Virtual Newstand Timemachine

mrfusion

Not sure if this has been posted before, timemachine
but its kind of cool. Put in the month and the year and it will show you all the titles that were on the news stand.

I'm even more backlogged than Murd - my "top of the pile" is currently in the spring of 1968.
You'll never guess what's going on - The Avengers just fought the X-Men and Prof. X is dead. :)

John_Steed

AWESOME - I was looking for this.
Was thinking about getting the comics that have been out December 1966 ( born 12/31/66)

WetRats

This is fantastic!

I found the month I started buying my own books, and was amazed how many I was getting a month immediately. On $1 a week allowance, no less!

bats00

I just spent my entire lunch hour playing with this site. I love this stuff!

SolitaireRose

There goes my afternoon...

Greg

I think it was Moyer that shared this on the old forums, I could be wrong though. It is both great and horrible at the same time. I began organizing my comics by cover date and then I found that I could be even more anal retentive and go by the actual month the comics were on the stands. I had already gotten four longboxes done when this site was shown to me.

WetRats

I'd forgotten how many books were published 6 or 8 times a year in the 70s.

Chuck_Melville

WetRats said:

I'd forgotten how many books were published 6 or 8 times a year in the 70s.

That was actually a staple for decades; I think it was during the 70's that they eventually took all books to a monthly status. The eight-times-a-year schedule was always a little weird, but, if I recall correctly, it was a step up from bi-monthly, where the title would be bi-monthly most of the year, but monthly during the summer months when kids were out of school and presumably had more money.

It also created a killer schedule for some creators. Jim Aparo was able to do every issue of Brave & Bold while it was still a bi-monthly, but couldn't keep up the pace when it went monthly, so they had to occasionally spell him with fill-in artists.

KyleMoyer

Greg said:

I think it was Moyer that shared this on the old forums, I could be wrong though. It is both great and horrible at the same time. I began organizing my comics by cover date and then I found that I could be even more anal retentive and go by the actual month the comics were on the stands. I had already gotten four longboxes done when this site was shown to me.

I might have. I saw this thread and I know that I saw this site before and wasted a lot of time with it, but I didn't remember if I posted it here or not. But if both me and you have vague memories of me maybe posting it here than I guess I probably did.

Either way, it deserves a reposting because it's awesome.

luke52

Awesome. I've always wondered what was on the shelves the month of my birth. And wanted to pick up a few too. There were some pretty cool #1's out by the looks of it too! Ambush Bug, Cloak and Dagger, and Moon Knight. Pretty cool!!!

Krescan

luke52 said:

Awesome. I've always wondered what was on the shelves the month of my birth. And wanted to pick up a few too. There were some pretty cool #1's out by the looks of it too! Ambush Bug, Cloak and Dagger, and Moon Knight. Pretty cool!!!

everybody has a moon knight #1 for their birth month don't they? :D

thinking about seeing if i could get all the ones with the Thing on the cover

neato thanks!

dubbat138

WetRats said:

This is fantastic!

I found the month I started buying my own books, and was amazed how many I was getting a month immediately. On $1 a week allowance, no less!

Yeah when I first started buying comics I got 3 bucks a week. Which meant I could get 6 comics.

luke52

I'd also love to get a montage made of all the covers from my month on a canvas. There's some pretty cool covers.

John_Steed

How about each one of us picks a favorite cover of his/her "birth-month" as shown at the "Virtual Newstand Timemachine" and posts it over here: http://thecomicforums.com/discussion/360/a-comic-cover-a-day-is-awesome#latest

Just one cover (looking at you @dubbat138 :P )

David_D

This is awesome. Thanks for reposting it.

luckymustard

John_Steed said:

How about each one of us picks a favorite cover of his/her "birth-month" as shown at the "Virtual Newstand Timemachine" and posts it over here: http://thecomicforums.com/discussion/360/a-comic-cover-a-day-is-awesome#latest

Just one cover (looking at you @dubbat138 :P )

Cover month or actual release month?

dubbat138

luckymustard said:

John_Steed said:

How about each one of us picks a favorite cover of his/her "birth-month" as shown at the "Virtual Newstand Timemachine" and posts it over here: http://thecomicforums.com/discussion/360/a-comic-cover-a-day-is-awesome#latest

Just one cover (looking at you @dubbat138 :P )

Cover month or actual release month?

