The Thought Balloon - Read Up On Comics - Whitman's Marvel Direct Market Editions

WHITMAN DIRECT MARKET

MARVEL COMIC BOOKS

1977 - 1979

WESTERN PRINTING & WHITMAN PUBLISHING

Incorporated in 1910 in Racine WI, the Western Printing & Lithographic Co. - who adopted the name Western Publishing Co. when going public in 1960 (Halasz, 2025) - acquired the assets of the Chicago-based Whitman-Hamming Publishing Co. in 1916, which in turn became a subsidiary of Western under the name Whitman Publishing Co.

Whitman became well-known for its inexpensive children's books in the 1930s and its Hollywood licensing deals (W. McClure, 2010), the latter providing them with the exclusive rights to produce publications featuring the stars of the Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, and Walter Lantz studios. This in turn lead to a business partnership in 1938 between Western and Dell, who had been a major publisher of comic books since the late 1930s. Western produced the physical comics and provided distribution, whilst Dell was in charge of the content. This arrangement lasted until 1962, when Western started their own line of newsstand comics, using their many licences, under the imprint brand name Gold Key.

The first Gold Key comic books hit the newsstands in June 1962, with titles generally continuing to feature a number of licensed properties from both Walt Disney and Hanna Barbera as well as Warner Brothers, along with TV series and movie adaptations, plus a few original titles.

Whilst titles such as Star Trek and Twilight Zone were published for many years, a good number of Gold Key licensed titles were characterised by short runs, sometimes consisting of no more than one or two issues.

Western's Gold Key comic books were distributed through the newsstand channels, and as such soon began to face the harsh reality that the comic book industry was rapidly losing its traditional sales points. Small stores that had carried comic books were being pushed out of business by larger stores and supermarkets, and newsagents started to view the low cover prices and tiny profit margins as a nuisance.

Comic book publishers desperately needed to open up new sales opportunities and and tap into a new customer base, and one place these potential buyers could be found were supermarkets, chain stores and gas stations. But in order to be able to sell comic books at these locations, the product would have to be adjusted.

Handling individual issues clearly was no option for these outlets - so DC Comics came up with the Comicpac concept in 1961, which proved to be both a simple and brilliant way of breaking into this promising new market: simply package several comic books together in a transparent plastic bag.

This resulted in a higher price per unit on sale, which made the whole business of stocking them more worthwhile for the seller. The packaging also clearly showed the items were new and untouched, while at the same time blending in with most other packaged goods sold at supermarkets - and it offered parents (and their kids) the opportunity and convenience to pick up a few comics whilst doing their general shopping (Wells, 2012).

DC's "comicpacks" were a success with high distribution numbers (Evanier, 2007), and other publishers quickly started to copy the concept - including Western and its Gold Key imprint. It is not quite clear when exactly Western launched its Gold Key comic packs, but available data points to 1967 (pictured below is a May 1967 Gold Key comic pack containing 5 comic books). As was the case with all other comic book publishers, Western filled its comic packs with regular newsstand copies and typically sold them at gas stations and various eateries. But a few years down the road Western/Gold Key were increasingly feeling the squeeze that had lead to the inception of comicpacks in the first place.

Responding to dropping sale numbers, Western's chairman and president Gerald J. Slade instigated two major strategic decisions in 1971 to reduce returns and increase sales (NNa, 1974). The first measure referenced the fact that unsold copies distributed through the newsstand channels could be returned for a refund. At the suggestion of Slade and in order to prolong their shelf life, all Gold Key comic books dropped the conventional cover date (e.g. "July") and only displayed a code (e.g. "90272-305") as of February 1973. The code had been used before and was actually generated by an IBM system used to identify the comic (Thompson, 2011), but conveniently obscured the date unless you had access to the database.

The bottom line for Western was: it worked, and Gold Key subsequently registered lower return rates (NNa, 1974).

Slade's second measure focussed on emphasising direct-mail selling to department, discount and toy stores along with supermarkets.

Given Whitman's long-standing experience in direct marketing of children's books and a wide range of games and printed playthings and their established sales network - with no less than 200 dedicated company salesmen selling Whitman products to stores from Coast to Coast (NNb, 1966) - Western had everything needed ready in-house to implement this strategy.

