Feinberg proposes bill to regulate comic books

It was reported today in 1949, that New York State Senator Benjamin F. Feinberg proposed a bill to regulate the sale and distribution of comic books.

Schenectady NY Gazette, January 14, 1949

This bill was passed by both the state House and Senate, but vetoed in April by NY Governor Thomas E. Dewey as "vague and indefinite".

Feinberg also sponsored the Feinberg Bill to purge communist teachers from NY public schools this year.

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Now in 2012, the United States House and Senate are attempting to censor the internet with two bills under consideration, SOPA & PIPA.  Though the goal of their efforts is to stop online piracy, these bills are seriously flawed.  They might even block web sites like this one from posting copyrighted material.

To find out more, read this Forbes article:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/01/12/if-facebook-wont-stop-sopa-we-can-do-it-for-them/

or video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIa_8vJ-dZk&feature=share

Help stop this legislation by protesting SOPA/PIPA this Wed. Jan 18 by censoring your own blog/web site and telling others. 

Visit http://americancensorship.org/ for more you can do.

Box Score Reprise 1: Lev Gleason

Mark Twain said there are 3 kinds of lies:  Lies, Damn Lies, & Statistics.  You can add marketing to that.

Crime Does Not Pay (December 1947) [Lev Gleason Publications Inc.]

Note that this cover says "6 Million Readers Monthly".  That may be a lie and it may not be as studies at the time found that kids did trade and pass around their comic books in the late 1940s.  But we can guesstimate how many kids had to read each copy.

During the last 6 months of 1947, Lev Gleason Publications Inc., was publishing just 4 titles, Boy, Crime Does Not Pay, Daredevil, and Horse Feathers.  According to the SM News Box Score I posted not long ago, Lev Gleason had 9 issues and a total circulation of 6.48 million with an average sale per issue of 720,000.  So its impossible that each issue of Crime Does Not Pay sold 6 million copies as it had six issues during that time.

The issues covered by that time frame may have been three issues of Boy (#35-37)  and six issues of Crime Does Not Pay (#53-58).  But three issue of Daredevil Comics (#43-45) were also out in the last half of 1947.  The indicia name in Daredevil is Daredevil Publishers Inc. even though it is at the same 114 East 32nd St. address as Lev Gleason.  So maybe it was treated separately by SM News even though it was all one company.

Also coming out in this time period was Horse Feathers #1 (Nov. 1947), which also does not seem to have been counted.  It could be that not all the titles or issues were submitted to The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).  Its odd that some titles omitted from the SM News numbers, but its possible at least Horse Feathers wasn't submitted to the ABC since it's second issue didn't come out until April 1948.  Maybe it was intended to be a one-shot.

In any event, if the 6 million number has any validity, every child that bought a copy shared it with more than other 8 children for each of those 9 issues that were published.  Or maybe shared it with more than 10 others, if it is just referring to Crime Does Not Pay.  But it obvious that the 6 million is not referring to actual sales.

This exercise does demonstrate some of the limitations of the SM News Box Score and the way publishers conducted business.  Too much extrapolation from a single set of data can sometimes be misleading.

Box Score 1949 prt 2

Here are the two interior pages from the S-M News Box Score that I started in a previous post.  It covers circulation for the last 6 months of 1948 & 1947.

A few things to point out on the Magazine Groups listing which is where most of the comics are listed.  Looking at 1948,  If you change the focus of the ranking to Avg Sale Per Issue for each company, it changes the list quite a bit.  Here's the companies ranking by Avg Sale Per Issue with their Total Sales Ranking after it in brackets:

- Lev Gleason Comic Group  [6]
- Archie Comic Group  [8]
- United Feature Comic Group  [11]
- National Comics Group  (DC)   [1]
- Harvey Comics Group  [7]
- Fawcett Comics Group  [3]
- Hillman Comic Group  [10]
- The Thrilling Comics Group   (Standard/Better)  [5]
- Quality Comic Group  [4]
- Marvel Comic Group  [2]
- American Comic Group  (ACG)  [9]
- Famous Funnies-New Heroic Comics  [13]
- The Premium Group of Comics  (Novelty)  [12]

Note that Marvel drops from #2 to #10.  Demonstrates quite clearly how Goodman liked to glut the market with product.

Another fact to point out is that if you took the Avg Sale Per Issue of the Lev Gleason Comics (703,178), and plugged it into the main list of publications, it would have been #26 on the list.  In fact, if you had done that for every one of the Comic Groups, they all would have fit in the top 100.  Since each of the Comic Groups consisted of 2 or more comic book titles, had you actually broken the comics down into titles, you can image how overwhelmed the top 100 would have been with comic book titles.  Once again, this is without Dell Comics and other publishers whose circulation numbers are not included.