I went for cover month.

John_Steed

calendar month - 'cause THEN we babys have been released too 8->

or as wikipedia puts it:

The general practice of most mainstream comic book companies since the creation of the comic book in the 1930s was to date individual issues putting the name of a month (and much later the year as well) on the cover which was generally two months after the actual release date. For example, a 1951 issue of Superman which had the cover date of July would have been published two months earlier from that date in the month of May, generally speaking. In 1973 the discrepancy between the cover date and the publishing date went from two months to three months.[1] In 1989 the cover date and publishing date discrepancy was changed back to two months, though generally each comic book company now uses its own system.
Of the two major American comic book publishers, DC Comics continues to put cover dates on the cover. Marvel Comics stopped putting cover dates on the cover in October 1999; instead, the "cover" date was moved to the indicia on an interior page.

dubbat138

Well crap I posted the wrong cover. Just checked Hulk 181 came out the month I was born.

luckymustard

My understanding of the roughly 2 months after release magazines dates/months on the cover are for the newsstand workers to know when to pull the issue off the shelf.

nweathington

Chuck_Melville said:

WetRats said:

I'd forgotten how many books were published 6 or 8 times a year in the 70s.

That was actually a staple for decades; I think it was during the 70's that they eventually took all books to a monthly status. The eight-times-a-year schedule was always a little weird, but, if I recall correctly, it was a step up from bi-monthly, where the title would be bi-monthly most of the year, but monthly during the summer months when kids were out of school and presumably had more money.

It also created a killer schedule for some creators. Jim Aparo was able to do every issue of Brave & Bold while it was still a bi-monthly, but couldn't keep up the pace when it went monthly, so they had to occasionally spell him with fill-in artists.

Aparo could actually keep a monthly schedule, even though he penciled, inked, and lettered nearly every story he worked on in the ’70s. For example, in 1970 he drew three issues of The Phantom for Charlton, six issues of Aquaman, four issues of Phantom Stranger, plus ten covers. In 1975—the year B&tB went monthly—he drew seven issues of B&tB, two 12-page Batman back-ups for Detective, two 12-page Spectre stories for Adventure, two Aquaman stories for Adventure, plus 24 covers.

Chuck_Melville

nweathington said:

Chuck_Melville said:

WetRats said:

I'd forgotten how many books were published 6 or 8 times a year in the 70s.

That was actually a staple for decades; I think it was during the 70's that they eventually took all books to a monthly status. The eight-times-a-year schedule was always a little weird, but, if I recall correctly, it was a step up from bi-monthly, where the title would be bi-monthly most of the year, but monthly during the summer months when kids were out of school and presumably had more money.

It also created a killer schedule for some creators. Jim Aparo was able to do every issue of Brave & Bold while it was still a bi-monthly, but couldn't keep up the pace when it went monthly, so they had to occasionally spell him with fill-in artists.

Aparo could actually keep a monthly schedule, even though he penciled, inked, and lettered nearly every story he worked on in the ’70s. For example, in 1970 he drew three issues of The Phantom for Charlton, six issues of Aquaman, four issues of Phantom Stranger, plus ten covers. In 1975—the year B&tB went monthly—he drew seven issues of B&tB, two 12-page Batman back-ups for Detective, two 12-page Spectre stories for Adventure, two Aquaman stories for Adventure, plus 24 covers.

