Now where were we? Oh yes, we were talking about Silver Age comics, I believe.
Welcome back, my friends, to the show that had a remarkable interruption (I know that’s true, because many of you remarked on it to me). I hope everyone finds their way back here again shortly. You can post threads again, although it may take a little practice to work the new system. I’m sure we’ll figure it out.
While everyone regroups, here’s something to check out: A comics vending machine!
No, not a real one, sadly, but an artistic fake, concocted by the sports department of the Chicago Tribune for its traditionally unfunny funny page, called Smack! Yep, that’s how funny it traditionally is.
Lance Brigg's Imaginary comics vending machine
The premise was that the Wm. Wrigley Co. presented Bulls star Derrick Rose with a Skittles vending machine after he revealed he loves the stuff. So the Tribune created vending machines for four other local sports stars based on their known faves. Bulls center Joakim Noah’s was stocked with cologne, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen’s was stocked with swear words, and Cub’s pitcher Carols Zambrano’s was stocked with Gatorade (but it was out of order, because he breaks things).
And Bear’s linebacker Lance Brigg’s machine was stocked with comic books.
He’s a big comics fan, and there have been articles about his favorites (which are what you’d expect, especially for a football star: X-Men, Wolverine, etc.). He even runs a comic-book Web site, href="http://http://www.lancescomicworld.com/". I don’t know who selected the six choices in the machine (maybe it was Briggs himself). But it’s a pretty eclectic group, especially for just a cheesy joke like this.
Recognize them? They are (l-r, top row first): ASM #100 (woo!), Invincible Iron Man #29 (Jul 08), The Incredible Hulk #181, then Batman (any guesses?), Superman (vol. 2) #123 (May 97), and X-Men (any guesses?).
The border is even more fascinating. Among its choices are Marvel Comics #1, Human Torch #16, AF #15, Silver Surfer #14, Thor #337, Captain America #193, ASM #316, a Daredevil issue I should recognize but don’t, and several other GA Marvels across the top. That was a lot of random work to pull those out just for that tiny image!
It’s a heckuva lot of Marvel comics, and I seriously doubt Briggs has many of those, especially from the border, in his collection. But I wouldn’t mind having that machine in my house, that’s for sure.
The Magazine
Is there a way for us to generate our own threads with your section, Mr. Age, as we were able to do back in CBGxtra’s “good ol’ days”? I’d prefer that the Mr. Age section get all the traffic, rather than posting it to the generic “Comic Books” section in the Forums section.
The threads post to the section you designate. I forgot to do that initially with this one, so I had to go back in and put it in my Forum.
I imagine it’ll take a little practice to get all the details down. Fortunately, there’s an editing function, so we can correct our mistakes as we go.
It’d be good for the AMSA threads to be grouped in the AMSA Forum, certainly, but I’m not sure how we tell how much traffic there is anywhere with this setup. I’m not sure it matters, although it definitely would be good to be able to come to the site and see everywhere that has new posts, as the boldfacing used to do, rather than having to click on every single item in the pull-down menus. Hopefully they can work on that.
I am happy to say that we get e-mails alerting us when someone posts, as I got yours. I don’t know if that’s a default somewhere, as I don’t see it right off, but I’m glad it’s there.
– MSA
Also, I don’t see a way for us to edit our comments. Like in the comment above, I noticed that I’d written “posts” when I really meant “threads.” I attempted to make the correction before the post went out, but I got this cryptic message that I’ve never seen anywhere before, on any website:
“You are posting comments too quickly. Slow down.”
Considering how little ANY of us have posted over the past month, that statement struck me as more than a bit ironic.
And how would we post images, were we so inclined to want to do so? My choices as a replier to your posts are rather limited: I can reply via text (but not too quickly, or I’ll get yelled at), or I can choose to do nothing. Those are my choices.
We may need Brent and the webmeisters to lead us through that stuff. I found the interface for creating threads pretty easy, but I’m a moderator, so I may have more control (mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha). As in, I fixed the error you mentioned in your earlier post in a couple seconds.
Maybe you need to log in? If you didn’t, you may still be accessing it without all the bells and whistles that a logged-in person should get. If you did log in, we’ll have to call on Brent. Even I don’t see a way for later posters to add pix, which would be a drawback to our discussions, for sure. It might be there, but I’m not seeing it right off.
Oh, and I’m hoping the notion that you’re posting too fast is just a glitch as things start up. It seems to be a bit sluggish, but I’m willing to give it a few days to see. Because if you were having problems with a reply post like that, I can just imagine what a few others will run into!
