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We have the UK Price Cover in the database


We have the Canadian Price Cover in the data base


We have the US Price Cover (not presently welcome in the database)

Then we have the Triple Price Cover in the database which offers all 3 prices.


Anyone have a UK Cover Price Thing cover scan so we can have a complete set?

There were no pence covers for that era of The Thing issues (great old reads, by the way).

I finished reading our set a couple months ago and Ellen's almost done right now. I was kinda thinking a UK cover and Canadian cover to give her a complet set would make a nice stocking stuffer since I have the other two. So apparently Curtis did offer distribution into the UK in the recent past but had stopped at that point to allow the direct distribution generic covers to handle the remaining demand overseas while still offering distinct and seperate covers for the US market and Canadian market. Still feels a little unpatriotic not to validate US Cover pricing though when the others have been allowed. You'd think whatever the guideline that validates the two would also validate the 3rd.

Found another one working my way back in time.
US Price Cover, distributed by Curtis sold in the US



Canadian Price Cover, distributed by Curtis and sold in Canada


Triple Price Cover (BIG M/Spidey Head) distributed directly into Canada, UK and the US and sold at all 3 prices or any of the 3 prices since we really don't know for sure which or even which country it originally sold in.




Any UK cover for this one or we need to go back further to get to the point Curtis stopped printing distinct UK price covers?

Marvel stopped printing UK only price covers as of December 1981.

Thank you.

US Price Cover (Distributed by Curtis)


Canadian Price Cover (Distributed by Curtis)



Double Price Big M/Spidey Head


Is it safe to assume that since this collection of reprinted material doesn't have a Triple Price Cover that it wasn't offered in the UK?

At first, I thought this cover might date from before when Marvel began putting US, Canadian, and UK prices all on the same cover. A quick check of other comics published with Feb. 1984 dates convinced me that that's not the case.

I did notice an interesting pattern, though. At this time, Marvel was putting out quite a few reprint comics intended primarily for the US direct market. Examples in Feb. 1984 include: Captain America Special Edition #1, Elektra Saga #1, Micronauts Special Edition #3, and X-Men Classics #3 (a different series from the one that began as Classic X-Men and reprinted the 1970s New X-Men beginning with Giant-Size X-Men #1). Each of these issues bore US and Canadian prices, but not UK prices, whereas the regularly scheduled, monthly and bimonthly color comics each had all three prices on their direct versions. Odd.

Even more odd is the issue you cite. Unlike each of the issues listed in the preceding paragraph, this issue was distributed via newsstand AND direct distribution.

I'm not sure what it all means, but it's an interesting case.

Different publisher but I noticed that this Double Price Cover actually says "Not for Sale In The UK".

Any weird law at work here keeping the Marvel and DC Double Price Covers out of the UK?

Perhaps the UK has laws against horror comics?

Note that the comic is an adapted work, almost certainly under license from author Clive Barker. My guess would be that the license was specified for US and Canada (or perhaps for North America). Perhaps Barker had already licensed UK rights, or perhaps he was hoping to strike a separate deal for those rights later.

Perhaps the UK has laws against horror comics?[/quote]

I'm pretty sure you're right about that Pat. I remember reading about laws in the UK regulating Horror comics. Perhaps one of our Horror or UK experts would know more.

Good guess Scott. From the USPS International Mail Manual:

Now that sounds like a why and a how do they define which comics are horror comics explanation I'd like to read some time. If they interpretted that vaguely enough it'd keep a good chunk of the comics availible out of the country. Nightcrawler looks like a demon, Storm battled Dracula with the X-Men, the Avengers had runins with Frankenstein, a witch on the team, then there are entire comics based on flaming ghosts and werewolves by night. It sounds like by the 80's they'd be down to maybe just Power Pack left on the rack.

Any trick for determining wether it's US Cover Price, UK Cover Price or Canadian Cover Price when the little corner with the price is missing?

I think its a no price variant.

On an issue that old, I'd be very surprised to learn that a UK price variant or a Canadian price variant existed.

Marvels with UK prices were produced in the Silver and early Bronze Age. Here's one example from my store:

Sorry, UK Cover Price and US Cover Price are already in the database with that issue. I'm assuming the Canadian Cover Price was lurking around waiting to get added one day.

Here's the database image for the UK Cover Price.



and the US Cover Price image from the database.


I was just hoping there was some easy way to identify them other than what's in the one little corner at the top right so I could be sure which I had. Maybe different advertising for each country which it would seem country specific targetted advertising would have made sense.

Hopefully one day I can get a full set of at least one issue to compare all 3 types internally.

There were no Canadian priced covers in the sixties. Or seventies. They were produced only during the early to mid 1980s.