That's still a limited number of pages that he could draw each year. It looked like he was doing more when he was able to draw two or three regular series, but that was when the books he was doing were all bi-monthlies; when they went to monthlies, he wasn't able to do keep up with their schedules, so needed the occasional fill-in. He was still doing the same amount of work, if not more, but not able to do all of the stories for every series he worked on. He kept up on the Adventure series you mention (Aquaman, which then gave way to the Spectre) but had to sacrifice time on Brave & Bold in order to do so. (If I'm not mistaken, Adventure was on a bi-monthly schedule during that period, which would have made his staying on the two series there a little easier.)

nweathington

Chuck_Melville said:

nweathington said:

Chuck_Melville said:

WetRats said:

I'd forgotten how many books were published 6 or 8 times a year in the 70s.

That was actually a staple for decades; I think it was during the 70's that they eventually took all books to a monthly status. The eight-times-a-year schedule was always a little weird, but, if I recall correctly, it was a step up from bi-monthly, where the title would be bi-monthly most of the year, but monthly during the summer months when kids were out of school and presumably had more money.

It also created a killer schedule for some creators. Jim Aparo was able to do every issue of Brave & Bold while it was still a bi-monthly, but couldn't keep up the pace when it went monthly, so they had to occasionally spell him with fill-in artists.

Aparo could actually keep a monthly schedule, even though he penciled, inked, and lettered nearly every story he worked on in the ’70s. For example, in 1970 he drew three issues of The Phantom for Charlton, six issues of Aquaman, four issues of Phantom Stranger, plus ten covers. In 1975—the year B&tB went monthly—he drew seven issues of B&tB, two 12-page Batman back-ups for Detective, two 12-page Spectre stories for Adventure, two Aquaman stories for Adventure, plus 24 covers.

That's still a limited number of pages that he could draw each year. It looked like he was doing more when he was able to draw two or three regular series, but that was when the books he was doing were all bi-monthlies; when they went to monthlies, he wasn't able to do keep up with their schedules, so needed the occasional fill-in. He was still doing the same amount of work, if not more, but not able to do all of the stories for every series he worked on. He kept up on the Adventure series you mention (Aquaman, which then gave way to the Spectre) but had to sacrifice time on Brave & Bold in order to do so. (If I'm not mistaken, Adventure was on a bi-monthly schedule during that period, which would have made his staying on the two series there a little easier.)

In 1975 he drew 222 pages total, which equates to 18-1/2 pages per month. The average story length at the time was 18 pages. Hence, he could draw a monthly book. And I believe he penciled, inked, and lettered every one of those pages. Not to mention the 24 covers he drew that year, which for many artists these days is a year's worth of work on its own.

I think the reason he didn’t draw every issue of B&tB was to give him flexibility in case of sickness and to allow for vacation time with his family. As you said, Adventure was still bi-monthly, so that gave him a bit of breathing room.

He could not quite keep up the monthly pace on Batman & the Outsiders, but those stories were 23 pages, and he was still penciling, inking, and lettering pretty much all of his work. And not too long after that, his health slowed him down a bit more.

Chuck_Melville

nweathington said:

Chuck_Melville said:

nweathington said:

Chuck_Melville said:

WetRats said:

I'd forgotten how many books were published 6 or 8 times a year in the 70s.

That was actually a staple for decades; I think it was during the 70's that they eventually took all books to a monthly status. The eight-times-a-year schedule was always a little weird, but, if I recall correctly, it was a step up from bi-monthly, where the title would be bi-monthly most of the year, but monthly during the summer months when kids were out of school and presumably had more money.

It also created a killer schedule for some creators. Jim Aparo was able to do every issue of Brave & Bold while it was still a bi-monthly, but couldn't keep up the pace when it went monthly, so they had to occasionally spell him with fill-in artists.

Aparo could actually keep a monthly schedule, even though he penciled, inked, and lettered nearly every story he worked on in the ’70s. For example, in 1970 he drew three issues of The Phantom for Charlton, six issues of Aquaman, four issues of Phantom Stranger, plus ten covers. In 1975—the year B&tB went monthly—he drew seven issues of B&tB, two 12-page Batman back-ups for Detective, two 12-page Spectre stories for Adventure, two Aquaman stories for Adventure, plus 24 covers.

