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Power Pack #1 Newsstand Edition is outselling Power Pack #1 Direct Edition for the last week in price but the Direct edition is outselling in terms of quantity.

I was under the impression that until about 1991 Newsstand Editions thru Curtis substantially outnumbered early Direct editions.

I'm looking thru my Power Packs and actually finding more Directs than Newsstands and this is for a 1984 series.

I can't find any of those little boxes that show production numbers for postal compliance once a year in the first 20 issues.

I did find this in #18.


It's implying that direct market at that time was much larger than I've been lead to believe. It also implies the Direct Editions aren't required to be Comics Code Authority compliant which about this time DC started marketing Legion and Titans books directly to stores without a newsstand copy to have been inspected and approved of by the CCA.

Is there any accurate reference for numbers for the 80's?

Absolutely! Numbers

The rough idea is that newsstands made up the majority of distribution in the late 70's and early 80's. Things were kind of even for the rest of the 80's between newsstands and directs. Newsstand distribution began shrinking in the early 90's. You could call newsstand versions "rare" by the early to mid 2000's.

Keep in mind Power Pack went to direct sales only as of issue #26, although there is a strange anomaly of #40 with and without a newsstand-style barcode. I started a thread about it here a long time ago. The speculation was that Marvel was experimenting with different distribution channels at the time, and not thru Curtis.

Also, the Statements of Circulation are no help in determining newsstand vs direct copies sold. While it does say how many copies were returned from Newsagents (newsstand copies), it doesn't seperate how many sold copies are directs and newsstands.