More on More about prices

Gary Leach bangfish at cableone.net
Mon Jun 14 21:15:52 CEST 2004


Steven:

> >Dell was in serious financial straits by the late 1950s
>
> what's your source for this?  Not saying that you're wrong, but it 
> goes against conventional wisdom.  My understanding is that Dell was 
> still the number one selling comic publisher in the late 1950s 
> (source: interview with Irwin Donenfeld, publisher of DC comics), and 
> one of the leading publishers of magazines and paperbacks in the late 
> 1950s.  (source was advance look at summary of an article in an 
> upcoming or recently out Alter-Ego quoting various newsources from the 
> late 50s, when Dell broke away from distributor ANC to do their own 
> inhouse distribution, thus leading to the collapse of ANC as a 
> distributor.

Dell was not the number one comic book publisher in the late 1950s 
because Dell did not publish comics - they distributed them. KK 
Publications was the publisher of the titles in question, Western, a 
division of KK, was the printer, and Dell was the contracted 
distributor.

This confusion has persisted because the Dell imprint is right there, 
bold and beautiful, on the KK Publications comics of that era (and 
earlier). This is not unusual, as distributors - the mass market 
variety - usually have their logos, in some form, on the covers of the 
periodicals they distribute. However, publishers usually are very keen 
to have their identity represented on the covers as well. Exactly why 
KK gave that a pass is not entirely clear, though the truth is to be 
found in the indicia. Be that as it may, this has left the distinct 
impression that Dell was the publisher - an impression that even Irwin 
Donenfeld might have acquired, and if so, would have had little reason 
to question.

Gary
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