shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,408
|
Post by shaxper on May 9, 2016 16:54:48 GMT -5
The ones I picked up in the 1980s were for sale at Toys R Us. You would usually get three comics, all featuring the same character or following the same basic theme, and you could easily see the top book, and could usually make out what the third book was, but the middle book was always the mystery. I obtained most of my Batman issues between the #380s and #430s through these packs. Some were second printings though, and some had Whitman on the indica, but not the cover. The traditional Whitman issues were weird because they were technically not reprints, but the publisher on the cover was Whitman as opposed to DC or whatever company. I came around too late for the Whitman packs, but I own a few Whitman back issues today, especially of Superman. An example:  Toys R Us, too?? That's like, five places named that sold these. Neat! I like the mystery, like a lot. I'm super curious, but I try to hold off on not looking and just buying. But, still. I would love to get some Batmans through this. I love Batman. Are the ones bewteen #380s and #430s good ones? That sounds weird. So, they just changed the publisher on the cover? Sorry, just confused. That Batman run is the tail end of one of my favorite runs in history, already on the decline by that point. I review the whole thing here if you're interested: classiccomics.boards.net/thread/64/batman-300-reviews-shaxperThe Whitman books looked exactly like the regular books only with Whitman in place of the regular publisher logo on the cover. You're understanding it perfectly  |
|
|
|
Post by hondobrode on May 9, 2016 20:41:05 GMT -5
Yeah, I bought some of those Whitman packs. I haven't seen anyone else fess up, but speaking for myself, I'd get gutsy and rip the bag open and occasionally mix and match with other bags to get the best 3.  BTW, good to see you back again Sabra Quinn Yip Yip. |
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on May 9, 2016 20:48:20 GMT -5
Cool thread!
If you have one around you, Five Below is also doing grab bags... but they're modern comics. I think they're also 4 for $5. I haven't picked any up because it's mostly stuff I have, but I love that they are there (especially since they seem to sell)
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,589 
|
Post by Confessor on May 10, 2016 6:53:15 GMT -5
The second two in this set of four was The New Defenders with Angel on the cover  and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man The Return of Cloak and Dagger EEK! <3 Two Cloaks and Daggers!  The New Defenders # 127 from January 1984 and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man: The Return of Cloak and Dagger from August 1982. Neat! Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #69 is one of my favourite comics of all-time. Just a great issue! Will you be reviewing these issues when you get round to reading them or is this just a thread for showing what treasures you've found in these grabs bags when you buy them? |
|
|
|
Post by String on May 10, 2016 15:51:54 GMT -5
Ooh...I need to go see if any have this...I don't know if they do. There's like..one comic shop within 30 miles of me. And then my local book stores (there's maybe 7 or 8 of those) will have boxes shipped to them full of comics, but they're all sold separately. I'm super jealous, I wanna go and get one of the value packs with the themes! I'd be ok with fodder. We've all got fodder floating around. I wanna be a good comic collector and have fodder, too! That's adorable, tbh! I'm just imagining you as a kid doing that! If you do mail order, the value packs are here: lonestar value packs..The one I might try is a Wounded Warriors value pack-all pre-1980 books in low grade, just to see what I get. -M Did-Not-Know-That. Cool, thanks. Lonestar has been a great source for books in the past for me so I'll check this out for sure. Neat idea for a thread, I can't remember the last time I saw or even bought a bagged set of books like this. Although true to my area, I checked my local Walmart for these items like you suggested and they didn't have any. We have a crappy Walmart anyway. May have to check a few other stores outside my local area. |
|
Wild Card
Full Member
I'm out of my mind; But trapped inside my head!
Posts: 390 
|
Post by Wild Card on May 10, 2016 18:18:55 GMT -5
Ooh! For reals?? I'm on this! Thank you for telling us! And, for the warning. |
|
Wild Card
Full Member
I'm out of my mind; But trapped inside my head!
Posts: 390
|
Post by Wild Card on May 10, 2016 18:22:04 GMT -5
If you do mail order, the value packs are here: lonestar value packs..The one I might try is a Wounded Warriors value pack-all pre-1980 books in low grade, just to see what I get. -M Did-Not-Know-That. Cool, thanks. Lonestar has been a great source for books in the past for me so I'll check this out for sure. Neat idea for a thread, I can't remember the last time I saw or even bought a bagged set of books like this. Although true to my area, I checked my local Walmart for these items like you suggested and they didn't have any. We have a crappy Walmart anyway. May have to check a few other stores outside my local area. I didn't either, now I'm glad I do! This is my first time, so I'm pretty excited. I want to keep it up. I mean, I can't go crazy, but maybe at least one every week or two. I'm sorry to hear that.  I've got five Walmarts within 20 miles of me, and 2 have them so far. But, two also don't. Just one more to check out. |
|
Wild Card
Full Member
I'm out of my mind; But trapped inside my head!