Also note that 4-Most Comics (Premium) and True Comics (Parents Magazine) are already separated out as #52 and #74 on the 1948 ranking.

Now of course, comic books were only at $0.10 cover price where almost every other magazine was at least $0.15 or more.  That changes the comparison between them and mags a bit.

If you like these kinds of numbers and comparing sales, a great web site is John Jackson Miller's The Comics Chronicle (http://www.comichron.com).  There is massive amount of data and great discussion too.

Update: John Jackson Miller does an interesting comparison of these numbers and today's comic books at his Comics Chronicle here.

Box Score 1949 prt 1

Today's artifact is a 4 page trade publication for the newsstand magazine trade.  I don't know exactly when it came out, probably in the first quarter of 1949, but it provides circulation numbers for comic books and magazines that were on the newsstand from July-December 1947 & 1948. 

There is so much here to explain that I'm going to save the actual numbers until another post.  To be able to understand what the numbers mean, you need to understand how circulation figures were obtained.

The S-M News Company, who produced this Box Score, was a national wholesaler of magazines.  One of the few alternatives to the dominant wholesaler, The American News Company, which distributed the vast majority of periodicals to newsstands in the 1940s.  S-M was considered one of the Independent distributors.  They were owned by five magazine publishers as indicated on the back cover:

Comparable circulation numbers were collected by the industry trade group called the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC).  This organization accepted circulation data from publishers with supporting documentation to verify that the publishers were not just making the numbers up.  Not every publisher gave their data to the ABC, but if they took advertising for their magazines, this was the only way to have the newsstand and subscriptions sales checked.

Comic books at this time sold their advertising in blocks (Groups) of comic books, not by individual title or issue.  Since they were "all sold to kids" there wasn't a need to differentiate at this time.  Other types of magazines like fiction mags and men's mags also did this.

The comic book publisher groups reported in this issue of Box Score were:

- National Comics Group  (DC)
- Marvel Comic Group
- Fawcett Comics Group
- Quality Comic Group
- The Thrilling Comics Group   (Standard/Better)
- Lev Gleason Comic Group
- Harvey Comics Group
- Archie Comic Group
- American Comic Group  (ACG)
- Hillman Comic Group
- United Feature Comic Group
- The Premium Group of Comics  (Novelty)
- Famous Funnies-New Heroic Comics

This list is arranged in order of total circulation for the last half of 1948, with National at the top.  Names in parentheses are more common fan names of the companies.  These are the top 13 companies, but note the absence of one sure top company (Dell Comics) and others like David McKay, Fox, and Fiction House.  You can see this is not a complete list.

More details and numbers in later post.

Metafiction 101

One of my favorite extra bits that comic book creators put into their stories are the metafictions.  Metafiction has been defined as "a type of fiction which self-consciously addresses the devices of fiction".  In comics, this can be everything from a street sign with the artists name to a creator appearing in the story.  This used to be more rare in the past than it is today.  I especially appreciate the subtle ones that do not detract from the story or call attention to themselves.  If you do not know the reference, then it passes right by the reader like an inside joke.

Today's example isn't subtle, but it is old.  And it would have been on the newsstand today in 1941.

Blue Ribbon Comics v1 #9 (February 1941) [M.L.J. Magazines Inc.]

In the Corporal Collins Infantryman story in this issue, the lead character runs into an old friend of his, Sergeant Boyle, who just happens to have a comic strip in another MLJ comic book, Pep Comics.  Their side kicks, Slappsie and Twerp also appear.  As becomes typical in character crossovers, they get into a fight and then team up to defeat the Nazis.  When they meet:

The metafiction is of course: "You're even in the wrong comic strip", as Corporal Collins acknowledges they are in a comic strip.  Then in the last panel of the strip Collins talks directly to the reader, breaking the fourth wall.

MLJ didn't wait to hear if the readers wanted to see Collins and Boyle together again as they both appeared the same month in Pep Comics #12.  They shared the same strip in several later issues too, in Blue Ribbon, Pep, and Jackpot Comics.

Expect more of these in the future.

Will Eisner's The Spirit #32

Will Eisner's The Spirit #32 (December 1981) [Kitchen Sink Comix]

At your local comic shop today in 1981 you might have found this magazine on the shelf, if you had good retailer.  From information in side this issue, Kitchen Sink was selling about 16,500 copies of each issue.  About 500 were mail subscriptions.  There were about 700 comic shops and another 2,000 stores that carried a full line of comics in 1981 (Comic Scene #7). You wouldn't have found this magazine on too many newsstands.

