| Posted: 05 May 2026 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | 5
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I just confirmed my suspicion that the sale dates on mikesamazingworld.com are off by a couple of weeks. I knew something had to be off when it said that ALPHA FLIGHT#29 went on sale the first week of September. It also said that OHOTMUDE #1 went on sale on August 27 - which I knew had to be wrong because my sister was born on August 11 that year, and I distinctly remember going to see my mom and her in the hospital with that issue in hand. Also, comics hit the direct market shops on Friday back then.
So, I went looking on comics.org. There, it says that OHOTMUDE #1 went on sale on August 9th, which exactly lines up with my memories - that's a Friday and it came out days before my sister was born. So to anyone who obsessed over such things (like me!), comics.org seems to have their sale dates exactly right.*
I bet mikesamazingworld is reporting newsstand sale dates, because they always got their comics a couple of weeks to a month after the direct market - I took advantage of that when the death of Jason Todd happened by phone poll. It sold out quickly in the local comic shop, so I just waited to buy it at the newsstand, knowing ahead of time the outcome. I had assumed that newsstand editions were worth less due to this trick, plus the UPC symbol being unsightly. But lately I've been reading that the newsstand editions are worth more because a large percentage of them were returned to the distributor and had less in circulation.
My obsessive eye detects that these are newsstand editions in this scene - I don't see the disctintive "M" that Marvel used for the price and issue number on their direct market covers at the time. So this scene was very likely shot when I originally assumed as the last week of August, 1985.
The more you know!
*This also explains why AVENGERS ANNUAL#14 flew under my radar. Since the cover was by Kerry Gammill, I never picked it up in the shop to realize that JB had done the breakdowns inside. And since it came out in the summer, I didn't find out about this until months later when one of the kids in school brought it in, and I was shocked to see the interiors with Kyle Baker finishes. I remember being in 8th grade math class when I first laid eyes on it. And since it was an "extra" book, I didn't have enough money to buy it on my own. I wish I could have told 12-year-old me that one day I would own a page of this $1.25 comic that I could not afford!
Edited by Vinny Valenti on 05 May 2026 at 1:07pm
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