– MSA
Okay, since I’m apparently the first person to have actually posted to the new Forums section, I’ll explain what I went through. When I clicked on the link on the home page to the Forums, I got a message telling me I had to log in, or in this case, register since apparently my old log-in name and password didn’t come along for the reboot ride. That spooked me right away because I’m thinking there are probably a lot of people who would just like to read posts without having to actually log in first. But I plan to post, so I re-registered. Danger alert # 2: In the process of registering, you have to click on a box that says, “I agree to let CBGxtra send me its e-newsletter and promotions, as well as to let their advertisers spam me with their promotions, too” or words to that effect. I’m thinking there will be a lot of people who won’t stand for that kind of nonsense. I went along with it, assuming that I’ll be able to opt-out of receiving that promotional junk since all publishers are required by law to allow you to opt-out.
Anyways, so I finally got into the Forums section, but didn’t find the “Ask Mr. Age” section as one of the Forums or even one of the sub-Forums, so I posted my initial message within the generic “Comic Books” section. It had a lot of bells and whistles, and I tried to post an image just to see how easy it would be to do so; it wasn’t very easy. The image I chose, one that I had downloaded from the GCBD and saved to my hard drive and had posted previously to the old Forum, was apparently now too big for the new Forum. So I didn’t bother with it, since it would’ve taken more time than it was worth just for an experiment.
But if we could get the Ask Mr. Age section to have the same functionality that the new Forum now has, we’d at least be on the pathway to restoring what we used to have.
So the short answer is: Yeah, you *have* to be logged in or you can’t do a thing on this new Forum, but no, I can’t start any new threads in the new Mr. Age section. At least, not at this writing.
Beta-testing is always a pain. No question, if only Columnists can post in the Columnist section, then they’ll either have to change that or set up an AMSA or “Comics History” section in the News section. Other people do need to be able to post threads to AMSA (and it’s always struck me a little odd that a comic book site had one section called “Comic Books.” I’d think that could be broken down more than that.)
#When I clicked on the link on the home page to the Forums, I got a message telling me I had to log in#
Did you have to log in to progress past that page at all? That wouldn’t be a good way to do it, for sure. I’ll log out and see once I post this.
#I went along with it, assuming that I’ll be able to opt-out of receiving that promotional junk since all publishers are required by law to allow you to opt-out.#
There must be one or they forgot to add it in. That would be a deal-breaker for some people, I’m sure, not to mention against the law.
#I didn’t find the “Ask Mr. Age” section as one of the Forums or even one of the sub-Forums#
That’s because it’s in the Columnist section. But if it’s designed so only Columnists can post in that section, then we’ll either have to find a way to change that or set up a AMSA or “Comics History” section in the regular Forums.
#so I posted my initial message within the generic “Comic Books” section.#
And yet, I don’t see it there, even though I see it in the Forums listing (which do have posts and view counts) and got an e-mail that you had posted. So I don’t know what’s happening.
I do know that, as Andy found, if you use a series of open brackets for quotes, they all run together and DELETE all of the comments in between! That happened to me here and I had to start over. Grrr. It may have something to do with the bracket and the next letter, as there were a number of “I” comments. I’m going to try # and see if it works better.
#So the short answer is: Yeah, you *have* to be logged in or you can’t do a thing on this new Forum#
By “can’t do a thing” do you mean even view posts. That would be pretty restrictive and not helpful. I’ll log out and see what you mean.
– MSA
Yeah, I couldn’t get into the Forums section at all until I logged in. I think people can probably read the Columnists’ posts and the News posts without logging in, but on my initial foray into the Forums, I had to log in first. It could be that there wasn’t anything to see there anyways since apparently I was the very first person to post to the Forum, so maybe I had to officially “open” the Forums up. I dunno. I’m just glad I didn’t try to open it up too quickly!
OK, taking it from the top (and some of this information will repeat in a couple of other threads so that I get the message out):
You don’t have to register to view content in the forums, but you do have to register to post in the forums or reply to a forum post.
We’re adding a forum area for forumites to post questions for our columnists and that should be up very shortly.
And, yes, we’ve also noticed that site, especially the forums area, is slow today (Tuesday, Sept. 7). Best theory is that everyone’s back at work after a three-day weekend and Internet traffic is way up, causing the slowdown. We’ll keep an eye on it.
