For one brief, shining moment in August 1971, Marvel changed their comics to 48 pages and raised their price to 25-cents. And the books, for the most part, featured NEW, double-sized stories of around 34 pages. DC Comics had raised their price and page-count a couple of months earlier, but used reprints from their extensive library to fill out their books. But Marvel’s changeover lasted only one month. The books the following month were priced at 20 cents for 32 pages, leaving DC holding the bag with a higher-priced product for almost a year to come.
“Marvel vs. DC: The 25 Cents War” looks at this one magical Marvel month and explores how this “master plan” of publisher Martin Goodman resulted in his company eventually winning the comic industry’s sales and market share war, by offering a better deal to wholesalers, retailers, and us comics-loving readers. But was this his plan all along or just a lucky opportunity Goodman took advantage of, in his final years as Marvel’s publisher?
Plus, there’s another big change for Marvel in August 1971, the tenth anniversary of Fantastic Four number 1: A new cover format, and I talk about my first-ever experience at a comic book convention, Phil Seuling’s New York Comic Art Convention in July of that year.
Best of all, you don’t even need a quarter to watch this brand new episode … it’s free! What a deal!
Here’s the video. Click on it to watch it on the official Tales From My Spinner Rack! channel on YouTube, where new videos appear a day before they’re posted here.
Tales From My Spinner Rack! Episode 22: Marvel vs DC—The 25 Cents War!
Click here for more than 30 Tales From My Spinner Rack! posts featuring nostalgic essays loaded with art and info about the comics I loved growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s! Scroll down to see the original posts, which started in January 2023.
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