There was also a lot of barter going on in those days ,sometimes comics sometimes something else.I do recall early UG. pioneers telling me about hearing a friend would be moving to S.F. or NY. and throwing a case of what ever was lying around the pad in the back of the proverbial VW bus and hoping some good would come of it. Times change!

No names, you understand, but in 1973 I witnessed one Underground publisher pay an artist royalties with a pound of weed. Did this type of barter factor into distribution as well?

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yes.

Our esteemed host mentioned...

but in 1973 I witnessed one Underground publisher pay an artist royalties with a pound of weed.

Well, that explains in part some of the fever-
dreamy plots that the undergrounds had back then!

Did this type of barter figure into distribution as well?

No names again, of course, and I don't know whether there was specifically barter involved, though I tend to believe so, but in 1974, while in a warehouse belonging to an unnamed distributor, said distributor gestured grandly toward a forest of the large boxes that 50-pocket wire spinners were shipped in and indicated that one among them contained a bale of recreational herbs. I never saw it myself.

It is the case that for years thereafter in that part of the world, the police believed that comic shops were fronts for drug dealing because no one could possibly make a living selling just funny books. I never knew or even had reason to suspect that they were right, but I've always thought that perhaps they knew about that bale, and generalized from it to all comics-related businesses.

No no no Jim not just there, but also in Berkeley.Before joining the retail workforce I used to hangout at the gamestore next to the original C&C site,several times we used to speculate on how much drug traffic was going on there, the police visits also spured us on.I mean come on there was no way a store selling 35 cent comics could survive,we didnt understand $35 back issues existed let alone $350.Years latter the police visits were explained,two reasons primarily; about half the officers felt as we had(spured on by the discovery of a set of "works" in the bathroom left by a customer and subsequently found by an officer ) the other half were collecting, some still shop with Comic Relief to this day ,twenty years latter.Not to mention the officer who was sure all the comics stores acted as fences oy vey.

Man, this is a great thread. Mitch (hope you're doing okay -- we haven't heard from you in a long while), Gary, Rory; this is like a reunion!

Jim, thanks for addressing the Carol Kalish issue a bit. More comments from others who were there?
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I still would like to understand a bit better what went down with Marvel's shoddy treatment of Walter Wang. As I mentioned before, this seems in hindsight the warning shot fired across the bow: "If memory serves, that was indeed Marvel's first overt, public flexing of muscle in distribution circles. Prior to that, there was their arrogant treatment of Don Thompson at CBG for Don's daring to criticize some of their product -- in effect, pulling the last teeth the CBG ever bared."
-- any opinions? If Larry Marder was correct when he referred to Marvel's exclusivity through Heroes World as the "Pearl Harbor" of the collapse, the Walter Wang debacle seems like it was a pretty important event in the scheme of things. Jim? Gary? Anybody??
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To comment on the going thread:

The undergrounds were what got ME back into comics, as a reader and aspiring creator. Bud Plant's catalogue was the magic carpet for me, growing up in the boonies of Vermont, but I was also able to pick up undergrounds at the Little Professor bookstore chain (!!!) for about a two year period.

That was the broadest, most "mainstream" dist. of comix I ever saw, and they seemed to sell very well in the local college town of Burlington. The head shops ("Emerald City of Oz" in Burlington, one whose name I can't recall in Montpelier, and a mecca of them in Albany and Boston) had the best racking, but for about two years (1970-72? '71-'73?) I bought most of my comix collection via bookstores like the Little Professor and the Vermont Book Shop in Waitesfield, VT.

Then the change in obscenity laws hit (Supreme Court's "community standards" ruling), and the headshops were shut down, and the Kitchen Sink catalogue dropped all it's head gear. Sigh.

Anyone know what the deal was with the Little Prof. book chain? Who was behind that deal? Did other book chains deal with comix, too?


[This message has been edited by Stephen R Bissette (edited 12-06-1999).]