I actually did see a vending machinewith comics sometime during the Silver Age,which has come up here before
(I am WaldoPEmersonJones)
In about 1966 I and my family were taking a certrip,round the Federal Hi-Ways around Maryland/Northern Virginia/D.C. In a rest stop I remember seeing a DC-comic book,inside a vending machine a copy of WORLD’S FINEST selling for 15c!
I believe it was a multi-level vending machine,with the Funny Books only on one level The 15c price put me off
I don’t believe it was in any way a variant edition,Ibelieve it still bore the 12c tariff,it was just costing 15c to get it out of the vf
I suppose that the greater expense of a vending machine,the greater expense of things at highwway rest stops especially Federal,and vf professionals’ unwillingness to deal with pennies all contributed to the Larger Price!
I still remember it however…
The idea of selling comics as one part of multiple things in a vending machine is an interesting concept. Even today, some motels have machines that sell combs, Kleenex, etc.as individual items in the machine. I can’t imagine how a machine could be stocked to sell comics on one level, though, as that would take some doing to secure them and drop them, and it would take up more space than other 15-cent items, making them less popular (unless they sold really well). What else was in the machine?
I’ve long suspected that SA comics I come across that have little white “15cent” stickers on them were sold in some kind of vending machine. As you say, they might be able to deal in various combinations of dimes and nickels, but they weren’t going to deal in pennies, so the 12-cent comics got boosted to 15. But I’ve never seen such a machine or heard of anyone who got any like that. Your experience is as close as I’ve heard where those came from.
– MSA
I’m looking into how to add pictures to replies. If I could, I’d show you the pictures that Jamie Graham of Graham Crackers Comics sent me earlier this year of the comics vending machines he’s acquired.
He keeps finding these wonderful toys, including wooden Dell comics and magazine racks, a DC comics rack, and more. It’s pretty cool.
I think Walter/Waldo/ELP is mis-remembering. The comic book vending machines I remember from the mid-1960s had a little arm-like knob with two round notches on either side — you put a dime in one side, and two pennies on the other. You pushed the knob all the way into the machine, then pulled it out, and voila, a comic book would slide out the bottom. These machines sold comics, and only comics, and all were priced at 12 cents (so no 80-PAGE Giants or other higher priced titles were sold there). When comics went to 15 cents in the late 1960s, the machines were re-engineered to accept a dime and a nickel. That lasted until 1971, when DC and Marvel started playing around with the prices of their comics, and the vending machines sadly slipped into their cave and were seen no more.
comic machines– yes they exsisted. the ones from the 60s had those little knobs and were few and very far inbetween. i only saw two, one in tenn. and one in mississippi. BUT the one i remember most was from the 70s. 1971 specificly. it was a tall two comics side by side and 10 or 12 comics high.you put your coins in the slot next to the comic you wanted and the slotted rod would turn and allow the comic to fall to the bottom were you would retrieve it. it only had dcs and marvels. each comic was full cover displayed however that row did not contain the same issue. the machine lasted about six months. i guess mike gold and i are the only ones who remember these. Craig re: you 15cent stickers- most of those( maybe all in the chicago area) came from the greyhound bus station. some how they would get their comics 3 or 4 days before the newsstands and they would put the sticker on at the station themselves before racking them.
I bought a number of comics from the vending machines which existed during the 12 cent era, including three which were side-by-side in the supermarket located between my home and my junior high school. This was in West Allis, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. The machines were about 6 feet high, brown on the sides, with plexiglass through which you could see the top book in each row of books. They were set on a screw-type spindle, so that when you put your dime and two pennies into the slots on the right of the row you wanted, and pushed in the red handle, the spindle would rotate, releasing the top book (and every once in a while, the one behind it).
They were most often found in Milwaukee area discount department stores known as Atlantic Mills or Arlan’s, with about ten machines in a row, a true collector’s paradise. It was really weird in that some books would be a month or two old, and others wouldn’t be available at the local drug store for a couple of weeks at a time. You could see a small portion of the book behind the front one, which often led me and my collecting friend Jeff to buy the top book if we didn’t recognize the one behind it, but thought we could make out the character, title or artist as a book we hadn’t seen yet. Sometimes that led to buying Our Army at War, thinking we’d get a Challengers of the Unknown underneath, only to discover that Bob Brown had betrayed us by illustrating the cover to a My Greatest Adventure (pre-Doom Patrol).
