First print, reprint or newsstand checker for comics
Answer what you can see on the comic. The answer says newsstand, direct, a later printing or a facsimile, and why. Where the cover does not settle it, it says so and what to check next.
Newsstand or direct
- From 1979 many comics came in two editions: a direct edition sold through comic shops and a newsstand edition sold everywhere else. Direct editions began at Marvel in 1979, DC in 1980, Harvey in 1986 and Archie in 1988.
- From then to the mid 1990s the newsstand copy had a plain barcode in the corner box. The direct copy had a picture, a logo, an empty box or a barcode with a line through it.
- From the mid 1990s both carry a barcode, and the direct copy usually says Direct Edition or Direct Sales beside it.
- A plain barcode is only a newsstand sign on a comic that also came as a direct edition. Many publishers sold mostly through comic shops with a plain barcode on every copy.
- From the mid 1980s newsstand copies were a smaller and smaller share of the print run, so on some books collectors look for them. On many it makes little difference.
Which printing
- A later printing usually says so on the cover or in the indicia, the small print inside the front cover or on the first page. That is the publisher's own word, and it wins.
- On many comics from the 1990s on, the small five-digit code beside the barcode carries the issue in its first three digits, the cover in the fourth and the printing in the fifth: 00111 is issue 1, first cover, first printing, and 00112 its second printing.
- Publishers do not always change that code for a new printing, so a 1 at the end is not proof of a first print. Dynamite and BOOM! Studios lay it out differently.
- A two-digit code beside the barcode, common in the 1980s, usually gives the cover month.
- A facsimile edition is a new printing of an old issue, cover and all. It is never the original.
How to title a later printing or a newsstand copy: the variant covers guide. Why the edition matters on a key: the key issues guide.
Point and Sell reads the barcode off each cover photo and checks the issue number against it; the printing and edition go in the Variant box, which is yours. Start free.