Steve:

I can't say whether Larry is right, here. I don't think so, but to quote Bob Metcalfe, "While often right, I'm always sure."

When Rory (that wiseass) called me one December night in 1994 to ask how I felt about my distributor (Heroes World) being bought by Marvel, my reaction was quite a different from the prevailing interpretation.

While Rory (and everyone else I know) immediately jumped to the conclusion that this could only mean one thing, I was unconvinced. Rory insisted that Marvel would make Heroes World their exclusive distributor. I couldn't believe that Marvel management was that dumb. Why, I asked, would Marvel buy a profitable business in order to transform it into something entirely different.

Well, I was sure wrong there, but I claim a moral victory. Buying a full-line, local distributor in order to eliminate 80% of its sales, and then open 8 or 10 regional warehouses was incredibly dumb. All the arguments I heard for the wisdom of this move have proven to be equally dumb.

If all Marvel wanted to do was to sell 40 titles a month directly to stores, they didn't need a distribution arm to do it. In the age of virtual business, Marvel went for infrastructure. And an infrastructure that was inappropriate to the task.

Now, shortly thereafter, the geniuses who knew that Marvel would now put them out of business (because it had a direct sales relationship with stores) decided that it was as good a time as any to terra-form the comics business. That sure worked out, didn't it?

I have to say that given the choice of being smart enough to forsee Marvel's plan and so dumb as to think that such a plan was doomed to failure, I'll stand pat.

I just wish Paul & Bob & Larry & Todd & Jim & Rob & Jim & Marc & Mike & Neil were so dumb.

As to Comics Unlimited's situation, I'd say that it was more a case of Marvel's executive suite being on edge due to their Heroes World plan being on the drawing board and not having any more patience for Walter's obnoxious behavior. Other than that, it might have been a shot across Heroes World's bow to soften them up, but I'm sure that the die had already been cast regarding the other distributors.

The biggest bone in Marvel's throat was most likely the fact that, for four years in a row, they had been the largest sponsor of Diamond's Trade Show where the keynote speaker had attacked or ridiculed them every year. And, as was pointed out to me, Diamond had become a bigger company than Marvel.

And I heard rumblings from Marvel about their disgust with Capital's Sparta warehouse decision in 1993. To quote, "Here we are their largest trading partner, and they don't even consult us before they make plans like this!"

This was followed in short order by Marvel's (and DC's) decision to shift their printing away from Sparta.

And not to be a broken record, but Carol was gone. With Carol's death, Marvel seemed to become a more chaotic organization. The final straw was when Terry Stewart, then in the middle of the Heroes World rollout, was shifted upstairs in favor of Gerry Calabrese.

Calabrese had just distinguished himself with the Marvel Mart fiasco (which, incidentaly, was the thing that Walter Wang had popped off about that caused Marvel to drop CU.

Had Carol lived (and stayed at Marvel) I doubt that many of the stupid decisions we've seen from Park Avenue South would have been made. She raised the mean IQ of every room she entered by 20 points. Perhaps more if it was the Marvel Conference Room.

We live with the consequences of her loss every day.

Thanks, Jim. Excellent points throughout, and I really do wish to understand what happened over the past five-ten years, given where it's lead us all.

Re: "The final straw was when Terry Stewart, then in the middle of the Heroes World rollout, was shifted upstairs in favor of Gerry Calabrese."

From the editorial and creative side of things, Marvel losing Michael Hobson was a telling blow; Terry, after all, didn't distinguish himself with his handling of the Jim Lee fiasco and subsequent Image exodus and formation process. Stewart was quoted in the NY Times saying, essentially, "it's a revolving door; they'll by back, it doesn't matter," which showed how ignorant he was of the forces at work (Jim, Rob, etc. came back, sure, but long after the damage had been done; Todd maintains it was Terry's refusal to deal with things like plane tickets for Jim Lee's wife and such that led to Lee's final decision to walk and join with Todd and company).

