Got a letter from Johnny DC the other day. Tho retired, and living in Florida, he does check in here on occasion and he is upset that the Marvel books are getting all the attention regarding direct market/newstand cover variations.
So I am posting this image of two issues of Night Force 7 from 1983.
The "Where the Action Is" box cover has the UK and Canadian price box and three stars.
The box with a bar code just has the US price and "All New".
I'm just wondering if anyone has any info about these differences? Are these differences just to distinguish between DM and Newstand books? Seems odd that the Canadian and UK price box would not have a bar code too. Is it possible that "Where the Action Is" boxes were sold on Canadian newstands.
Do they even have newstands in Canada? Do they have bar code scanners in Canada?
Do the three stars mean anything?
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12-05-2006, 06:29 PM #1Member Senior
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DC Direct Market/Newstand Variations
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12-05-2006, 06:52 PM #2world of yesterday
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Where the Action Is issues were definitely sold in Canada since I have a few with it stamped on. And yeah we do have newstands o 'plenty... but cashiers are still using the abacus to ring in items... Kidding, we have the ubiquitous bar code and their requisite scanners.
Originally Posted by Red Oak Kid
Got a letter from Johnny DC the other day. Tho retired, and living in Florida, he does check in here on occasion and he is upset that the Marvel books are getting all the attention regarding direct market/newstand cover variations.
So I am posting this image of two issues of Night Force 7 from 1983.
The "Where the Action Is" box cover has the UK and Canadian price box and three stars.
The box with a bar code just has the US price and "All New".
I'm just wondering if anyone has any info about these differences? Are these differences just to distinguish between DM and Newstand books? Seems odd that the Canadian and UK price box would not have a bar code too. Is it possible that "Where the Action Is" boxes were sold on Canadian newstands.
Do they even have newstands in Canada? Do they have bar code scanners in Canada?
Do the three stars mean anything?
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12-05-2006, 07:53 PM #3Gotham Guardian
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Anything other than a barcode in a barcode space indicates a direct-only copy.
Jim Zimmerman
Co-moderator, CBR Batman Forum
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12-06-2006, 01:21 AM #4New Member
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Here in the UK, at that time, imported US comics didn't have bar codes on the covers. The comics were not sold in supermarkets, just in newsagents (news stands) which, being little one-man operations, didn't have scanners. The non-bar code copies were intended for US direct-only distribution, and for export.
Nowadays there is no general distribution of US comics in the UK: it's direct sales only to comic shops.
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