents at a comic mart in the McLellan Galleries in about 1987/8 or so, they were dirt cheap since they weren't particularly in demand. I looked on eBay recently to see if I could get affordable replacements, since my copies and I parted company a long gone ago, and was shocked at how much some sellers were charging- I've no problem with anyone wanting to make a profit, but be realistic!
Unfortunately, DS, all it takes is for one seller to ask a high price and one buyer to pay it and some people think that's what the comic's worth. As you and I both know, it ain't necessarily so. How have you been keeping in the current situation?
Luckily my employers have been fantastic in allowing us to take paid leave Kid, so I have been at home for a while now- have been re-reading some old Green Lantern and Squadron Supreme comics and am planning a revisit of Jim Starlin's Warlock next.
Hope you and yours are all staying as well as possible too?
This is an issue I discussed with Roy Thomas and got a response I did not expect. But first, comic book fans often don’t address that comics publishing is a business first, it is about money, not about art. The business end is often forgotten.
But let me take a detour first. While I was in school I had a job as a stock boy in the local supermarket. We restocked the shelves as people bought products. EXCEPT the Campbell Soup guy, The Maxwell House Coffee Guy and the Coca-Cola guy, among others, stocked their own products. I asked the soup guy, “why so many different types of chicken soup, they all taste the same?” I asked the same of the coffee and soda guys, “why so many different forms of the same product?”
I got the same answer, “Shelf Space.” The wanted to have the most shelf space so their competitors would no room, or little room, to put up their products. This was a big deal.
In the 1950s, publisher Martin Goodman believed in that and had 50 to 60 titles out there. In the 1960s he was limited, but in 1968 Marvel was bought over by Perfect Film and Chemical who had their own distributer. As shelf space was now more limited they wanted the most comics on display as possible.
Roy Thomas, then editor, said his job was not to produce the best comics that fans would talk about in fifty years (his words) but comics that sold the most.
At DC they had several editors, one for each family of comics. (Superman, Batman, War etc) and they each supervised the publication of five or six comics a month. With the exception of Kanigher none of them wrote.
Marvel was now putting out 20-15 comics a month with ONE editor who also wrote several comics. Roy told me that there was no time to supervise all those comics. So they “supervised” the best selling ones. The ignored the worst selling ones and, to my surprise they also ignored the ones in the middle. Ifg you read the last “Su-Villain Team Up” they said they were discontinuing it, not for bad sales but because they had no staff members willing to take it on, they we so overloaded.
Many fans liked some of the cancelled comics, I know, but they were just throwing things out to see what stuck, quality was never an issue.
Yup, doing okay so far, DS, no major probs. I've now read all four of my TV Tornado Annuals, text stories included, as well as my 1976 Valiant Book Of Mystery & Magic. Had it for centuries (it seems) and never read it before. (Still to read the text stories, but finished the strips.) Dunno what I'll read next. Got a few model kits to paint, but don't want to expose myself to paint fumes at the moment.
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That's an amazing story, Barry, but I'm bound to wonder why they simply didn't employ more people to make the comics better. If the quality had been better, they might have sold more, and that could've gone towards paying the wages of more staff. That's an interesting point about the difference between art and business. People who tried to make comics an art usually failed, but those who tried to make comics successful from a business point of view often made them an art without realising it or intending to do so. Maybe there's a lesson there, eh?
Kid, a lot of that is true for both the TV and movie industry. It is what sells that counts. But, Perfect Film, and before them, Goodman, were just very cheap. They never saw that quality matters. For example, how could Marvel, under Perfect Film, lose Jack Kirby to DC in 1970? Kirby got $32,000 from DC, Marvel could have matched that but didn't try.
There was an interesting dichotomy at work back then, Barry, and here's how I see it. Marvel (as in Goodman's lawyers, not Stan) clearly didn't value Jack to the same extent that DC did. Marvel considered Stan to be the brains behind the success of their comics, where DC believed the rumours that Jack was responsible for everything good at Marvel. I believe that DC probably thought that Marvel would collapse without Jack, which is why Carmine Infantino lured him away. The fact that Marvel not only survived but thrived after Kirby's departure, while making no appreciable difference to DC's sales, shows that DC overvalued Jack's contribution.
The fact was, by that time other artists (like Buscema) had adopted Jack's storytelling principles and had begun to eclipse him. Although Jack changed as an artist in the '70s, he didn't improve, and though he still churned out ideas and stories by the bucketload, his clunky dialogue and lack of positive fan reaction to his DC work (compared to his Marvel stuff) proved that it was Stan's guidance, editing, dialogue and characterisation which made the difference. In other words, it's not necessarily the ideas and stories that are paramount, but the way in which they're told.
Marvel wouldn't pay Jack what he thought he was worth, and - sad to say - from a business point of view they were probably right not to.
Goodman was NOT the owner and did not participate in Kirby's contract at all. It was not Goodman's lawyers, but Perfect Film's accountants.
I'm pretty sure that it's lawyers, not accountants, that draw up contracts, Barry, but my point was that it wasn't Stan who didn't value Jack. Also, although Goodman had sold Marvel (or Magazine Management to be pedantic) to Perfect Film, didn't he stay on to run the place or act as a consultant for some time afterwards? I seem to remember reading such a thing a few years back. That's why Goodman was annoyed at the fact his son Chip wasn't made publisher, the job going to Stan in the early '70s. However, whether or not it was Goodman's or Perfect Film's lawyers who were involved, they'd have been reflecting Goodman's attitude towards Kirby, because he clearly hadn't impressed upon them that, from a co-creator, ideas-man, and visual storytelling standpoint, Jack was a useful man to have around.
Of course, anyone can draw up a contract I suppose, but with big companies (like Perfect Film) it's usually scrutinised by lawyers to make sure it's iron-clad and all legal.
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