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Sales figures and dirty tricks in the comics industry 15 February 2017 [After J David Spurlock mentioned Tower comics] Chris Tolworthy: Why do you think Marvel sold better than Tower or Charlton? (I'm assuming it did, haven't checked.) Because they had Kirby to give the distinctive look and direction? That's how it looks to me, a casual reader. Or because of better distribution? I know distribution is a HUGE deal in the history of comics. Or some other reason? Patrick Ford: Chris, Marvel likely sold better than Tower and it's documented Marvel sold better than Charlton. However, Marvel was not really a huge sales success. It's sales were middling. J David Spurlock: Marvel had better distribution but one Tower sale made MORE money that 2 Marvel sales. At least 2.5 x a Marvel sale as printing cost is lower on a double-size book than on 2 regular books (due to less binary work and 1 less cover). Tower was forced out due to blackmail/sabotage Patrick Ford: I don't think Tower ever published any sales figures. Chris Tolworthy: >Tower was forced out due to blackmail/sabotage That's the impression I get throughout the history of comics. And to be fair, in computing and in politics and religion and probably all forms of business. So I am almost embarrassed to have asked the question of sales, but I don't think the point can be made often enough. History is written by the winners, and cheating is always easier than playing fair. Patrick Ford: If Marvel was a huge sales success then why did Goodman sell the company in 1968? And sales figures suggest Goodman correctly called the "top of the market" because sales of Marvel titles (and comic books in general) declined after 1968. And continued to decline to a point where by 1976 the corporate parent was on the verge of giving up on comic book publishing. Patrick Ford: Although Goodman stayed on a publisher (he was employed by the new owner) Goodman was quoted in the NYT (1972) Saul Braun article complaining about comic book sales and he has a bleak view of the future. No one could have predicted that almost 20 years after Marvel went bankrupt the Intellectual Property would become worth millions. The Marvel characters could very easily have become basically worthless. Many once well known characters have been lost in the "mists of time." Chris Tolworthy: I've read a lot of other quotes about the early seventies. As you say, it flatly contradicts Stan's message that Marvel was doing well. I'll post some quotes here, though I'm sure you've seen them and others before. Chris Tolworthy: "Comics had always been a cyclical business, and almost everybody in 1971 thought that super heroes must inevitably be on their way out again. That's why there was such a gold rush on to find the next big genre--sword-and-sorcery looked like it might be a contender, and there were a lot of new mystery (watered-down horror comics without much horror), war and western comics being churned out in this period. But the classic Marvel, Stan's Marvel, was still seen as something of a fad (even by Stan himself), and the common wisdom was that everybody was going to be doing something else very soon (img/possibly in another field entirely.)" - Tom Brevoort, on his old formspring account Chris Tolworthy: "Newsstand sales were dropping precipitously in the early 1970's in the face of alternative forms of entertainment (especially television), and fewer and fewer retail outlets were even bothering to install a spin rack. [the industry seemed to be] on the edge of disappearing forever" - Chuck Rozanski, in Tales from the Database Chris Tolworthy: And the late 1970s don't seem to have been much better: "The late-1970's nearly saw the demise of comics publishing. The precipitous drops in newsstand sales that I mentioned earlier in this series more than offset the ability of Seagate Distributing to grow comics sales by shipping comics directly to comics shops. While the Direct Market comics shops did manage to transfer a great number of fans to themselves that otherwise had been purchasing through newsstand outlets, the harsh reality was that newsstand sales were dropping far faster than the Direct Market was growing. ... DC Comics, without warning, suddenly slashed over 30% of their entire line in a single day (the infamous DC Implosion [of 1978]...). [Regarding Marvel there was a] marked predisposition on the part of Mr. Feinberg to simply shut the whole thing down." - Rozanski again. Chris Tolworthy: So I wonder if there is any truth in the speculation that it was only Marvel's dirty tricks (like getting to DC to increase its page rate so losing market share) and blind luck (like Roy Thomas persuading Lee to take on Star Wars) that