That's still a limited number of pages that he could draw each year. It looked like he was doing more when he was able to draw two or three regular series, but that was when the books he was doing were all bi-monthlies; when they went to monthlies, he wasn't able to do keep up with their schedules, so needed the occasional fill-in. He was still doing the same amount of work, if not more, but not able to do all of the stories for every series he worked on. He kept up on the Adventure series you mention (Aquaman, which then gave way to the Spectre) but had to sacrifice time on Brave & Bold in order to do so. (If I'm not mistaken, Adventure was on a bi-monthly schedule during that period, which would have made his staying on the two series there a little easier.)

In 1975 he drew 222 pages total, which equates to 18-1/2 pages per month. The average story length at the time was 18 pages. Hence, he could draw a monthly book. And I believe he penciled, inked, and lettered every one of those pages. Not to mention the 24 covers he drew that year, which for many artists these days is a year's worth of work on its own.

I think the reason he didn’t draw every issue of B&tB was to give him flexibility in case of sickness and to allow for vacation time with his family. As you said, Adventure was still bi-monthly, so that gave him a bit of breathing room.

He could not quite keep up the monthly pace on Batman & the Outsiders, but those stories were 23 pages, and he was still penciling, inking, and lettering pretty much all of his work. And not too long after that, his health slowed him down a bit more.

I think maybe it's safer to say that he could do one monthly book on a regular schedule (or two bi-monthlies), but no more than that. And that he couldn't do more than one regular title on a consistent basis, but that he could if he could, on occasion, be spelled by another artist. I think you're right about the flex time being worked in; that makes sense.

I sometimes forget what a workhorse he was, in that he penciled, inked and lettered his pages for so long. No wonder I admire his work so much!

nweathington

He didn't actually break into comics until he was 32, though not for lack of trying. In the meantime, he worked in advertising illustration, and in the early ’60s he did a newspaper strip for his local paper that ran for a little less than a year. I guess he felt more comfortable doing everything himself by the time he got into comics, and he did it all well and on time, so Charlton and DC had no reason to deny him.

i_am_scifi

May 1993 was my starting point. Uncanny X-Men #300. The shiny cover pulled me in!

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61757

dubbat138

i_am_scifi said:

May 1993 was my starting point. Uncanny X-Men #300. The shiny cover pulled me in!

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61757

Wow that is the last issue of Uncanny I read. Now I feel old :'(

bats00

dubbat138 said:

i_am_scifi said:

May 1993 was my starting point. Uncanny X-Men #300. The shiny cover pulled me in!

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61757

Wow that is the last issue of Uncanny I read. Now I feel old :'(

Same here! I started with 227 and dropped it for a while with 302

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=50200

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61759

Chuck_Melville

bats00 said:

dubbat138 said:

i_am_scifi said:

May 1993 was my starting point. Uncanny X-Men #300. The shiny cover pulled me in!

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61757

Wow that is the last issue of Uncanny I read. Now I feel old :'(

Same here! I started with 227 and dropped it for a while with 302

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=50200

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61759

I quit the X-Men and all related X-books after the Inferno crossover mess, and, with the exception of company crossover events and the Morrison run, I never came back.

bats00

Chuck_Melville said:

bats00 said:

dubbat138 said:

i_am_scifi said:

May 1993 was my starting point. Uncanny X-Men #300. The shiny cover pulled me in!

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61757

Wow that is the last issue of Uncanny I read. Now I feel old :'(

Same here! I started with 227 and dropped it for a while with 302

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=50200

http://www.dcindexes.com/database/comic-details.php?site=marvel&comicid=61759

I quit the X-Men and all related X-books after the Inferno crossover mess, and, with the exception of company crossover events and the Morrison run, I never came back.

And on the opposite end, I loved Inferno. Reading all (or at least most) of the crossovers is what lead me into reading other Marvel titles besides the X-books.

peedmyself

The Evolutionary War and Inferno were my first two comics crossovers. I don't remember finding either particularly interesting, though I was pretty stoked for both beforehand. The X-men were my favourite book by that point, but eventually Claremont's writing ground me down and I moved on to Spiderman.