"...And Ten Benson" - Grant Morrison comics in UK Newsagents

Most comic book fans with any interest at all in How The Sausage Is Made are, by now, aware in some capacity of the difference between ‘Direct Sales’ and ‘Newsstand’ copies of their favourite funny books.  Briefly, between the late 1970’s and the early 2010’s, DC, Marvel and a handful of their smaller competitors produced two slightly different versions of their comic books for sale in the US – one for comic shops, sold-in on a firm sale basis; and one for the mass market newsstands where unsold copies could be returned by the retailer for a credit.  Unsold copies of the newsstand versions were either destroyed, shipped out to foreign markets like South Africa or Singapore, or illegally sold by the truckload to Chuck Rozanski of Mile High Comics.  Consequently, they’ve often become significantly harder to find in the US than their ‘Direct Sales’ equivalent, especially in half-decent condition.

The differences between the Direct Sale and newsstand copies are, in the vast majority of cases, limited to the contents of the corner box on the cover.  For DC, between the late 70’s and 1993, newsstand copies have a barcode printed on the cover; Direct Sales copies do not – instead the corner box might say “DC - Where Legends Live”, have a Bat symbol, or list that issue’s creative team.  From 1993, both copies have a barcode, but they’re different – the Direct Sales barcode contains publisher and title codes, the issue number, the cover number (whether the issue has any variants or not) and the printing.  So a Direct Sales barcode that ends 00111 indicates that this particular book is number #1 in a series, that it carries the main cover, and that it's a first print.

Newsstand barcodes only show a code specifying the publisher (070992 for DC), another code for which title the book belongs to (305551 for JLA), and the cover month (01 for January).  There are some exceptions to this (eg JLA #10-13 have what appear to be week numbers rather than months as the last two numbers in the barcode), but this is generally how it works in most cases.

Here in Fascist Britain, newsstand copies were (generally speaking, there are some exceptions that fall outside of the scope of this article), not distributed.  At all.  Both comic shops and the mass market newsagents like WH Smith, Menzies, Forbouys, etc. sold US Direct Sales editions.

One big advantage the UK had over the US in this period was that, here in the UK, we got (almost) everything, everywhere.  Growing up in Nothingsville, England, miles away from the nearest comic shop, I could buy Direct Sales only books, Vertigo books, prestige format books, everything, from any number of local newsagents.  Consequently, I think the unique damage that comic books inflicted on my particular generation is subtly different between Folks of a Certain Age on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

I could, as you might imagine, talk about this shit all day, but you’re here to read about Grant Morrison comics right??  So, here’s a survey of Grant Morrison comic books from 1988-1999, published in the USA but sold in the UK to any little bleeder who wanted them – Suggested for Mature Readers be damned – by their friendly neighbourhood corner shop.

ANIMAL MAN #1-26

A Direct Sale-only book in the US, all issues of Animal Man had a UK printed price on the cover and were widely distributed to newsagents up and down the land.  Animal Man didn’t actually get a ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’ label until Jamie Delano came on board as writer with issue #51 in 1992, but, in my experience, it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference even if it had been on there since issue #1 – these things would still have been (and were) racked with the Batman and Spider-Man books on the kids’ comics shelves of WH Smith.

DOOM PATROL #19-63, DOOM FORCE SPECIAL #1

Direct Sales-only in the US.  Like Legends of the Dark Knight, it may also have been available in WaldenBooks and similar chain bookstores.  UK printed price on all issues (including oversized #50 and Doom Force #1), widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’ from issue #37.

SECRET ORIGINS #39, 46, 50

#39 and 46 have a UK printed price and were widely distributed.  The 100-page final issue #50 doesn’t have a UK printed price.  I’ve never seen a copy with a distributor's price sticker, but looking at preponderance of copies of this on UK eBay with damaged covers I’m almost certain this was distributed to UK newsagents, likely with a ‘£2.00’ or ‘£2.00P’ price gun sticker on the front cover.