I recall only DC’s and Marvels being in the machines, and the time frame had to be between around 1964, when Jeff and I attended Horace Mann Junior High. I also saw a row of machines in a discount store southeast of Chicago, probably just into Indiana, during a family vacation. I know with certainty that we bought the 38th issue of Justice League of America, with “Crisis on Earth A,” from that machine, and that’s a September 1965 issue. I’m also pretty sure I got Strange Tales #130 cover dated March 1965 from the local machine at Van’s Super Market. Hard to forget those Beatle haircuts on The Thing and the Torch.
Those were good memories, other than getting stuck with the Our Army at War due to Bob Brown’s deceitful perfidy.
I suppose the 1966 machine I remember may have had 15c stickers on the merchandise (I did not see it either close up or in action) and it may have had a Superman,say,not WF-remssr’s rememberance of an early “sticker-type of retail outlet” split is VERRYY INTERSSTINGG and predates the comics shop-newsstand split considerably!
I know that Gold Key actually put out 15c Canadian editions during the silver age with,furthermore,slightly different interior content,the True North may be a source of many 15c stickers!
Dave Blanchard appears to remember another type of machine entirely one furthermore which he had far more intercourse with than I with my memory. Fine.
I still know what I remember It may have been the type,yes.of machine that,fitted otherwise,ooohhh may sell razor-blade packages and tiny Kleenex packages,just for one I suppose it must have dumped the comic you bought right into the mercandise picking-up trough.
Ohand I abbreviated “vending machine” incorrectly in my09/9 post. Can’t correct here anymore it seems!
Actually,pretty much a fair exchange for links-posting…:-)
You can’t edit your own posts? That’s something Brent needs to put on the list to fix. I can edit them, but I don’t usually do that unless something is drastically confusing.
remssr said: it was a tall two comics side by side and 10 or 12 comics high.
That would be the weirdest looking vending machine I’ve ever seen, had I seen one. Can that be right? Did the comics overlap? If not, comics are about 10 inches tall. The vending section for the comics, without any dispensing area, legs, etc., and not even accounting for the racking equipment needed between each row, would be at least 10 feet tall! And at two comics wide, it could be two feet wide. I am skeptical.
The Greyhound source for 15-cent stickers is interesting to know. Did you see those there? I live in Chicago, but all the comics I’ve ever seen with them came from dealers at cons, and I’m not sure they were Chicago dealers, so that could be coincidence, but maybe not.
It would make sense, as the bus station would have a fairly captive audience that would pay the extra money rather than go without. It makes more sense than some drugstore trying it.
– MSA
Assuming the vending machines remser saw were the same I used, and it sounds like it did, the machine was about 6 feet tall, and several inches wider than the length of a comic. They were placed on the spindles on the left edge (i.e., the spine), and tilted back at about a 20-25 degree angle from straight up. That allowed the books to fit underneath the spindle above, while still making the cover fully visible. To load the books the delivery guy would unlock the front with the plexiglass and restock the rows which were empty or low in number of issues, collect the dimes and pennies from the drawer at the lower right, then lock it up again for those of us salivating to see what was being released ahead of schedule. On the occasion where I was present when the machines were being restocked, the delivery guy totally ignored our pleas to put Justice League of America or Spider-man as the top book. Nothing like torturing junior high schoolers.
I think I’ve seen photos of a second one, but the only one that I know I’ve seen for sure is this one that popped up at a con earlier this year. The seller says it came from an ice-cream shop in Kansas City.
There obviously were other ones, as this doesn’t fit the descriptions being given. I have to say, the notion of a bunch of these together in a row is a really interesting idea, as I wouldn’t think a vending-machine company would use that many in one place. But, of course, sales would depend a fair amount to kids on which comic was in the first position, so maybe it paid off.
I sure wish I’d seen some of these! I can almost guarantee they did not escape my notice.
– MSA
It looks very similar, other than the blue and green paint job, and the fact it was a double delivery machine. My recollection is that they were separate unto themselves, but the red handles on the right and the collection box on the lower right, as well as the appearance of the spindles look the same. I don’t recall what it looked like when a row was empty, so I can’t comment on the wire support which would have been behind the books. It’s certainly possible that it was the same manufacturer.
From left field–anyone remember the dread day when you found out that the price had risen two cents? My brother Ted and I were collecting together, and we decided to revisit if we would collect all of the same titles. The two we debated were Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane, and we decided we’d get the next issues at the exorbitantly high price, and if we liked that issue we’d keep collecting. Jeepers, Jimmy made the cut, but Lois got the axe. Now I’m still trying to pick up issues I had before that fateful decision.