A classic Whitman display rack in a store in Toledo OH, 1966 (Western Publishing corporate magazine)

Western had already registered a number of trademarks for its Whitman imprint, all displaying a stylised smiling face. A variant with the added catchphrase "it's kid tested" had been in use since April 1969, and it was upon this reputation and the recognition factor of Whitman products (both with parents and, perhaps even more importantly at that point in time, shop managers) that Western was setting up its direct marketing of comicpacks under the Whitman name.

Western filed a trademark registration for a Whitman "face logo" (without colour claim, although it would mostly come to be used in a yellow and black combination) especially for comic books in October 1971.

Only one month later, in November 1971, three Gold Key comic books were produced with both the standard Gold Key logo (for the newsstands) and the new Whitman logo (for direct marketing in a comicpack).

Leading the way were well-established titles featuring popular licensed properties from Warner Brothers (Bugs Bunny #139), Disney (Donald Duck #140), and Walter Lantz (Woody Woodpecker #120).

Western was clearly introducing the new Whitman comic books (which were absolutely identical to the newsstand copies other than the logo) within the well-established "kids and family friendly entertainment" segment that Western in general and Whitman specifically were already known and respected for (and which also was the reason why neither Dell nor Gold Key ever carried the Comics Code seal).

April 1973 Fun-Pac

This initial batch was followed with more familiar licensed (and a few original) characters such as Mickey Mouse, Yosemite Sam, Pink Panther, Scooby Doo, or Smokey Bear - all squarely aimed at a younger audience and, more importantly, their parents. The attempt here was to blend in with Whitman's established selection of books and games, and it worked according to plan: the new direct distribution outlets had Western's comic book sales going up (Halasz, 2025).

It wasn't until August 1973 that Western started to carefully direct a few of their "Fun-Pacs" (which originally came with four comics but were reduced to carrying three issues by 1974) at a somewhat older reader base. That month, the plastic bags started carrying titles such as The Occult Files Of Dr. Spektor, Ripley's Believe It Or Not! and The Twilight Zone.

And once again, sales went up (NNa, 1974). By 1976 direct marketing accounted for about one-fourth of Western's consumer product sales, which in turn accounted for 70 percent of the company's total sales (Halasz, 2025).

November 1974 Fun-Pac

As already pointed out, there was a major difference in business conditions between comic books packaged in a bag and distributed directly to the end sales points, and those sold individually at newsstands. Direct distribution came with a discount for the seller, but unsold copies could not be returned for credit - which was the established business model for newsstand distribution.

Apart from the fact that the latter business model did little to nothing to encourage actual sales, it was impossible to distinguish the returnable newsstand copies from the non-returnable packaged comic books, since comicpacks carried regular newsstand comic books. Some unscrupulous vendors could therefore work around the non-returnability policy of bagged comic books with a fair amount of ease.

"A certain number of distributors and retailers simply split the packs open and returned the loose comics, making an arbitrage profit." (Paul Levitz in Evanier, 2007)

With Western's introduction of the Whitman logo for its packaged comic books, however, it was now impossible to try and pass them for returnable Gold Key newsstand issues.

September 1975 Gold Key Pac

It would seem logical to assume that Western introduced the distinctive Whitman logo in order to put an end to such fraudulent behaviour, but there is important evidence to suggest that this was a nice little side-effect at best, and that it really was all about keeping distribution channels and book keeping neatly separated - since Western continued to distribute Gold Key comicpacks containing Gold Key newsstand issues for many years after introducing the Whitman comicpack logo.

If fighting fraud was the driver for having two different logos, this situation clearly would not have been allowed to continue. It would also appear to be strange for neither DC nor Marvel (or any other publisher who packaged their comics in polybags) to copy, in some shape or form, the idea of a distinctive marker to counteract fraudulent returns.

In reality, the Gold Key comicpacks and the Whitman comicpacks were delivered to distinctly different retail sale points, and Western had no intention of merging or streamlining those - simply because the Whitman brand and its long-established reputation and sales points were too valuable to be diluted.

September 1978 Gold Key Pac

As far as the fraudulent retailers are concerned, it seems that the comic book industry had simply accepted the attrition their print runs were subjected to. And since throughout all of the 1970s anywhere between 50%-65% of the print run of any given comic book was not sold (Shooter, 2011), a few opened comic packs were probably not that big of a problem in comparison.

