Early life Seuling was born in the
Bensonhurst neighborhood of
Brooklyn, New York, He had a sister, Barbara and a brother Dennis, 13 years younger. By 1970, Seuling was also operating the After Hours Book Shop in Brooklyn.
Comic Art Convention In 1968, Seuling—who as a sideline was president of the newly founded but short-lived He held another
comics convention at that hotel the following year, launching the New York
Comic Art Convention series. On March 11, 1973, Seuling was arrested at the Second Sunday monthly comic book show for allegedly "selling indecent material to a minor". Seuling wrote a guest editorial in
Warren Publishing's black-and-white
horror-comics magazine
Vampirella #25 detailing his experience and denying the claim he had sold an
underground comic book to someone under 18.
Other activities Seuling performed as a voice actor in
Ralph Bakshi's 1972
Fritz the Cat movie, doing voices for two characters. In 1974, at the
Brooklyn Museum's Community Gallery, he staged the exhibit "Brooklyn's Comic Book Artists", featuring artwork by 13 comics artists who were born or lived in Brooklyn. Identified by neighborhood on the poster for the show, these included
Neal Adams, then living in the
Coney Island neighborhood;
Will Eisner;
Carmine Infantino, of
Greenpoint;
Joe Kubert;
Harvey Kurtzman, who lived along
Eastern Parkway; and
Gray Morrow, formerly of
East Flatbush.
Sea Gate Distributors In 1972, Seuling founded
Sea Gate Distributors, named after the Brooklyn community
Sea Gate, where he lived as an adult. Seuling cut deals with
Archie,
DC,
Marvel, and
Warren to ship their comic books from a new distribution center in
Sparta, Illinois beginning in Fall 1973, thereby developing the concept of the
direct market distribution system for getting comics directly into comic book specialty shops, bypassing the then established newspaper/magazine distributor method. The move from newsstand distribution to the direct market (nonreturnable, heavily discounted, direct purchasing of comics from publishers) went hand-in-hand with the growth of specialty comics shops that catered to collectors who could then buy
back issues months after a newsstand issue had disappeared. Comics historian
Mark Evanier, noting the significance, wrote that Seuling ran Sea Gate with his then-girlfriend Jonni Levas. A key element of Sea Gate's new distribution system was a prepay requirement for customers, which, given the low margins of comics retailing at the time (and the fact that many books shipped late), was onerous for many of the stores. In late 1977 or early 1978, Sea Gate set up regional sub-distributors who were buying product at a 50% discount. This reduced Seuling's paperwork and enabled the sub-distributors to sell smaller orders than Sea Gate's minimum of five copies of each comic book title. Irjax sued DC, Marvel, Archie, and Warren for their anti-competitive arrangement with Seagate. As a result of the suit, Irjax eventually acquired "a sizable chunk of the direct-distribution market,"
sclerosing cholangitis on August 21, 1984. The following year, Sea Gate closed down. Distribution competitors
Bud Plant, Inc., and
Capital City Distribution opened "an expanded facility in Sea Gate's old space in Sparta, alongside the [defunct publisher
Pacific Comics'] printing plant." == Personal life ==