HELLBLAZER #25, 26

Direct Sales-only in the US.  UK printed price, widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #6-10

Direct Sales-only in the US (copies with a barcode sticker were sold in Waldenbooks).  No UK printed price.  These were distributed to UK newsagents with a ‘£1.00’ or ‘£1.00P’ price gun sticker on the front cover.

KID ETERNITY #1-3

Direct Sales-only in the US, $4.95 prestige format.  No UK printed price.  These were distributed to UK newsagents with a ‘£2.80’ or ‘£2.80P’ price gun sticker on the front cover (knocking on the door of £7 an issue in 2024 money).  It took me years to find one of these with a distributor price sticker on it.  One of the problems with trying to ascertain whether a given Prestige Format book was distributed to UK newsagents or not 30+ years after the fact is that the price stickers were much easier to remove from the nicer cover stock without damaging it, so most people did.

WHO’S WHO IN THE DC UNIVERSE 1993 UPDATE #2

Direct Sales-only in the US.  As far as I remember these oversized, polybagged, loose leaf oddities were not available outside of specialist comic shops in the UK.  At $5.95 a throw in 1993 dollars (equivalent to $13 in 2024!), I’d guess  these were looked at as too expensive (and physically too big) to have any legs in the UK mass market.

SEBASTIAN O #1-3

Direct Sales-only in the US.  UK printed price, widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’

SWAMP THING #140-143

Direct Sales-only in the US.  UK printed price, widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’

VERTIGO RAVE #1

Direct Sales-only in the US.  UK printed price suggests this was widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’

THE INVISIBLES VOL. 1 #1-25

Direct Sales-only in the US.  UK printed price #1-14, widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’. 

DC stopped printing the UK cover price on their books in late 1995.  According to contemporaneous reports in UK trade paper Comics International, this was somehow tied to the exclusive direct market distribution agreement that DC had reached with Diamond earlier in the year.  The last batch of books with a printed UK cover price were cover dated November 1995 (with a small handful of stragglers in December), but distribution into the UK mass market continued on selected titles - all carrying some sort of distributor-applied price sticker - until late 1999.

The Invisibles Vol. 1 issues #15 to 21 were distributed to newsagents with a ‘£1.50’ price gun sticker on the cover, as applied by the distributor.  Direct market copies of issue #19 were polybagged with a copy of the Loaded promotional comic.  UK newsagent copies were not polybagged - whether these were opened by the distributor or if these copies were never bagged is unknown.  Issues #22-25 had a small, printed price sticker - ‘£1.50’ in red text.

VERTIGO VOICES: KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND

Direct Sales-only in the US.  UK printed price suggests this was widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’. 

SKRULL KILL KREW #1-5

Currently unknown, but I’d guess this is an extremely unlikely candidate for UK distribution.  Direct Sales-only in the US.  No printed UK price.

Moore Harness/Portmans, DC’s UK newsagent distributor, also distributed Marvel Comics until late 1990, when Comag took over.  Comag’s UK distribution 'strategy' for Marvel is all over the map throughout the 90’s – some books came over as newsstand copies with printed UK prices, some as Direct Editions with a price gun sticker; some copies had massive barcode stickers haphazardly stuck on the cover, often when the comic itself had the same price printed on it; titles pop in and out of distribution seemingly at random – honestly, it’s a hot mess.  Though Comag continued to distribute Marvel comics to newsagents as late as 1998, the books they were handling were nowhere near Marvel’s full slate.  

Bearing all that in mind, I’d be very surprised if Skrull Kill Krew, a book Marvel basically cancelled before it was published, made it to widespread distribution in the UK.

(Update via ancient copies of Comics International - Unlike DC's distributor, who offered the full range of DC's books to any newsagent that wanted to take them, Marvel comics were, with few exceptions, sold into UK newsagents as bundles based on cover price.  As such, higher priced titles like Skrull Kill Krew (a $2.95 book) would not have been available) 

FLEX MENTALLO, MAN OF MUSCLE MYSTERY #1-4

Direct Sales-only in the US.  No printed UK price.  ‘£1.50’ price gun sticker on issue #1, small, printed ‘£1.50’ price sticker on issues #2-4.  Widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’. 