Western would eventually discontinue their Gold Key line in 1980 but keep their Whitman line of bagged comic books up and running until 1984.

"WITH GREAT DISTRIBUTION COMES GREAT OPPORTUNITY":
WHITMAN AND MARVEL JOIN FORCES

Opening up the Whitman distribution channels had proven highly successful for Western (Halasz, 2025). However, in a constantly shrinking comic book market (Daniels, 1991), one of the few ways of ensuring the future growth of the comicpack programme was expansion. And so, sometime in 1976, Western approached the market leader in comic books, Marvel, with a business proposal, and the two struck a deal.

"Western has signed an agreement with Marvel to distribute Marvel Comics in Western's plastic bag series which is apparently doing quite well. The two companies will not be mixed in the bags. We believe that those Marvels to appear in bags will have slightly different covers in that a diamond will cover the space that currently houses the cover date and Curtis company symbol. The cost of three 30 cent comics will be 79 cents." (Comic Reader #140, February 1977, pg 10).

Many questions surrounding the details of this agreement remain unanswered due to a lack of first hand information, but Jim Shooter stated in 2010 that the venture and its set-up were developed specifically for Western Publishing and its Whitman bagged edition program (Miller, 2010). Whilst Shooter wasn't in a major decision-making position at Marvel until January 1978 (when he became editor-in-chief), he would certainly have known if the Whitman programme had instead been Marvel getting into the direct market on its own and taking Whitman along for the ride (as some argue was the case), not the least due to his pronounced interest in the matter.

"[Shooter was] the best ally that the Direct Market retailers ever had at any of the comics publishers. (...) What made Jim Shooter so important to the development of the Direct Market was that, unlike almost everyone else at Marvel in 1979, Jim already knew about Phil Seuling's Seagate Distributing. He not only knew what Phil was doing, he had taken the time, completely of his own accord, to track Phil's sales on each and every title that Marvel printed. (...) The net result of his analysis of Phil's business was that he believed absolutely that the future of comics lay in retailing through comics specialty shops." (Rozanski, 2004a)

The Comic Reader (widely regarded as a reliable source) unambiguously characterised the "diamond" logo as a unique feature of issues destined for packaging into the Whitman bags (of course once opened, comic books from Whitman bags carrying the diamond could end up in lots of places, which may account for some anecdotal individual memories). It is also worth noting that Marvel's own comicpack scheme (the Marvel Multi-Mags) had been running for a good three years by 1977, yet no change in the way of introducing a distinctive variation on the covers had occurred neither before nor after the Whitman distribution deal, as Marvel's own comicpacks contained - and continued to do so throughout the 1970s - regular newsstand editions.

There seems to be no first hand information available on who came up with the design of the diamond, or why it was used instead of the established Whitman face, leaving those questions open to conjecture. J. McClure (2010) assumes the lack of license rights to be the reason, but without a first hand source to back it up, this line of thought lacks evidential weight - and leaves aside the fact that business deals usually happen for specific reasons and in specific contexts.

Marvel had lost $2 million by mid-1975 and was spiralling towards bankruptcy (Daniels, 1991). Its parent company Cadence Industries pulled the emergency breaks and replaced Marvel's president Albert Landau that same year with Jim Galton (Howe, 2012), a former president of a paperback publishing company owned by CBS. The new man in charge quickly realised that one of Marvel's biggest problem was the newsstand distribution model, and Galton wanted to move away from this antiquated system and its shocking lack of true accountability (Foerster, 2010).

Marvel comics in Whitman bag
March 1977

Clearly this was an open door for Western in 1976, and a deal struck between Western and Marvel would be a win for both parties (unfortunately the Comic Reader doesn't tell us who initiated the idea). Western could expand its range of comic books offered in the Whitman bags, and Marvel could reach sales points otherwise hard to reach without the expertise and connections of Western's distribution network. Licensing intellectual properties had no place in this business arrangement.

