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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134100
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 11:47am | IP Logged | 1
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I stumbled into a series of posts speculating on whether Chris Claremont rode the coattails of Dave Cockrum and me, and in the discussion found this:“In the history of the book, the early Cockrum (not so much his second stint) and the Byrne issues will always be considered the best that book ever was. “However, in terms of it's SALES POPULARITY, Claremont probably sold more single issues he wrote of the X-Men with Jim Lee drawing it, than any other artist. “And that was 11 YEARS later! “The book survived and thrived without Bryne or Cockrum and actually reached levels of SALES success it never had before or ever will again.” Not to take anything away from Chris that he truly deserves, but this writer, like so many others*, overlooks the radical changes that occurred in the industry in the late Seventies and early Eighties. When Dave and I were working on it, (UNCANNY) X-MEN was a cult book. Sales rose, slowly but steadily, but the coming of the Direct Sales Market and the speculators changed that. Especially when Paul Smith came aboard, which created a perfect storm of artist/shop orders/speculators. Before he’d drawn a line, Smitty was being hailed as the Mutant Messiah and shop owners/managers and speculators flocked to the call. Once that fire got started, it did not go out until the speculator bubble popped. —————— * Including Todd MacFarlane, who once chided me, in print, for not creating something like Image when I was “hot”—in 1975!!
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Matt Hawes
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16583
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | 2
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My personal favorite period of "Uncanny X-Men" was your run on the book, JB. A d it's not just a nostalgia thing. I reread the comics many years later and, especially when it gets to the Dark Phoenix saga, it truly was great.
That noted, it's unfair for someone to suggest Chris Claremont was simply riding coattails. Certainly, he benefitted by having great talent working with him. Not only did he work with you, JB, and Cockrum, Smith, and Lee, but John Romita, Jr, and Marc Silvestri weren't schlubs, either. But, Chris did a lot that clicked with his audience at that point in time. His writing quirks may be ridiculed by some these days, but it certainly worked for us fans at the time.
Speculators can and do affect sales, but if there's nothing substantive in the product, it won't hold up in the long term. Claremont's run on the title was too long and successful to give too much credit to the speculators. The reason those people jumped on the title to begin with was it was already becoming something big.
I have read the series since the late '70s, and there was something exciting about the comic that we readers picked up on then. At that age, I knew almost nothing about speculators, and neither did my friends. It was truly the stories and, especially for me, the art that drew us in, not the promise of wealth when reselling the books.
Claremont took the charactera in all sort of interesting directions in all his years on the book. Obviously, the artists he worked with at any given time affected where he took the series at times, but he certainly wasn't just riding coattails.
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Charles Valderrama
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4911
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 12:10pm | IP Logged | 3
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I think of it this way - without the Claremont/Cockrum/JB run on UNCANNY X-MEN, there might never have been a book that thrived to reach such a high level of sales success. The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past definitely put the X-Men on everyone's radar.
-C!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 12:29pm | IP Logged | 4
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The Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past definitely put the X-Men on everyone's radar. ••• Well, especially since Chris wouldn’t let EITHER of them GO AWAY!
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Charles Valderrama
Byrne Robotics Member
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Posts: 4911
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 12:40pm | IP Logged | 5
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LOL - he sure wouldn't... I suppose that's a credit to the strength of execution. I can't remember caring for those characters any more than I did during those storylines.
-C!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 134100
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | 6
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I've wondered from time to time what would have happened if I had stayed with the book past the point of my departure. I was unable to keep Chris from turning every possible moment into a reference to Phoenix--I used to joke that I would one day have the team in a car at a stoplight, and that red glow would be enough to set off flashbacks--so I doubt I'd have been able to prevent the constant rehashing of "Days of Future Past" and Dark Phoenix, even if that wasn't what I was drawing!
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6732
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | 7
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It would also be interesting to see how history would be different if Chris
had completely let Dark Phoenix and Days of Future Past drift into memory.
My first guess is that would have removed important elements of interest in
a lot of the X-Men stories that propelled their giant sales.
Chris repeatedly contends that his entire time on the X-Men is "one big
story." Although this strikes me like Lucas claiming he "always had it all
figured out," I concede Chris' approach captured me as a reader. He
succeeded in convincing me of this and the result was a sense that
something special was always about to happen. This was particularly
attractive as a long-time reader and made me feel loyal and "in the know".
I personally think it was a big part of X-Men's secret sauce.
I eventually felt like I was being tricked and quit the book, but I still think of
it as a pretty good trick.
If the series had let go of the past (and its future-past), I don't think it
would have captured the same obsessive level of fandom.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | 8
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We really can’t attribute the big sales entirely to content. Years ago Rob Liefeld declared the “correct” way to buy comics was three of each issue. One to read, one to save, one as “an investment”. I’ve met a depressing number of people who embraced this, usually with a supercilious expression on their doughy faces.
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 3:46pm | IP Logged | 9
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If sales reliably followed content, then surely Neal Adams -- his talent burning white hot! -- could have saved the comicbook. But... didn't happen.
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Eric Sofer
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Joined: 31 January 2014
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | 10
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I think that one of the biggest flaws with the Marvel method is that plot to art to script meant that the scripter had final say on what appeared in the book, as I've understood it. The artist could, from the plot, have put one scene in the book - and then the scripter could change it as desired, with no knowledge by the artist until the book hit the stands.
Mr. Byrne, you can certainly verify this far better than my speculations, but it seems that I've seen, more than once, art that simply didn't reflect what characters were describing, or what captions were narrating. One supposes that's what an editor was for, but obviously, not all creators are created equally.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | 11
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Happened multiple times, ultimately causing my exit.
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6732
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| Posted: 28 May 2019 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | 12
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The speculator/multiple issue buying collector mentality surely played a big
part in X-Men's sales.
But not every popular book in that era did X-Men numbers, so something
besides gullibility was at work.
Wolverine became a superstar. The collector's market decided the New X-
Men was a valuable "investment" - notably anything with Wolverine or with
"Byrne Art" (like Marvel Team Up 53 or Iron Fist 15, which both became
highly valued as X-Men sales grew). Thousands of speculators seemed to
agree the mystique of the X-Men was a good investment and all this good
will landed in favor of X-Men sales.
It seems to me Chris' tendency to mythologize the X-Men around particular
events (Dark Phoenix and DOFP) found an appreciative audience in the
after-market value-deciders. It often happens that the more something fans
like comes around, the more collectors will value the FIRST time it came,
SECOND time, and so forth. The X-Men became a cottage industry of
popular collectible "appearances." So Chris' impulse to continually build
upon certain stories seems perfectly suited to that mentality, without
consciously trying to.
That's what I think was Chris' strong suit-- he seemed completely sincere
about the stories he told while helping to encourage the fan mentality that
led to such giant sales. I didn't like it, so I would say the times played to his
worse instincts-- but I can't imagine he would agree about that. He was
surely doing what all pros do: the best work he was capable of under the
conditions.
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