A short follow-up on Grendel.
A couple of readers piped up in response to Monday’s post about Grendel, stating that they came across issues for sale, not in comic shops, but in drug and convenience stores way up there in the wilds of Canada. If I can tell you a secret, I too found my copy of Grendel #1, 1986 edition, in a non-comic shop environment. No, not in some strange and distant foreign land like Canada, but right here in the Good Ol’ U.S. of A., at a small newsstand a mile or three down the road from the funnybook store that would eventually become my place of employment.
Yes, it’s true, even after finally finding out about a honest-to-Kirby comic book store, I would still poke around other places to see what they had. And while I’d seen Grendel on the rack at the comic shop and passed on it, I found myself wanting something new to read, I was at this newsstand, and, well, they got my buck and a half.
Here’s a pic of the newsstand cover, with the UPC code the direct sales version lacks:
According to the Grand Comics Database, the first twelve issues of this series were distributed both through comic shops and newsstands. Which…must have been something, considering how…edgy some of the content was, to have it on the stands next to Gentle Puppy Funnies #215. …Well, okay, next to Spider-Man and Batman but you know what I mean.
Oh, and Brian tells us that Devil’s Vagary that was included in the Comico Collection was reprinted in the first Grendel Omnibus, so there you go. Thanks, Brian!
Wasn’t Comico’s move to newsstand distribution the major factor in their demise?
Does anybody know if the distribution was a regionally specific type thing or did they have nationwide distribution? I remember buying Johnny Quest #1 & 2, but for the life of me, I can’t remember if I bought it at my LCS or a grocery store*. Odd, because that’s squarely in the period of my life (13/14) where I can remember almost every purchase in minute detail.
Did they distribute in the deep South?
*Food World, how I miss you, we had some good times together, you and I!
So, yeah. I remember seeing Johnny Quest comics from Comico on the newsstand in my grocery store in Austin, Texas in the 1980s. They carried more than just Marvel and DC, but I couldn’t tell you much of what else, I just remember Comico.
I purchased Grendel #1 at the Convenient Food Mart on lower Brownsboro Rd in Louisville, KY. I’m not sure why I hadn’t already bought it at the comic shop or through the Westfield Comics mail order service. Regardless, it was a nice surprise. I remember getting Justice League #1 the same day, but that seems improbable. Then again, my memory is really specific about where I bought most of my comics.
As this is evidently now the ‘newsstand Grendel buyers thread’ page, for what it’s worth I bought the final issue of the Pander Bros’ run (#12) in a grocery store in Salem, Oregon.
You want weird newsstand comics? And Canada?
Then look no further than Melody: Story of a Nude Dancer by Sylvie Rancourt, the first autobio comic by a Canadian. Published in the 1980s this French-language comic somehow had newsstand distribution in Quebec for several issues.
Here’s a link to an article on Video Jack–as that was a topic of discussion on Progressive Ruin recently…
https://www.cbr.com/keith-giffen-video-jack-satire/
Thanks Signal Watch and Patrick Joseph. If they were in Texas and Kentucky, I guess they would have been in Alabama as well. Odd that it didn’t make a larger impression on me.
“Then again, my memory is really specific about where I bought most of my comics”
I can remember where I bought certain important (to me) records/cassettes/CDs/comics, but certainly not all of them!