posted April 10, 2003 03:14 AM               

Whatever happened to the Statement of Ownership and Circulation chart that would appear once a year in certain monthly titles?

posted April 10, 2003 03:37 AM               

Yep, what is pretty amazing is to witness the "market" back then to "now" (I've just finished rereading my Daredevil "box"-just about complete from late 70s 'til the end of Kevin Smith's reintroduction)...

Sheesh, certain time 300,000+ monthly...250,000+... near the mid/late 90s, with a not-yet refined Scott McDaniel at the helm - oh, down to 30,000 or so!...
Surely I recognize the competition for the entertainment dollar during this 30 year span, yet it gets ya' scratchin' yer head when a (contemporary) title pats itself on the back for having sales of 30K...

oh, another piece of lost comic lore! I never dreamed I would one day miss that fine-printed little box!

posted April 10, 2003 04:29 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by NecessaryImpurity:
... My god, newstand distribution is inefficient! Is it any wonder comics abandoned them for the direct market? Yet newstand comics sold nundreds of thousands of copies, and direct sales just tens of thousands. An order of magnitude difference in just 20 years.

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posted April 10, 2003 09:43 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by James Friel:
My understanding was always that those statements were part of the requirement for having a Second Class Mailing Permit, used to mail subscription copies, and that once the companies dropped the permits because subscribers were so few, they ceased having to share that information with the public.

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This is true - I'm not sure what postage class they use now, but 2nd Class is the one that required the little charts. I miss them too but the numbers were so depressing.