If you have any interest in the craft and art of comics, you can never go wrong picking up an issue of this series.  This issue has four Spirit stories:

4 pages from Eisner's Essays On Comic Art (which would eventually become part of his books):

 12 pages from Eisner's New York: The Big City GN:

and Adolf Hitler.  What more could you ask for?

Batman #9

Batman #9 (Feb./Mar. 1942) Detective Comics Inc.

As you can tell by the date stamped on the cover of this issue, this issue was on the newsstands today in 1941.  Retailers did this so they could know how long a comic book or magazine had been on sale.  Usually they had more than one copy of the issue, so they would stamp the issue on the bottom of the pile.  That way it would be last issue sold.

Sometimes this date would just be hand written and sometimes it would indicate which wholesaler to which it would be returned. 

You can find different dates stamped on different copies of the same issue and they both could be correct.  It depends where the comics were sold.  A comic book in San Francisco could be on sale 2-3 weeks later than one on sale in New York.  It all would depend on where the distributor shipped the books to first.  It could easily take that long for freight to travel across the country.

This practice pretty much disappeared in the 1970s but you can still occasionally find it today in some old time, non-computerized stores.

I like them on my comics as it gives you a sense of history and actually gives you more information about the book.

RIP Jerry Robinson, Batman #26

Let us honor Jerry Robinson on the day of his passing with a comic book which would have been on the stands today in 1944.  Cover and 4 page story of art by Mr. Robinson.  Script by Jack Schiff.

Batman #26 (Dec. 1955-Jan. 1945) [Detective Comics Inc.]

Mawster Bruce.  Mawster Dick.  Mawster Jerry Robinson indeed.

Association of Comic Magazine Publishers (ACMP)

The Association of Comics Magazine Publishers (ACMP) was the first attempt in the US to self-police the comic book industry.  Yesterday in 1948, they outlined 7 more objectives to help clean up comic books.  These were in addition to the Code adopted earlier in July of 1948.

Note that President Keenan only claimed to represent 40% of the comics industry.  The publishers that agreed to follow the code were:

• Ace Magazines
• Avon Periodicals, Inc.
• Consolidated Magazines, Inc.
• EC Comics (1948)
• Famous Funnies, Inc.
• The Golden Willow Press.
• Hillman Periodicals, Inc.
• Lev Gleason Publications, Inc.
• McCombs Publications, Inc.
• Orbit Publications, Inc.
• Parents' Institute, Inc.
• Premium Service Co.
• Superior Comics
• Timely/Atlas Comics

That leaves 20 publishers who did not agree to the code.  Note the absence of Dell Comics, the largest comics publisher.   Here is the announcement of the code from July 2:

Looking back, it is obvious why this effort failed.  Not enough support from the publishers and onerous ideas as they were aiming to eliminate fanciful stories.  No superheroes or science fiction.  The ACMP seems to have lasted until at least 1954 as they had testimony at the 1954 Senate Interim Report on Comic Books and Juvenile Delinquency.   At that time, they had only 3 publishers.

Centaur Publications Demise

Wham Comics #2 (December 1940) [Centaur Publications]

This final day in November of 1940 was probably one of the last days that you could have purchased a Centaur Publications comic book on the newsstands.  Their remaining four comic titles all have December cover dates.  Comic books were actually on sale a month or two before the cover date, so sometime during December, the newsdealer would have removed their comics to make room for more. 

Maybe he would have made room for Amazing Man Comics #19, which was published by Comic Corporation of America.  But if you had bought that issue, you would have given your money to essentially the same company.  It seems, according to the Statement of Ownership published in their comics, that both companies were owned by some of the same people, Raymond J. Kelly, Joseph J. Hardie,  and E. L. Angel.  

Centaur had published 133 different comics in 19 different titles from 1938 to 1940.  But, Centaur filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 20 owing their printer (World Color) and others thousands of dollars [New York Times, Oct. 21, 1940].  So, did the owners just change their company name and keep publishing comics?

Detective Eye (December 1940) [Centaur Publications]

Centaur Publications, Comic Corporation of America, Ultem Publications, Comics Magazine Company, Kable Distribution, and others are all linked together in a convoluted way.  All at the the beginning of comic periodical history.  

To get a better understanding for these connections, I built a mindmap for Centaur Publications.  Its not complete, but its a start.  The map is large, but moves around easily by clicking and dragging.

http://www.mindmeister.com/123768009

There are a lot of myths and misconceptions surrounding these companies and what went on.  If you are interested in the nitty gritty details of their interconnections or know something about the business, then the newly formed Google Group "comics-pub" is for you.  The Centaur mindmap is a result of our first discussion.  We are not limiting our topics to just Golden Age comics, as we discuss the entire history of the business including printing, distribution, circulation and more.