The clout of the Whitman brand would be another point in favour for Marvel, but initially Western kept efforts on their side to a minimum and simply packaged the Marvel comic books in the same bags that were in use at the time for their existing comicpack programme (and which also happened to be very low key, with no mentioning of Whitman at all). Even the coloured segment at the bottom of the bags (which conveniently hid the individual UPC barcode on the covers of the outward facing comic books) wasn't brought about by Western distributing Marvel comics - it was a modification put in place for the November 1975 Whitman packs (even though Gold Key didn't actually introduce the barcode on its comic book covers until June 1977).

Gold Key comics in Whitman bag
September 1976

The logic of having barcodes on Whitman comic book issues at all seems somewhat elusive (since they were only sold in sealed packs of three), but such is the subject matter of comic packs - things didn't always operate in ways that made perfect sense.

Which in some way also applies to the fact that a handful of oversized Marvel comic books did actually feature a Whitman logo on their cover (e.g. Marvel Treasury Edition #17, April 1978), although not using the "face" but simply a "W" with the name Whitman spelled out - a trademark originally registered by Western for playing cards and jigsaw puzzles in 1972.

IT ALL STARTS WITH CHANGES (UPON CHANGES)

The initial few months of the Whitman-Marvel comicpack programme were characterised by a very pronounced lack of continuity as a quick succession of numerous changes took place.

First off it was the diamond logo itself that underwent a change: whereas it had launched with an indication of price, issue number and cover date, the indication of the latter was dropped as of the June 1977 run of Whitman comicpacks. The added space available was used to have a larger indication of the issue number whilst adding a hash (#) as well (as illustrated here by the cover diamonds from Amazing Spider-Man #167 (April 1977) and Amazing Spider-Man #169 (June 1977) respectively).

The next change didn't concern the covers of the comic books but rather the plastic bags that contained them. Publishers and distributors were generally very conservative as far as the visuals of their polybags were concerned (there was, after all, a certain recognition factor involved), but an increase in price would trigger a change by necessity - and as of June 1977 Marvel was indeed testing the waters in a few select cities for a rise from 30¢ to 35¢ (which would become the standard price as of the November 1977 cover date print run).

Whitman "CoMiC PaC"
July 1977 (3 for 89¢)

But although the price of the comic books contained in the Whitman comicpacks in July 1977 was still 30¢ each, Whitman raised the price for a comicpack from 79¢ to 89¢ (maybe the discount of 11¢ had proven to eat into profits too much), and that change ushered in a new design in July 1977: the CoMiC PaC (3 for 89).

There was still no explicit reference to Whitman on the polybag, but it did feature two blurbs: "The best fun in reading" and "Free prize inside" (which turned out to be either Korean or Indonesian banknotes worth next to nothing). However, this polybag design (which was used by Whitman across the board of its comic book offerings) only lasted until November 1977, when Marvel finally raised its cover prices - triggering yet another polybag design, as three comic books now sold for 99¢.

The third design in nine months did, however, end up feeling more appropriate, as the bag's hanger now featured the header text "super heroes". It was also the first to explicitly label the bag as a Whitman product, with two "face" logos and the taglines "Whitman Product" and "Distributed by Western Publishing Company Inc".

Whitman "super heroes"
November 1977 (3 for 99¢)

Thor #263
September 1977 (with barcode)

But even before the polybag changed as of November 1977, another change had worked its way onto the covers of the comic books contained within the plastic bag the previous month, in October 1977: the UPC barcode was dropped, leaving an empty box where the newsstand (and UK pence price variants) copies still carried those zebra stripes.

This of course did away with the need to have a polybag design that covered and obscured the barcode, in order to ensure that cashiers didn't scan and ring up the price for a single comic book (although in practical terms this was very unlikely, since the salespoint would not most likely not be selling individual comic books and therefore not have that barcode activated in its system).

During the first nine months of its existence, the Whitman-Marvel comicpack programme went through an amazing number of changes. Marvel's rise in cover price was, of course, nothing that Western could influence, but all other tweaks did give the impression that whoever was in charge at the Whitman end was somewhat making things up as they went along.

Thor #264
October 1977 (no barcode)

Yet another change that occured in the autumn of 1977 was, however, a decidedly strategic one - and one that would pay off big time for both Marvel and Whitman.

THE STAR WARS PHENOMENON

On May 25^th 1977, a movie called “Star Wars” premiered in the US - and started what would become a worldwide popular cultural phenomenon.