Posts: 390
|
Post by Wild Card on May 10, 2016 18:24:34 GMT -5
The second two in this set of four was The New Defenders with Angel on the cover and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man The Return of Cloak and Dagger EEK! <3 Two Cloaks and Daggers! The New Defenders # 127 from January 1984 and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man: The Return of Cloak and Dagger from August 1982. Neat! Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #69 is one of my favourite comics of all-time. Just a great issue! Will you be reviewing these issues when you get round to reading them or is this just a thread for showing what treasures you've found in these grabs bags when you buy them? Oh, I'l read that next. I'm working on a webcomic with a hero named White Fox I discovered and then I was gonna start in on the ones I got in the packs. I would love to review, maybe. Was thinking I could do that between packs, but I'd have to read more reviews here in order to figure out how I should. I'd like them to be good reviews, not just, "I liked/disliked it", you know? |
|
Wild Card
Full Member
I'm out of my mind; But trapped inside my head!
Posts: 390
|
Post by Wild Card on May 10, 2016 18:25:28 GMT -5
Cool thread! If you have one around you, Five Below is also doing grab bags... but they're modern comics. I think they're also 4 for $5. I haven't picked any up because it's mostly stuff I have, but I love that they are there (especially since they seem to sell) Thanks! I'll check and see if I've got one near! I'd be good with modern comics, too! |
|
Wild Card
Full Member
I'm out of my mind; But trapped inside my head!
Posts: 390
|
Post by Wild Card on May 10, 2016 18:27:28 GMT -5
Yeah, I bought some of those Whitman packs. I haven't seen anyone else fess up, but speaking for myself, I'd get gutsy and rip the bag open and occasionally mix and match with other bags to get the best 3. BTW, good to see you back again Sabra Quinn Yip Yip. I can totally picture this. I wouldn't dare, myself, but I can imagine it's gonna happen at my work. Just watch. lol Then, I'll come here and ask, "hondobrode? Have you been at my Walmart? And, if so, why didn't you at least stop and say hi???" lol And, thank you! It's good to be back!! |
|
Wild Card
Full Member
I'm out of my mind; But trapped inside my head!
Posts: 390
|
Post by Wild Card on May 10, 2016 18:29:15 GMT -5
Toys R Us, too?? That's like, five places named that sold these. Neat! I like the mystery, like a lot. I'm super curious, but I try to hold off on not looking and just buying. But, still. I would love to get some Batmans through this. I love Batman. Are the ones bewteen #380s and #430s good ones? That sounds weird. So, they just changed the publisher on the cover? Sorry, just confused. That Batman run is the tail end of one of my favorite runs in history, already on the decline by that point. I review the whole thing here if you're interested: classiccomics.boards.net/thread/64/batman-300-reviews-shaxperThe Whitman books looked exactly like the regular books only with Whitman in place of the regular publisher logo on the cover. You're understanding it perfectly What do mean by decline? I'm most definitely interested! Thank you for the link! Oh, sweet! I understood something! lol Why did they do that, though? |
|
Wild Card
Full Member
I'm out of my mind; But trapped inside my head!
Posts: 390
|
Post by Wild Card on May 10, 2016 18:31:53 GMT -5
Ooh...I need to go see if any have this...I don't know if they do. There's like..one comic shop within 30 miles of me. And then my local book stores (there's maybe 7 or 8 of those) will have boxes shipped to them full of comics, but they're all sold separately. I'm super jealous, I wanna go and get one of the value packs with the themes! I'd be ok with fodder. We've all got fodder floating around. I wanna be a good comic collector and have fodder, too! That's adorable, tbh! I'm just imagining you as a kid doing that! Half-Price Books does something similar too, at least at one location here. We stopped in on Free Comic Book Day and in addition to two back issues of the 2nd Flash series I'd been looking for, my wife talked me into buying a "cube" of comics for $7. They were sealed up in a clear plastic bag, and weighed several pounds. I could see the front and back comics, which were Alpha Flight and The Darkness in the cube I bought. After opening it later, I found that it was primarily big chunks of those two series, with about 4 random issues from other comics (Cable, Deathmate, etc) thrown in. Alpha Flight I already had the first 25 issues of, but The Darkness I had none of. It was a total of 61 comics, and only two of the Alpha Flights were repeats of what I already had. Don't know if I'll like all of them, but they're cheap to try. Hmm...Half-Price Books seems a familiar title. Let me look into this. That's a of comics for $7. Seriously. Have you read any of The Darkness? When you do, I'm curious, please! How's Alpha Flight? |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,408
|
Post by shaxper on May 10, 2016 20:23:35 GMT -5
Issues #307 thru #391 are one seamless continuity that was written to culminate with the end of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths (or so I've always theorized). After that, writer Doug Moench sort of tried to reboot the series on his own, and it didn't work out so well. Then, with issue #401, someone else tried to reboot the series, and yet it didn't really find it's footing again until probably the #420s (arguably later). I have no idea and, to be honest, have been hoping all this time that someone more knowledgeable about Whitman than I would chime in  |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on May 10, 2016 20:44:38 GMT -5
