Modern Mystery....

 I'm a massive longtime fan of the defunct comics publisher Charlton Comics of Derby, Connecticut...I've always loved the publisher due to a couple of aesthetics I find personally amusing-  low budget knock-off product and exploitation driven media.  I've joked for years that Charlton and it's product were the comic book industry's equivalent of "grindhouse" or "B-Movie" cinema, maintaining that the "Big Two" mainstream publishers (Marvel and DC) felt like Disney and Warner Bros., while Charlton was more akin to AIP or Roger Corman's New World Pictures, low budget independent exploitation producers...

Peacemaker #1 (Charlton, March 1967)

The history of the company is fascinating, with a mixture of elements including copyright infringement, prison time, distribution of adult magazines considered obscenity...not to mention the fact that the press that they published millions of copies of comic books and magazines on wasn't really designed for that task:  The company used a second-hand press originally used for printing cereal boxes. These large presses were very costly to both stop and start, which only happened twice a year when they had to be cleaned; as such, they started publishing comics as a means to keep the presses going.

A 1971 picture of one of Charlton's printing presses

Below:  a selection of some of the stuff that rolled off the cereal box press at Charlton's facility

HIT PARADER and SONG HITS Magazine- That's how the company was founded...here's the jailtime and copyright infringement part:  In 1931, Italian immigrant John Santangelo Sr., a bricklayer who had started a construction business in White Plains, New York, five years earlier, began what became a highly successful business publishing song-lyric magazines out of nearby Yonkers, New York. Operating in violation of copyright laws, however, he was sentenced in 1934 to a year and a day at New Haven County Jail in New Haven, Connecticut, near Derby, where his wife and he by then lived. In jail, he met Waterbury, Connecticut attorney Ed Levy, with whom he began legitimate publishing in 1935, acquiring permissions to reproduce lyrics in such magazines as Hit Parade and Big Song Magazine.

The part involving "obscene" material: Historical accounts vary, some saying that Charlton Publications did not print the first issue of Larry Flynt's HUSTLER Magazine, while some former employees of the company claim to have witnessed a small press run of the first issue rolling off the cereal box press. However, it is documented that they did serve as its original national distributor. Some sources mention that other printers were reluctant to handle the explicit content of the magazine early on, yet Charlton would print and distribute anything if the money was right... 

Charlton Comics published a wide variety of genres, including crime, science fiction, Western, horror, war, and romance comics, as well as talking animal and superhero titles. The company was known for its low-budget practices, often using unpublished material acquired from defunct companies and paying comics creators among the lowest rates in the industry.  It was unique among comic-book companies in that it controlled all areas of publishing – from editorial to printing to distribution – rather than working with outside printers and distributors, as did most other publishers. It did so under one roof at its Derby headquarters.

In 1977, Charlton initiated the Modern Comics imprint.  The official byline for the imprint was that it was established as a way to liquidate a surplus backstock of material, which doesn't really much sense because all the of the Modern issues were newly published reprints with updated pricing and (then) contemporary advertising.  In actuality, Charlton Comics used the Modern Comics imprint primarily as a vehicle for reprinting their older, back-catalog material.  So, I guess I'm arguing semantics and it's a really fancy way of saying, "Let's milk a little bit more cash outta these old printing plates and photostats." 

Key reasons for using this imprint included:

Repackaging Returns: These comics were often sold in plastic-bagged "3-packs" or "4-packs," containing assorted older issues.

Preventing Returns for Credit: By branding unsold, returned inventory with the "Modern" logo, Charlton could re-release them as a new product, preventing stores from returning the copies to distributors for credit.

Targeting Non-Traditional Outlets: The Modern imprint was designed to sell repackaged, reprinted comics in department stores, supermarkets, and similar outlets (such as Woolworths) rather than through traditional newsstands.

Product Differentiation: It allowed Charlton to distinguish between their new, regular-priced publications and their repackaged, lower-cost, or bulk-sold items.

What fascinates me about the Modern imprint was it's later use and repackaging in 1985, during the final death throes of the company's comic book publishing days.

The new 1985 trade dress

In '85, Charlton picked up the license for the popular Japanese import anime, VOLTRON, and published a three issue miniseries of new material based upon the property.

Now, my question has always been (the "Modern Mystery" I'm alluding to in the title for this post):  Knowing Charlton's position at the time...in 1985 and '86 the company was going through what fans have come to refer to as "Charlton's Last Gasp", throwing dozens of reprint titles onto the newsstands hoping that something would sell just prior to ending their comics publishing efforts. I'm curious about the Voltron book , with it's new material and redesigned Modern trade dress.  Was this a last minute attempt by Charlton to rebrand their comics publishing division, with hopes of potentially saving it?  New material under a new banner sort of thing?  It just seems odd that the publisher would do this rebranding of product, considering that (if memory serves) the VOLTRON book was the last piece of original first run material Charlton ever printed.