And yet it hadn't been an easy project for writer and director George Lucas; every studio had turned down the pitch script, with the sole exception of 20th Century Fox (Shone, 2004). The studio was, however, expecting the film to end up being of limited financial success, which resulted in a relatively low budget and production moved to the less expensive venue of Elstree Studios in England, in order to stretch the money available (Moore, 2022).

Roy Thomas knew about the movie and was in contact with George Lucas, and just as Thomas had done a few years earlier for Conan, suggested to higher powers at Marvel that they should license Star Wars as a comic book adaptation. But just as had been the case with the movie, it wasn't an easy sell.

"There was a lot of opposition to Star Wars. Even Stan wasn’t keen on the idea. Even I [Jim Shooter] wasn’t. I had no prejudice against science fiction, but wasting time on an adaptation of a movie with a dumb title described as an “outer space western?” (...) I was told (...) that George Lucas himself came to Marvel’s offices to meet with Stan and help convince him that we should license Star Wars (...) I don’t know how Roy got it done (...) but Roy got the deal done and we published Star Wars." (Shooter, 2011b)

It would prove to be a pivotal decision, one that in Jim Shooter's opinion saved Marvel from going out of business (Shooter, 2011b). Star Wars #1, cover dated July 1977, went on sale April 12^th 1977 - more than a month prior to the premiere of the film (Roy Thomas wrote his adaptation based on the screenplay, as can be gleaned from the letters page in Star Wars #4).

"The first two issues of our six issue adaptation came out in advance of the movie. Driven by the advance marketing for the movie, sales were very good. Then about the time the third issue shipped, the movie was released. Sales made the jump to hyperspace." (Shooter, 2001b)

When Whitman became aware of the landslide success of Star Wars and the comic book adaptation, they initially simply packaged three issues of Star Wars in a regular bag.

Whitman Star Wars Comicpack

The fact that they contained issues #2, #3 and #4 somewhat defeated logic, but as mentioned before, a distinct lack of common sense was part of how comicpacks operated at times. But then someone at Western/Whitman started to put two and two together, and they realised just what exactly they had on their hands.

"When Star Wars was released in May of 1977, there was an incredible shortage of merchandising. In fact, the special magazines put out by Starlog Group, and the comics series produced by Marvel, were about the only licensed products that were released at the same time as the film (...) It was in this desperate environment that comics retailers were able to score in a big way." (Rozanski, 2003)

It was an opportunity not to be missed, and Western was clever and experienced enough to know exactly what to do. The regular polybag was not fit for purpose here, and was quickly replaced with bags that had the Star Wars logo splashed prominently across half of its surface - you simply couldn't miss it.

Whitman Star Wars Themed Comicpack

The movie Star Wars had become a cultural phenomenon and icon almost overnight. It not only created an instant fanbase but became the decade's blockbuster film, grossing an incredible $100 million in just three months.

20th Century Fox's stock soared from $6 to $25 per share (pulling back the studio from the brink of bankruptcy) and generated continuing revenues of $1.2 million a day.

"Star Wars the movie stayed in theaters forever [and] the comics sold and sold and sold. We reprinted the adaptation in every possible format. They all sold and sold and sold." (Shooter, 2001b)

As was the case for 20th Century Fox, the comic book adaptation turned out to be a reprieve from hard times and a blessing for Marvel too, as Star Wars #1 sold over a million copies with several reprints and cover variants (Hoknes, 2018).

The Whitman comicpack deal with Marvel now turned out to be a gold mine for Western. Printing capacities were freed up in order to have more Star Wars comic books available (resulting in no Marvel Whitman issues other than Star Wars in January to March 1978, July 1978, and March/April 1979). In addition, Marvel put out Marvel Special Edition Star Wars #1 in July 1977, an oversize (10"x14") collection of the first three issues of the regular Star Wars comic book, which Western also distributed as a Whitman logo edition in specially designed containers.

Marvel continued the Star Wars title after the movie adaptation ended with issue #6, and the Whitman Star Wars comicpacks with three consecutive issues happily went along for several more iterations.

On a side note it is worth noting that the first six issues of Star Wars included the only actual reprints Whitman distributed - otherwise, copies contained in their comicpacks were never reprints but rather printed at the same place and time together with the regular newsstand copies.