kept Marvel from disappearing forever? Chris Tolworthy: I was going to give more well known examples of dirty tricks (that is, sales tricks not derived from the desirability of the product) from the 1980s. But this is getting off topic, with the focus on this thread being the 1960s. Sorry. Mark Mayerson: Goodman had a very poor understanding of intellectual property and marketing. He was really stuck in the 1930s publishing world. He basically gave away rights to Captain America for the 1940s serial. He never cracked TV except for the horrible '60s Marvel cartoons. He never developed merchandising except for cheap clubs. After Goodman, Stan headed west. He understood the potential, but he didn't have the pull to get anything going. He should have hired an agent who had connections and who could have pushed the properties more effectively. He should also have hired an agent to sell the characters as a toy line. Goodman was a small timer. Lee was a small timer who was in over his head. Kirby said that Goodman sold the company for less than Ant-Man was worth, and he was right. Chris Tolworthy: Mark Mayerson It would be fun to compare the exact values: how much Marvel was sold for, and the worth of the Ant Man brand in light of the successful movie. Could make a good meme. J David Spurlock: Marvel bankruptcy was primarily due to mismanagement by Ronald Perelman. http://variety.com/1996/scene/vpage/perelman-takes-marvel-to-bankruptcy-court-1117436186/ Patrick Ford: Mark Mayerson mentions that he thinks Goodman didn't have a good grasp of the value of intellectual property. And according to Mark Evanier, Kirby said that Goodman sold Marvel to Martin Ackerman for less than the value of Ant-Man. In this instance I am not convinced Kirby was correct (although in retrospect he was). In my opinion Goodman was attuned to intellectual property. As evidence there is the legal challenge Joe Simon mounted in 1966. Goodman also was responsible for finding out the trademarks for Daredevil and Captain Marvel had lapsed through disuse. And the fact that two of the brightest star characters of the Golden Age had been allowed by their publisher to fall out of trademark protection probably contributed to Goodman thinking that for every Superman there are a thousand Black Owls. Patrick Ford: Goodman attempted to exploit the Marvel characters in the '60s. It was all nickle and dime stuff. A lot of effort was made without any big success. Goodman probably reasoned the super hero was going the way of Tom Mix. Mark Mayerson: Patrick, I think that Goodman only understood intellectual property with regard to publishing, which is why I said he was stuck in the 1930s pulp mindset. The real value of intellectual property is leasing it out for others to use. Merchandising. Goodman not only had the comics, but entire lines of pulps and men's magazines. He owned works by Mario Puzo, Mickey Spillane Bruce Jay Friedman and Patricia Highsmith. All of them had name value after leaving Goodman, yet he never capitalized on their work in other media. A good agent could have sold movies or TV series based on their Goodman-owned work. DC had been merchandising Superman since the 1940s. What did Goodman do with Captain America, the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch during that period? Goodman held onto copyrights to protect his publishing, but he had tunnel vision as to the worth of the copyrights. Patrick Ford: Goodman didn't own Puzo's writing. It was copyrighted by Puzo. The same is true of all the other writers who sold material to the men's magazines. Mark Mayerson: Really? I find that very hard to believe. Can somebody post a copyright statement verifying this? In any case, Goodman had Spillane and Highsmith material written for the comics, so he owned that for sure. Patrick Ford: Goodman had a double standard for the comics and the men's magazines. He even returned the illustration art for the men's magazines. J David Spurlock: what is your source re magazine art returns? Patrick Ford: Mort Kunstler. J David Spurlock: So Mort said he got his art back. Did he ask for it or was it policy? Where when did Mort say this? Patrick Ford: Anyone who wanted the art got it back. Kunstler has commented on his FB page. Patrick Ford: When Bob Deis reprints stories from the Goodman magazines he has to work with the authors or their estates. J David Spurlock: That it my point, that art was provided as a bailment. Artists needed to reclaim it. Even with the comics, if the fought for it, they got it (Kurtzman, Simon, Steranko, Morrow...). It just took the comics artists a while to figure out there was a market value and they needed the physical work back. Patrick Ford: According to Kirby during the '60s he repeatedly demanded