Interested in comics history? If you’re reading this blog, you should be — and Jim McLauchlin of the Hero Initiative has something in store for you.
Reprinting an article he wrote for Wizard, McLauchlin posted about Phil Seuling. Don’t know how he is? An unsung hero, Seuling was an early comic con adopter, as well as the founder of Seagate Distribution — the original comics distribution system.
Here’s an excerpt:
There were precious few “comic stores” in the early ’70s, maybe 20 or 30 nationwide. Seuling knew there could be more. He had dealers at his conventions who dealt extensively in comics. Their problem was distribution—getting new books they needed, at a decent price. Under the newsstand distribution model of the times, comics and magazines came bundled in odd assortments, and were sold to retailers at 20% off of cover price, a low margin of profit. Retailers had the cushion of returnibility, and they needed it—no one wanted last week’s Newsweek. It was birdcage liner at best.
Not so in the burgeoning comics market. Hell, when Superman #206 came out, you wanted extra copies of Superman #205. The back-issue business was exploding, and plenty of retailers could do great in comics if they could get ready access to them. The publishers’ eyes just needed to be opened to the possibility. Enter a now 17-year-old “house fan”-slash-assistant editor at DC, Paul Levitz.
“I happened to be present at DC the day he came in and pitched it,” Levitz remembers. “[Then DC Vice-President] Sol Harrison came up to me after the meeting and said, ‘Phil has this idea for selling comics straight to the comic shops. Do you think that’s a good idea?’ I didn’t know enough to vouch for the idea, but I could vouch for Phil as a person. The comic shops were all trying to figure out how to get new comics through the newsstand distributors through very imperfect methods. So they were really used comic shops as opposed to new comic shops. It was Phil’s system that tipped that over, opened that door.”
Taking a good look at the man, the myth, the rise and the fall of Phil Seuling, this article should not be missed. Take a look at the rest of Jim’s article by clicking here.