Issues #307 thru #391 are one seamless continuity that was written to culminate with the end of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths (or so I've always theorized). After that, writer Doug Moench sort of tried to reboot the series on his own, and it didn't work out so well. Then, with issue #401, someone else tried to reboot the series, and yet it didn't really find it's footing again until probably the #420s (arguably later). I have no idea and, to be honest, have been hoping all this time that someone more knowledgeable about Whitman than I would chime in Most of the comics going through the newsstand had the Curtis Comics logo on them because they were the distributor... see the CC under the price...  since Whitman not Curtis Comics were distributing these books, the CC logo couldn't be on it, so they had to alter the cover somehow (just as later when books started selling to the direct market the trade dress was different (not just the UPC vs. picture box but removing the CC logo, etc. because again, Curtis Comics did not handle the direct market distribution, just the newsstand. Since they were changing the cover anyways, because they had to, other changes were made as well. The cover price was mostly irrelevant because they were going in 3 pack polybags, but some were sold individually by their accounts, so Whitman kept that-however the cover date month, which told retailers when to take the book off the racks and return it for credit if unsold, was completely unnecessary so not included on the Whitman covers and that gave the books an indefinite shelf life (I'm not sure if the Whitman books were returnable or like the later direct market were non-returnable). The issue number as well, as Whitman didn't really do consecutive issues all the time and would license some issues and not others of a series, so didn't include the # on the cover most times (heck Dell and Gold Key often didn't have issue #s on the covers even when they were on the newsstands). They also wanted to advertise their brand so wanted the Whitman logo on the cover, not just the polybag to get kids who got the comics to look for that logo when they wanted more. Changing the printing plates could be expensive, so all the interior pages were exactly the same (including the indicia which had all the info left off the cover), so they limited it to changing 1 plate-the cover since they had to because of the Curtis Comics thing-and made all the necessary or desired changes there. -M |
|
shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,408
|
Post by shaxper on May 10, 2016 20:48:25 GMT -5
Issues #307 thru #391 are one seamless continuity that was written to culminate with the end of DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths (or so I've always theorized). After that, writer Doug Moench sort of tried to reboot the series on his own, and it didn't work out so well. Then, with issue #401, someone else tried to reboot the series, and yet it didn't really find it's footing again until probably the #420s (arguably later). I have no idea and, to be honest, have been hoping all this time that someone more knowledgeable about Whitman than I would chime in Most of the comics going through the newsstand had the Curtis Comics logo on them because they were the distributor... see the CC under the price... since Whitman not Curtis Comics were distributing these books, the CC logo couldn't be on it, so they had to alter the cover somehow (just as later when books started selling to the direct market the trade dress was different (not just the UPC vs. picture box but removing the CC logo, etc. because again, Curtis Comics did not handle the direct market distribution, just the newsstand. Since they were changing the cover anyways, because they had to, other changes were made as well. The cover price was mostly irrelevant because they were going in 3 pack polybags, but some were sold individually by their accounts, so Whitman kept that-however the cover date month, which told retailers when to take the book off the racks and return it for credit if unsold, was completely unnecessary so not included on the Whitman covers and that gave the books an indefinite shelf life (I'm not sure if the Whitman books were returnable or like the later direct market were non-returnable). The issue number as well, as Whitman didn't really do consecutive issues all the time and would license some issues and not others of a series, so didn't include the # on the cover most times (heck Dell and Gold Key often didn't have issue #s on the covers even when they were on the newsstands). They also wanted to advertise their brand so wanted the Whitman logo on the cover, not just the polybag to get kids who got the comics to look for that logo when they wanted more. Changing the printing plates could be expensive, so all the interior pages were exactly the same (including the indicia which had all the info left off the cover), so they limited it to changing 1 plate-the cover since they had to because of the Curtis Comics thing-and made all the necessary or desired changes there. -M I had no idea that "cc" stood for Curtis Comics. I didn't realize that, when Marvel bought Curtis in the early 1970s, they were buying the primary distributor of all Marvel and DC comics. What did DC do when this happened??? |
|
and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man The Return of Cloak and Dagger EEK! <3 Two Cloaks and Daggers!
I've got five Walmarts within 20 miles of me, and 2 have them so far. But, two also don't. Just one more to check out. 