that Marvel return his art. The artists for the magazines didn't have to fight for it. It was theirs for the taking. It was very relaxed. Some didn't want the art. Unfortunately James Bama was one who didn't really want his own art. It isn't unusual that Goodman allowed the writers to copyright their work. That was normal in pulp magazines and every other type of magazine aside from comic books. The exceptions in pulps are things like Doc Savage and the Shadow where the company (Street & Smith) owned the characters. Authors like Robert E. Howard, ERB, Burroughs, etc. they all owned their work. Patrick Ford: There is strong evidence that Kirby is being truthful when he said he frequently demanded his art be returned during the '60s. One compelling bit of evidence is the fact that Roz Kirby began withholding penciled pages she felt were "too good" for Marvel, or worth more as original art than the page rate. Bob Deis: Patrick - Here's what I can add to the discussion of rights. For my books and my MensPulpMags.com blog, I've talked with quite a few writers, editors and artists who did work for the Goodman men's adventure magazines. The writers have told me they only sold first publication rights to those mags, not all rights or permanent rights. They could then resell the story to another magazine, or to a paperback anthology publisher. They were also entitled to a second payment if the story was reprinted in another magazine owned by Goodman -- though that was not common and they didn't have any easy way to track reprints. The rights for artists that sold illustration art to the Goodman men's adventure magazines were the same. They sold first rights only. Theoretically, they were supposed to be paid another fee if the image was reused for some other story. However, based on discussions I've had with artists who worked for the men's adventure mags, they didn't try very hard to track whether their images were reused and had to depend on the art directors to be honest and voluntarily pay them, which happened sometimes, but not all of the time. The paintings were definitely not owned by Goodman. There were some artists who didn't care about getting their paintings back and just left them at the Magazine Management offices. But most of the better artists were pretty diligent about getting their original artwork back. Mort Kunstler, who I've interviewed, was VERY diligent about getting his artwork back. He also went a step further than most other artists by putting a copyright notice on the back of his men's adventure mag paintings. I have never heard a writer or artist who worked for the Goodman men's adventure magazines say that Goodman bought or owned all rights to their work. I would also add that the writers, editors and artists I've talked to who worked for the men's adventure magazines all seemed to feel they were generally well treated by Goodman and respected him. Writers and editors for the Magazine Management magazines have told me Goodman was basically a delegator. He let his magazine editors make most decisions. I suspect that was true of Timely and Marvel comics as well. The hostility and horror stories I've read about mostly seem to relate to things that were probably done or decided by Stan Lee. http://menspulpmags.com/ Patrick Ford: Thanks Bob. One of the primary issues I have with Stan Lee has to do with Lee taking the whole writers page rate for stories written by Kirby and others. I feel confident Goodman had nothing to do with that. Patrick Ford: Mark, J David, Take note of Bob's comment. J David Spurlock: I don't think Goodman knew. I think if Kirby Ditko & Wood had collectively demanded a meeting with Goodman specifically about writing credit/pay, they would have gotten it and Stanley would have been disciplined. Mark Mayerson: Patrick Ford Noted. This makes Stan an even bigger villain, as he wasn't consistent with the magazine policy of first publication rights only for artwork. Patrick Ford There is a Marvel Bulletin from around 1966 where Stan Lee (or someone in the office) excitedly says that the Marvel characters are heading for the "Silver Screen." Of course that never happened in the '60s. Patrick Ford: There's a lot of good information about Goodman from David George in ALTER EGO #66. In there George mentions that he once was working late at Magazine Management and Goodman invited him to have a few drinks in his private office. According to George (who seems to have great deal of respect for Goodman) he and Goodman were drinking Wild Turkey from Goodman's bar and at some point Goodman began telling George that he was in group therapy and that he had taken a bottle of Wild Turkey to his most recent session.

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