I Asked You About New Comics Day



Last week I asked CR readers several questions about comics. Here is one of those questions and some of the answers we received.

QUESTION ONE: Does anyone out there know the origin of New Comics Day? Specifically, I'm interested as to when it became Wednesday and why. My memory is that when I was in high school our New Comics Day was Friday, because I remember going to the comic book shop the day of football games in my jersey. At the same time, I believe my comic shop was buying from an Indianapolis comic shop rather than one of the distributors out there, so that could explain a couple of days' difference. Basically, though, I have no idea.

Tom Bondurant: Can't help you too much on this one, because the only thing I know is that it has something to do with a more efficient shipping schedule. If I remember correctly, the ship weeks were determined according to Tuesdays (so if there were five Tuesdays in a month, you'd have a "fifth-week" complication), the books arrived at the stores on Thursday evenings, and they were put on sale on Friday. I distinctly remember being at a comics shop after hours on a Thursday night in 1988 and buying the next day's books. New Comics Day was on Fridays from at least 1984 to the early '90s. It had changed to Thursdays by the time I started law school (1991), because I would have to plan out doing homework, reading the new comics, and watching Seinfeld. I want to say that NCD changed to Wednesdays not long after that (1994 or so?) because it was no longer affected by Thanksgiving.

Ty Buttars: I too remember New Comic Book Days being Fridays when I first started buying comics in 1982. The store I bought from was a convenience store but would carry DM comics and not newsstand comics. They would also have small box of (mainly X-Men) back issues... no more than 30-40 comics in that box. Too young to care then but looking back now they were probably supplied by an outside source and therefore got their books a day later. I moved in 1985 and started visiting a true DM comic book store. The shipments always came on Thursdays unless there was a US holiday. Sometime around the Image boom New Comics Day was moved back to Wednesdays. I remember the store owner telling me that this was done to offset the delay in shipment if there was a US holiday.

Dustin Harbin: Back in the '90s when I started here, "New Comics Day" was both Tuesday and Wednesday for us, although I'm not sure if there was a prescribed Wednesday "street" date. At that time we got Diamond stock on Tuesday if I remember right, and Cap City and Heroes World on Wednesday. This is all very murky, as I was just a clerk back then and had almost nothing to do with ordering or receiving, besides the dreary business of counting, counting, counting.

Brian Hibbs: I'll let someone with better detail memory than me answer the New Comics Day question -- in fact, I’d specifically ask Jim Hanley because he'd write you a good answer... But, yeah, once New Comics Day was on Friday (as well as Tuesday), so you’re not misremembering.

Sean Kleefeld: I believe New Comics Day Wednesdays came about after the collapse of Heroes World. I want to say it was a concession Diamond made to Marvel, based on Marvel's printing schedules at the time. Capital City was still a pretty reasonable competitor back then and, after Heroes World went under, Marvel had to choose to be distributed by either Diamond or CC. Diamond was willing to sweeten their offer by adjusting their delivery schedule to fit better with Marvel's printing schedule, since Marvel accounted for something like 30-40 percent of the comic market. Once Diamond had an exclusive with Marvel, they effectively had a monopoly and were able to dictate the Wednesday distribution to everybody else. Don't take that as gospel, though. I might be misremembering things a bit.

Robin McConnell: New Comics Day was Thursday when i was working in a comic store 14 or so years ago, and changed to Wednesday during the distributor crisis. When Diamond was centralizing and Marvel was douching.

Dave Rose: My understanding (from when I managed a comic book store) is that New Comics Day was changed to Wednesdays in order to take advantage of the buying patterns of customers. As most customers were coming into shops later in the week, store owners petitioned for an earlier arrival for the new comics. When they were on Fridays, there was very little time for customers to buy their new comics before the "new" wore off -- typically by the end of the weekend. However, with a Wednesday release date (Thursday in some places) retailers had three good shopping days to sell the newest comics before people started looking toward the next week's comics.

photo by Whit Spurgeon
 
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