THEMED COMICPACKS

Whilst the production and distribution of "regular" comicpacks containing three different Marvel titles continued, the success of the Star Wars themed polybags inspired Whitman to try the same thing based on specific Marvel characters. The first confirmed such comicpack appeared mid-1978, featuring Marvel's God of Thunder and containing Thor #270 (April 1978), #271 (May 1978), and #272 (June 1978).

Whitman Thor Comicpack

As with the Star Wars themed comicpacks, a bespoke bag design and logo was introduced, which clearly also acted as "billboard advertising".

Whitman Spider-Man Comicpack

The initial Thor themed comicpack was followed by at least two more (containing issues #274-276, August-September 1978, and issues #277-279, October-December 1978). Other than Thor, Whitman produced themed comicpacks for Spider-Man, Captain America, Hulk, Conan and the Fantastic Four in 1978 and 1979.

Themed comicpacks required a fair bit of advance planing, since packaging three consecutive issues of one title meant a waiting period of 60 days for a monthly title.

This also meant advance financing plus storage for two issue runs before the third became available and all three could be packaged into one polybag - all of which explains why the number of themed comicpacks distributed by Whitman remained relatively limited. They didn't, however, limit them to classic Marvel characters.

Apart from releasing themed comicpacks for Disney and other animated cartoon characters in 1979, Whitman also issued several themed comcipacks for characters and properties that Marvel had licensed.

Whitman Fantastic Four Comicpack

Whitman Tarzan Comicpack

The House of Ideas was in an excellent position to do so after the Star Wars triumph and fully embraced that policy in the late 1970s with titles such as Tarzan, Micronauts, and Battlestar Galactica in appropriately labelled bags.

DIRECT MARKET EXPANSION - DIAMONDS ARE A PUBLISHER'S BEST FRIEND

The "Whitman diamond" appeared on Marvel covers dated from February 1977 to April 1980, with the exception of three gaps in printing: January to March 1978, July 1978, and March/April 1979 (McClure, 2010), and the issues thus marked were exclusively destined for packaging into the Whitman comicpack bags (Miller, 2010).

During this period of time, the "direct market" (which would purchase comic books from the publishers at a discount but on a non-returnable basis) became an interesting alternative to the classic newsstand distribution (with its returns of unsold issues), not the least because sales through the classic outlets (served by newsstand distribution) were dropping and the number of comic book shops was rising (Rozanski, 2004b).

And so Marvel put out the first direct market edition (DME) copies, distributed exclusively to comic book specialty stores, with the May 1979 cover date production run.

Whilst Marvel wasn't really copying Western's direct market distribution business model (since the comic books were sold to comic book stores as batches of individual issues and not packaged in comicpacks containing three different issues), the House of Ideas didn't produce its own concept of how to mark and distinguish non-returnable DME copies from returnable newsstand copies and simply decided to copy Western's diamond design to replace the Curtis Circulation symbol.

This was possibly facilitated by the fact that Marvel DME single issue copies and Whitman DME comicpack issues would co-exist for almost a year, from May 1979 to April 1980, and coming up with two different identifiers hardly made economical sense.

However, a slight redesign did take place as the cover mastheads had dropped the "starburst" still only 35¢ blurb a month prior, since the cover price was set to go up to 40¢ as of the May 1979 cover date production run. This made it possible to decrease the size of the character box and move it upwards a bit, and since this change left less room for the diamond, the design was squeezed slightly - resulting in a "flat" diamond.

However, this diamond redesign didn't offer enough space for the issue number and the cover date month, so the latter was simply dropped.

In addition to the diamond marker, the direct market cover needed the barcode invalidated, so Marvel initially just took on another Whitman solution and simply went with an empty white box. However, someone at Marvel clearly didn't like the look of that.

Amazing Spider-Man #192
May 1979 (Newsstand)

Amazing Spider-Man #192
May 1979 (Direct Market)

Whether it was a simple case of horror vacui or a feeling that the empty box could give rise to the impression that there was a printing error ("there is a box, there must be something in it that's missing"), all next month's titles regained the barcode but featuring a diagonal line through it (since it needed to be made unreadable). And since, again, it didn't make any sense to have two separate cover designs, Whitman followed suit and adopted the barcode with diagonal line for its comicpacks too.

