Brief history and identification of newsstand and direct edition comic books.
Version 1.2, with revisions since 1.0 and 1.1.
Provided by Newsstand101.com and DirectEdition101.com
Used by permission slabdata.com

Summary:
All comics were just comic books from the 1930s through the 1960s and most of the 1970s.
There is no reason to identify them as newsstand comics when the direct market did not exist yet, but they were comics distributed via newsstand distribution from the beginning.
Unsold newsstand comics were returnable, much like unsold magazines and other publications.
Comic shops began ordering exact quantities of comics from distributors who worked with publishers to obtain discounted but unreturnable direct editions.
Both newsstand and direct editions were created for most comic books from the 1980s until the 2010s.
There are direct editions which do not have newsstand editions, either because the content was not suitable for all audiences or because the publisher simply chose not to offer the comics via the newsstand.
Since December 2013 (Marvel) and October 2017 (D.C. Comics), only direct editions exist for most comic books still published.

The barcode on a comic book may have either 14 or 17 digits.
The left section is always 12 digits, but the right section (right edge) is 2 digits for newsstand and 5 digits for direct edition.
There are no newsstand comics with 17 digits (5 on the right edge).

There are exceptions to other information in the video in situations where a publisher was inconsistent with their identification of newsstand or direct edition comics, but the majority of the time, the descriptions from the video are correct.

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