Hobson, on the other hand, had extensive publishing experience outside of Marvel, and Jean-Marc Lofficier often bemoans the loss of Hobson, who was the glue that kept the Epic and Moebius deal in place. Hobson understood and honored contracts, and understood the importance of the talent to the company's success.

Calabrese, Calimari, etc. have left a shameful legacy and made a further shambles of everything, and De Falco and successors have made a joke of creative dealings, given the stories I've been told in the past couple of years. The Marvel of yore has long since been supplanted by a pack of idiots; keep your eye on the forthcoming verdict (and transcript, which may prove to be as vital a document as the Kefauver hearings transcript) on the Marv Wolfman case for more details.
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The transition between the UG collapse and rise of the Direct Market is a crucial bit of history and lore being clarified in bits and pieces on this thread. Robert Beerbohm has been the most vocal advocate of trying to record the specifics of that key juncture in the medium and industry's history; please, more insights!

I worked at Capital City's Bay Area warehouse for seven years until it closed in fall of '95, after everything went to hell (or Diamond, if those things are not to be taken as being synonomous).

During the last six months there, more times than I can remember, I said (or thought) "this wouldn't be happening if Carol were alive". That's a very sad kind of tribute, I guess, but there it is...
Here's a good Carol Kalish story: shortly after I took over as Eclipse Sales Manager in the summer of 1986, my first public appearance representing the company was at the Chicago Comicon. Carol and I knew each other from my days as a warehouse manager at Bud Plant, and were always friendly despite my sometimes ill-tempered outbursts against some Marvel policies and projects in the pages of the tipsheet I wrote advising customers on ordering.
After the show, I was going to rent a car and drive around the Great Lakes states showing the flag for Eclipse (and visiting my old home territory--my motivation really was more personal than business).
Carol invited me to go along with her the day after the Con to visit all the local branch distribution warehouses--she was going on behalf of Marvel, but she invited me, a competitor who was still floundering in my new role,to accompany her and be introduced to all the local managers.
That's the kind of class those of us who remember her are talking about.

On a different subject, much has been made of the possibility that the old underground distribution network somehow metamorphosed into the direct sales market. I think that to express it that way would be to seriously overstate the case.

Sure, Phil Seuling sold--wholesaled as well as retailed--undergrounds and fanzines. And he was indeed the granddaddy of the market.

But most of the companies that came afterwards--though not all, as illustrated most clearly by the case of Big Rapids and associated companies--were new concerns.
In the case of the Donahoe Bros., with which I'm most familiar, they came pretty much out of nowhere. Tim, the dominant brother in the crew (there were three active in the business and one who drifted in and out), had been a low-level employee of the local ID and a fan (and friend of local writer T.Casey Brennan). I have no idea how or when he got the idea for the business--the deal with Marvel was already done when he approached me to work for them in very late 1973, but they hadn't yet received any shipments.
The Schanes Bros. (Pacific) were young fans and store owners with ambitions to publish straight comics.
The Shusters (New Media)were long-time convention dealers of Golden-Age comics. I don't know if they had a shop.
Those were, I think, the four earliest--and the three sets of brothers all came along at roughly the same time, with the Donahoes having maybe a couple months on the others.

And the underground publishers, some of whom wholesaled one another's books as well as their own, never expanded into the wider comics market,--with the notable exceptions of Kitchen Sink, which broadened its publishing base while getting out of distribution entirely, and of Last Gasp, which became primarily a distributor of alternative/countercultural publications of all kinds, not just comics, while scaling down its publishing activities drastically.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, so I think I'll stop now.


I never thought I'd hear myself say (or even think) this, but we all ought to encourage Beerbohm. I liked his article in CBA, with a few niggling caveats. I think he overemphasizes the role of corruption and underemphasizes the role of ineptitude among the ID network, but otherwise, I think he nailed a lot of stuff dead on.



[This message has been edited by Jim Friel (edited 12-07-1999).]