In some cases, this meant that a Whitman comicpack could contain both design variations, such as the themed Fantastic Four pack that came with issues #206 (empty barcode box), #207 (strike-through barcode), and #287 (also strike-through barcode).

Whitman Fantastic Four Comicpack (issues #206-208)

Fantastic Four #206
(May 1979)

Fantastic Four #207
(June 1979)

Fantastic Four #208
(July 1979)

Whitman Super Heroes Comicpack (August 1980)

Coinciding more or less with Marvel's decision to systematically start distributing comic books to the direct market, Whitman's interest in Marvel titles began to fade, and the flow of their comicpacks featuring titles from the House of Ideas started to thin out rapidly.

The last known example carried three issues from the August 1980 cover date publication cycle (Thor #298, Iron Man #137, and Captain America #248), and incidentally used the same polybag design that Whitman also used to package its DC comicpacks at the time.

Whitman and DC had worked together since March 1978, and that is where Whitman shifted its focus to by late 1979.

"The Western [comic packs] program was enormous - even well into the '70s they were taking very large numbers of DC titles for distribution (I recall 50,000+ copies offhand)." (Paul Levitz, in Evanier 2007)

Whitman's collaboration with DC also left much more of a mark than their business deal with Marvel ever did.

Whitman DC Comicpack
(January 1980)

The point of leaving a mark can be taken quite literally in this case, as issues carried in Whitman's comicpacks lost their DC cover logo, which was replaced by the familiar "Whitman face".

Action Comics #483
(May 1978, Whitman)

For the first few months of the programme covers even had a WHITMAN text box added. And since Whitman also followed a policy of not showing issue numbers and dates on the DC covers, this presented them with the opportunity to even paste a second "face logo" in their place.

Whilst all of this only affected the covers and left no mark whatsoever on the content pages (where both issue numbers and publication months could be gleaned from the indicia), it did have rather far-reaching consequences for Superman's team-up title, DC Comics Presents, which to all intents and purposes changed to Whitman Comics Presents.

Clearly DC was giving Western/Whitman far more rights to their intellectual properties than Marvel did - but that is a story for some other time.

DC Comics Presents #12
(August 1979, Whitman)

THE PRODUCTION PROCESS - APPLYING THE DIAMOND

One key aspect of the Marvel comic books distributed by Western in its Whitman comicpack programme is the fact that they were absolutely identical to the newsstand copies - not the least because they were printed at the same time, at the same place.

"The Whitman copies were printed at the same time, as part of the same run as the regular comics. Even the covers were part of the same run, albeit with a press stop for replating. But replating doesn't constitute a reprinting. Long runs often have replatings in the middle, and the cover presses had to be stopped to replate for the Direct copies, too. They weren't reprints." (Shooter, 2011b)

The "diamond covers" needed for the Whitman comicpack programme could be produced at an absolute minimal extra work and cost. Comic books at the time were all printed using the so-called "four colour process" (CMYK for short) which renders the variations in colours by applying the so-called subtractive primaries Cyan (blue), Magenta (purple) and Yellow.

Mixing yellow and cyan produced green colours, while yellow mixed with magenta resulted in reds, and magenta with cyan in blues. Mixing equal amounts of cyan, magenta and yellow in sufficient density would produce black, but in order to save ink and decrease drying times black was used as the fourth colour pigment for the so-called "key" (hence the letter K) printing plate, which printed the artistic detail of an image (Ferry, 1921).

A four-colour printing press therefore uses four printing plates - one for each colour separation - wrapped around a cylinder and inked with the relevant colour. As paper passes through the press, the cyan, magenta, yellow and black separations are printed exactly one on top of the other. This can produce a wide range of colours by combining different tints of the four inks, as colours are split into so-called "component separations".

The system's terminology was slightly modified for the production of comic books and labelled YRB ("yellow-red-blue"), making the colour labels somewhat less cryptic. The colour separations used for comic books up until the 1980s were fairly crude, using only tones of 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% in a coarse dot grid, and were done for both Marvel and DC at the Chemical Color Plate Corporation in Bridgeport (Connecticut). The process resulted in four overlays (one each for CMYK) on Rubylith® acetate, which then went to the camera for the so-called shoot plates (a process which continued into the late 1990s before computer colouring took over).

