May-June, October-November, and December-January. These are a few cover dates used by DC from the 1940s-1980s. I am always surprised by the number of questions I get from fellow fans who don't understand how these dates worked in relation to DC's monthly titles which featured just one month.

Another source of confusion for some fans is the lag between real world dates and cover dates. If a comic is cover dated April does that mean it went on sale in April? To clarify these questions and more, follow along as I reveal "Secrets to DC Cover Dates".

These days it is rare to find comics available outside a dedicated comic shop. Sure you may see a few beat up issues at 7-11 or Borders, but for the most part the comic shop is the place to find comics. Prior to the rise of the direct market distributors in the late 1970s though, comics were distributed with magazines on newsstands. The significance of this is that the vendors were not "comic people" like your average comic shop employee. They were responsible for a larger variety of dissimilar products.

To make it easier for these vendors to know which was the current issue available magazine publishers often placed a month on the cover of their periodicals. This month was not the month the book went on sale, it was the month the issue was to be removed from the newsstand in the event the book did not sell. For example magazines with an April cover date were removed in April.

Comic publishers used this cover date scheme on their comics beginning in the 1930s. From the publishers perspective, they would like the unsold comic to remain on the newsstand for as long as possible, giving it a chance for some lucky fan to buy it. If the book was not purchased, the vendor could return the unsold copy for credit, which cost publishers money. This is not true in today's direct market where books are sold on a non-returnable basis and retailers are stuck with unsold books.

In order to ensure the longest possible "shelf-life", publishers began to increase the diffence between the real-time publication month and the cover date. For example in the late 1930s, DC books were dated 1 month in advance of their actual release date. Action #1 was cover dated June, 1938 but actually went on sale in May. This means unsold copies were to be removed from the newsstand in June when issue #2 was released. By 1940, however that 1 month gap had grown to nearly two months. An issue now bearing a June cover date such as Action #25 went on sale in April. This now gave the book 2 months instead of 1 to be sold on the newsstand. The publishers hope was to get fewer returns by extending the shelf-life.

Also around 1940, DC began to release books on a bi-monthly frequency rather than monthly or quarterly. Superman #6 was dated Sept/Oct 1940. The significance of the dual-month cover date meant that the book was released WITH the monthly books dated September. It was then to be REMOVED from the newsstand with monthly books dated October. Since there was a 2-month gap between real time and cover dates, Superman #6 would have gone on sale in July and unsold copies theoretically were to be removed from the stands in October. I don't know how faithfully newsdealers actually followed this idea and left the book on the stands for 4 months, but that was the idea.

So the pattern for bi-monthly cover dated books is that they came out with the monthly books that had a cover date corresponding with the 1st of the two listed months. Thus a book dated Dec/Jan 1943-1944 came out with the December 1943 books.

Until 1946, DC also published quarterly books which were released 4 times a year. These books were cover dated Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Like the monthlies and bi-monthlies there was generally a lag between real time and cover date. For example Boy Commandos #4 was cover dated Fall 1943. This meant the book was meant to be REMOVED from the newsstands in the Fall. It actually went on sale in late July which is Summer.

Unlike the bi-monthly books, the quarterly books didn't correspond to a particular month. For example all books dated Fall 1943 were not released in July like the aforementioned Boy Commandos. They were released over a 3-month period from July to September which corresponded to the Sep, Oct, and Nov cover dated monthly titles. Boy Commandos #4 came out in late July, All-Star #18 in mid-August, and Comic Cavalcade #4 in mid-September. All were cover dated Fall 1943.

The quarterly books generally stayed in predictible cycles with issues spaced about 90 days apart. When wartime paper shortages ended in late 1945, all the quarterly books began publication on a bi-monthly schedule.

In the 1950s, DC introduced an 8-times yearly publication frequency on some books such as Superman. Issues were released about 6 weeks apart leading to a 2 months on, 1 month off rotation. Due to the way the calendar aligned with the publishing schedule some books had a 3 months on, 1 month off, 1 month on, 1 month off rotation. Both rotations resulted in 8 books a year. Most of the time the cover dates of these books corresponded to that of the monthly books with which they were released.

Generally the 8-times a year books had just one month listed on the cover. There are exceptions though such as Superman #100 which was dated Sept-Oct on the cover. However, the indicia of the book listed just Sep/55. The discrepancy here was likely intentional, as DC probably wanted to give the book an extra month on the newsstand. Had it been cover dated Sept, it would have been removed in September. But by cover dating it Sept-Oct, it would be REMOVED with the other books dated October.

In 1956, DC changed the way bi-monthly cover dates were displayed. Previously they had listed both months on the cover (ex. March-April). Maybe they figured out that vendors weren't actually waiting until April to remove the books from the stands, so they began using just one month on the cover (ex. Apr). They would always use the later of the two months to ensure the longer newsstand shelf-life. So a book that would have been July-August was now just AUG. Inside the dual-month system was still used.

To denote the difference on the cover between a monthly and bi-monthly book a square was put around the month listed on the cover of bi-monthly books. So those comics that list AUG in a square are July-August bi-monthly books and went onsale with the July issues. Those with AUG without the square are monthly books.

There were a couple of exceptions to this rule which generally occured when a book changed frequency. However, for the most part the pattern held for more than 20 years.

As I explained earlier beginning in 1940 DC used a 2 month gap between real time and cover dates. Thus a book cover dated Nov or Nov-Dec actually went onsale in September. In 1973 DC decided to once again extend the gap between real time and cover date. They did so by skipping the May cover date. Therefore all books cover dated APR or APR-MAY went onsale in February. All books onsale in March were cover dated JUN or JUN-JUL. Thus now a 3-month gap existed.

For bi-monthly books this meant tremendous potential shelf-life. A bi-monthly dated Aug/Sep 1973 went onsale in May and was removed in September. Again I'm not sure how faithfully vendors conformed to the scheme. Vendors may have just waited until the next issue came out before pulling the old issue from the stands, but publishers kept trying to get more life from their product.

This 3-month gap lasted well into the 1980s when the direct market began to take over the distribution of comics. Because of the delays between printing and distribution in the standard newsstand system vs. the faster turnaround time for distribution in the direct market, direct market retailers got their books 2-3 weeks before they showed up on the newsstand.

For example a book like Superman #12 cover dated Dec 1987, was scheduled for newsstand distribution in September (9/8/87). A direct market retailer however was able to get the book quicker, so it went onsale in late August. This meant as much as a 4-month gap between release date and cover date in the direct market.

(NOTE: For those of you using my Complete DC MasterList, books cover dated Dec 1987 and earlier use the newsstand release date. Books from Jan 1988 onward use the direct market release date.)

In the direct market, retailers generally don't use the cover dates to determine when to remove books from the stands. Therefore having a 4-month gap must have seemed pretty ridiculous. In 1988, DC chose to implement a way to close that gap. 1988 actually has 14 different cover dates instead of 12. After the DEC cover dated books (released in August), DC used WINTER then HOLIDAY for the next two cover months. (Only about half the books actually printed the Winter or Holiday on the cover. Some were just left blank with no month.) DC then resumed with JAN 1989 cover dates released in November. Thus the 2-month gap that existed from 1940-1973 was reestablished. DC maintains this 2-month gap between cover date and onsale date to this day.