Carol Kalish

Kalish also set the official Marvel direct sales policy regarding retailer orders of back issue stock, emphasizing to retailers that they should order only what they could sell within a month’s time, and not order additional copies intended solely for back stock, as this would merely tie up their money. Although this was considered "heresy" at the time, Kalish advised retailers that was far wiser to keep capital available for the flow of new comics coming into stores.

According to a March 2010 piece by retailer and Comic Book Resources columnist Brian Hibbs:

In 2010, Kalish was awarded the first ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award in the posthumous category, a "Hall of Fame"-type award that was created to honor behind-the-scenes publishing personnel for helping to promote the comics market, beating fellow nominees Will Eisner, Phil Seuling and Julius Schwartz. The award was accepted by Richard Howell on her behalf. Though Howell was not present at the ceremony, writer/editor Paul Levitz read a statement by Howell, who stated that Kalish's goal was "to make the direct market as strong as it could be". In 2018, Kalish was voted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame. Paul Dini accepted the award on her behalf.

When Glenn Hauman, the webmaster of David's website, reprinted David's eulogy to Kalish on David's site in 2002, along with a request to the site's visitors to link heavily to the post in order to displace Groth's 1991 piece as the top search result on Google, Comics Journal online editor Dirk Deppey defended Groth's 1991 piece, saying that it was directed not at Kalish personally, but at her work and the outpouring of grief on the part of CBG letter writers and David himself, which Groth and Deppey perceived as "beatification", trite and inarticulate.

Kalish died on September 5, 1991 from a pulmonary embolism, at the age 36.

It was during Kalish's tenure in Marvel Sales that copies of the company's adaptation of the 1983 film Return of the Jedi was discovered by actor Mark Hamill on sale a month prior to the release of the film. After Hamill alerted Lucasfilm, Marvel, according to Kalish, swiftly recalled the book off the stands. Though none of the three people in the Sales Department were fired over the incident, it resulted in premature revelation of the secrets of the film's plot.

In 1981, she began working at Marvel, having been hired by Ed Shukin, Marvel’s Vice President in charge of sales. She was known as Marvel's "Mistress of Propaganda," and "discovered" Alex Ross and Peter David, who worked with Kalish as Assistant Sale Manager in Marvel Comics' Sales Department, along with Sandy Schechter.

Kalish worked as a comic book retailer and wholesaler. Kalish's first work in circulation was two years as circulation manager on the science fiction publication Galileo, which folded in early 1980. This led to a dual position with Hal Schuster's New Media/Irjax: assistant editor on a line of comic books with New Media Publishing, and, with her partner Richard Howell, running the Schuster-owned Boston-area distributor Solar Spice and Liquors (named after a fictional corporation created by science fiction writer Poul Anderson).

Beginning in the mid-1980s, Kalish spearheaded the expansion of the Marvel's distribution into theretofore unexplored retail outlets, including major bookstores such as B. Daltons and Waldenbooks.

Carol Kalish (February 14, 1955 – September 5, 1991) was an American writer, editor, comic book retailer, and sales manager. She worked as Direct Sales Manager and Vice President of New Product Development at Marvel Comics from 1981 to 1991. She is credited with pioneering the American comics direct market when it was in its adolescence, in part through a program wherein Marvel helped pay for comic book stores to acquire cash registers. She was the winner of an Inkpot Award in 1991, and in 2010 was posthumously awarded the first ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award, beating nominees such as Will Eisner, Julius Schwartz and Phil Seuling.