This process of building up a multi-colour image from four components can be seen from the acetate colour separations for the cover of Tarzan #18 (January 1979):

The sequence of the three colour ink layers for comic books (YRBK) followed the practice used for newspapers - which makes sense since they were both printed on the same paper stock until the late 1980s).

The common sequence in the printing industry, however, would often be the reverse, KBRY (Pritchard, 2009).

All that was needed now was a second "K" plate with the diamond, covered-up issue number and month box, and blanked-out barcode.

This was done at the Chemical Color Plate in Bridgeport, Connecticut, who were contracted for the colour separation and production of the shoot plates (i.e. negative film) by numerous comic book publishers. Once complete, the material was then shipped to World Color in Sparta, Illinois, where the shoot plates were used to produce large sheets of actual metal printing plates to fit the printing machines (Brown, 2017).

The printer at World Color would thus run the first print run with one black plate and then, when the required number of covers had been printed, exchange the K separation plate for the other cover version, and simply continue printing. Stopping the printing machine and changing plates was part of the regular procedure anyway, so this change-over wasn't really considered extra work.

"Both steel and aluminum [printing] plates are used up quickly and for most runs of comics, several plates are made as a matter of course." (Brown, 2017)

Tarzan #18 (January 1979)

FURTHER READING ON THE THOUGHT BALLOON

"Comic packs" not only sold well for more than two decades, they also offer some interesting insight into the comic book industry's history from the 1960s through to the 1990s. There's more on their general history here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BROWN Eliot R. (2017) "Marvel Behind The Scenes – Beyond The Behind*! Chemical Color Plate", www.eliotrbrown.com, published online June 2017

DANIELS Les (1991) Marvel: Five Fabulous Decades of the World's Greatest Comics, Harry N. Abrams

EVANIER Mark (2007) "More on Comicpacs", News From Me, published online 2 May 2007

FERRY Ervin Sidney (1921) General Physics and Its Application to Industry and Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons

FOERSTER Jonathan (2010) "Marvel Comics' miracle man set up business' success", in Naples Daily News, 30 May 2010

HALASZ Robert (2025) "Western Publishing Group, Inc. (International Directory of Company Histories), Encyclopedia.com, published online 10 July 2025

HOKNES Terry (2018) "Marvel Comics Whitman Bag Variant Editions", terryhoknes.com

McCLURE Jon Martin (2010) "A History of Publisher Experimentation and Variant Comic Books", in Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, 40th Edition, Gemstone Publishing

McCLURE Wendy (2010) "A Tale of two Whitmans", Albert Whitman Blog, published online 20 December 2010

MILLER John Jackson (2010), "Jim Shooter on Marvel Whitmans, the direct market, and more", comichron.com, published online 19 April 2010

MOORE John (2002) "How Has the UK Shaped Star Wars?", whynow.co.uk, published online 4 May 2022

NNa (1974) "At Western: It's Fun, Games And Profit", Milwaukee Sentinel, June 3, 1974

NNb (1966) "Our Man in the Maumee Valley", The Westerner #194, January 1966

PRITCHARD Gordon (2009) "Ink Sequence - 4/C process & beyond", The Print Guide, available on-line and accessed 1 June 2015

ROZANSKI Chuck (2003) "Evolution of the Direct Market Part VI", milehighcomics.com, published online December 2003

ROZANSKI Chuck (2004a) "Meeting with Jim Shooter in May of 1979", milehighcomics.com, published online February 2004

ROZANSKI Chuck (2004b) "The International Association ofDirect Distributors", milehighcomics.com, published online June 2004

SHONE Tom (2004) Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer, Simon & Schuster UK

SHOOTER Jim (2011a) "Comic Book Distribution", JimShooter.com, published online 15 November 2011

SHOOTER Jim (2011b) "Roy Thomas saved Marvel", JimShooter.com, published online 5 July 2011

THOMPSON Maggie (2011) "And I Quote: Matthew Murphy Discusses the Dell-Gold Key Split in 1962", Official Website of Maggie Thompson, published online 17 March 2011

WELLS John (2012) American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1960s (1960-1964), TwoMorrows Publishing

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Their reproduction for the review and research purposes of this website is considered fair use
as set out by the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. par. 107.

uploaded to the web 25 April 2026