AZTEK THE ULTIMATE MAN #1-10

Direct Sales-only in the US.  No printed UK price.  Small, printed ‘£1.25’ price sticker on issues #1-10.  Widely distributed.  Some issues of Aztek left in the UK distributor's warehouse when distribution ended were remaindered to newsagents, discount bookstores, and possibly other channels as well.  These often have either a large yellow 99p barcode sticker, or a large white ‘2 DC Comics for Only 99p’ sticker. 

I’ve never seen any remaindered Morrison-written books that predate Aztek, but odd copies of other DC book going back to the early 90’s are out there.

JLA #1-33

JLA was available via the Direct Market and on newsstands in the US.  No printed UK price.  

Per Comics International (it's that mag again...), JLA was not distributed to UK newsagents through at least early 1997.  This was as a result of some consulting work that Dez Skinn - Comics International's editor - had done for the distributor back in 1995, when the range reduced to bestsellers only.  "Nothing with Justice in the title sells", sez Dez, so Morrison's relaunch was not picked up for distribution until - at the earliest - issue #8 or 9.  Theoretically, these would have small, printed ‘£1.25’ price stickers if they were distributed in the UK.  After considerable time spent looking, I’ve found one stickered copy apiece of #9 and #10, and none of #8, so best guess at the moment is that distribution started with issue #9.

Issues #11-33 (or most of them, possibly) were distributed with large hard to remove barcode stickers affixed to the front cover.  JLA #33, cover dated September 1999, appears to be amongst the last batch of DC comics distributed in the mass market in the UK.  Neither #33 or #32 were written by Grant Morrison, making the July 1999 cover-dated issue #31 the last Morrison-penned issue of JLA – and their last DC comic full stop - to receive UK newsagent distribution (in its original form - Morrison's Batman and All Star Superman were reprinted in comics specifically printed for the UK market by Panini and Titan).  Some issues (eg the double-sized $2.95 issue #15) may not have been distributed in the UK as they fell outside of the pricing regime used at the time.

Issues of JLA can also sometimes found with remainder stickers (large yellow 99p barcodes, or a large white ‘2 DC Comics for Only 99p’ stickers).

I'd guess JLA/WildCATS, JLA Secret Files & Origins and the New Year’s Evil Prometheus one-shot were not distributed to UK newsagents.  At $6 and $5 apiece, JLA/WildCATS and SF&O books were too expensive to be included amongst the distributed titles this late in the game.  I’ve never seen a copy of any of the New Years Evil books with UK price labels, but if you have, please let me know!

THE INVISIBLES VOL. 2 #1-4

Direct Sales-only in the US.  Small, printed ‘£1.50’ price sticker on issues #1-5.  Widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’. 

As far as I’ve been able to tell, the last issue of The Invisibles Vol. 2 to be distributed to UK newsagents was issue #5.  For a long time I thought it was #4, as I've seen multi-issue runs of issues from volume 2 where only issues #1-4 were stickered.  However, in July 2025 I found a stickered copy of #5.  I'd guess finding any subsequent issues is highly improbable, but not impossible. 

Remaindered copies of volume 2 Issue #1 were still popping up in The Works (a UK discount book chain) years after the book was released.

WEIRD WAR TALES #3

Direct Sales-only in the US.  No printed UK price.  Small, printed ‘£1.50’ price sticker.  Widely distributed.  ‘Suggested for Mature Readers’. 

THE FLASH #130-138

Widely distributed with large barcode stickers affixed to the front cover.  Also sometimes found with remainder stickers (large yellow 99p barcodes, or a large white ‘2 DC Comics for Only 99p’ stickers).

DC ONE MILLION #1-4

Possibly distributed with a large yellow or orange barcode sticker. I think I've seen copies of these with remainder stickers, and if I have presumably they were available for sale in newsagents too when new.  I may be thinking of the tie-in issues, which replaced the regular issue of eg Batman, Superman etc in that month.  More info needed!