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Michael Arndt
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Joined: 26 April 2004
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | 1
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Brandon, thanks for the links to that Roger Stern interview. Great one.
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Brian Miller
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | 2
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Yeah, thanks Brandon. Really interesting.
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John Richard
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | 3
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Marvel Super-Heroes Secret Wars, which has been declared creatively
bankrupt by some, helped boost the sales and awareness of many
characters and titles.
••
Not so. Most titles, in fact, saw a drop in sales while SECRET WARS
was running. Concerned by something I thought was specific to
FANTASTIC FOUR.
****
Fair enough, looking at some sales figures, I would say it helped X-men and Spider-man.
Sales figures from 7 key Secret Wars characters.
MSH: Secret Wars had cover dates from May 1984 to April 1985.
- Uncanny X-Men from 378,135 to 449,870
- Avengers from 241,463 to 241,966
- Amazing Spider-Man from 261,254 to 326,695
- Hulk from 196,657 to 172,033
- Captain America from 148,659 to 169,964
- Iron Man from 177,659 to 201,092
- Fantastic Four from 268,568 to 264,760
This was a plus 154,075 (+10.9%) combined comics sold for these 7 titles, But Spider-Man and X-men accounted for 137,176 of those sales.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 4:56pm | IP Logged | 4
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Which had much more to do with the burgeoning Speculator market than
SECRET WARS. The Speculators set out to find "hot" books, and they settled
upon the likes of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (already one of Marvel's top sellers
at the time) and UNCANNY X-MEN (rising fast on that wave that would not
crest for a decade or more).
You might want to look at monthly numbers for years without SW.
You'll find that blips and dips of as much as 20,000 -- ie, the whole sales
net of some current titles -- was not at all uncommon. And often due to
nothing more than sloppy bookkeeping. (Also, weather.)
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Jason Ditzel
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 444
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | 5
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JB,
My local LCS has a huge wall of comics. They stock around 3-4 months worth on the 'new' comics wall. Plus the last two weeks of 'new' comics on two very large tables. The independent publisher section is as large as Marvel and DC's combined.
(IDW, Darkhorse, etc. go there).
In 1984, I bought around 1/6th of that month's bullpen bulletins page.
Today, I buy around 1/3rd of that 1984 bullpen bulletins page (1/2 to Independents, 1/2 to DC).
If today we had the number of comics for sale in the Marvel bullpen bulletins page, do you think that the sales numbers would be radically different?
Are the publishers staying afloat because a small group, compared to 1984, purchases many redundant titles per month?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 6:04pm | IP Logged | 6
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It's not the number of comics, it's the number of venues.
In the past 25 years or so, the Industry has deliberately and relentlessly
reduced the number of places people can buy comics. Virtually eliminated
the number where they can buy them spontaneously. The Powers That
Be have turned the Industry from mass market to niche, and then sat around
with their thumbs up their butts wondering why comics don't sell as well as
they used to.
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John Richard
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 8:56pm | IP Logged | 7
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Which had much more to do with the burgeoning Speculator market than
SECRET WARS. The Speculators set out to find "hot" books, and they settled
upon the likes of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (already one of Marvel's top sellers
at the time) and UNCANNY X-MEN (rising fast on that wave that would not
crest for a decade or more).
******************************************************
The back issue market does not reflect a speculator glut from that time period, and from 1980 until 1990, the 1985 sales number relects the last large jump until the speculators hit in 1991,1992, and was fueled by Jim Lee art.
| Sales |
Percentage |
Issue # |
Year |
| 191927 |
|
130 |
1980 |
| 259007 |
135% |
142 |
1981 |
| 313225 |
121% |
154 |
1982 |
| 336824 |
108% |
166 |
1983 |
| 378135 |
112% |
178 |
1984 |
| 449870 |
119% |
190 |
1985 |
| 417350 |
93% |
202 |
1986 |
| 430158 |
103% |
214 |
1987 |
| 432158 |
100% |
226 |
1988 |
| 408925 |
95% |
241 |
1989 |
| 415961 |
102% |
258 |
1990 |
| 460625 |
111% |
273 |
1991 |
| 731425 |
159% |
285 |
1992 |
| 714675 |
98% |
297 |
1993 |
| 552975 |
77% |
309 |
1994 |
| 362128 |
65% |
321 |
1995 |
| 455570 |
126% |
329 |
1996 |
| 300732 |
66% |
341 |
1997 |
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 9:14pm | IP Logged | 8
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Seriously -- you don't think a book's sales increasing by 50% from one year
to the next ('80 to '81 - three years before SECRET WARS) represents the
arrival of the speculators? Sure, not with quite the muscular vigor they
would later demonstrate, but the signs were there. One of the earliest was
retailers grumbling that Marvel didn't produce enough books that were
"guaranteed to be hot". (As if Marvel had any control over that -- or would
not have used it if they did!)
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Paul Greer
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| Posted: 03 May 2008 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | 9
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I've always felt the direct market and the speculators went hand in hand. In the early 80's hot titles like JB's X-Men somtimes sold for almost as much as the silver age issues. They were not selling for high amounts because the print run was "low". They were selling high because dealers had an easier access at buying large quantities of new titles at a discount and marking them up months later. It became a matter of what title they could manipulate into being a "collectors item". This smoke and mirrors trick worked for years until the outsider (sports card collectors, parents buying the death of Superman to invest in their childrens college fund, etc.) speculators pumped the market to new highs. Which caused the huge lows after the crash of the 90's.
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John Richard
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 04 May 2008 at 9:04am | IP Logged | 10
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Seriously -- you don't think a book's sales increasing by 50% from one year
to the next ('80 to '81 - three years before SECRET WARS) represents the
arrival of the speculators?
*********************************
The number was 35%, and no I wouldn't. I would attribute it to the work you did with Claremont, readers tried it out and stayed.
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Jason Czeskleba
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| Posted: 04 May 2008 at 11:01am | IP Logged | 11
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There certainly were speculators out there in the early 80's, if my LCS was any indication. The difference was that back then speculators bought 2 or 3 copies of a "hot" issue, rather than 10 or 20.
Given that comics were starting to disappear from newsstands and conventional outlets at that time, and hence overall readership was declining, it is likely that speculation was a factor in any comic that had a significant sales increase during that time.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 04 May 2008 at 11:02am | IP Logged | 12
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eriously -- you don't think a book's sales increasing by 50% from one year
to the next ('80 to '81 - three years before SECRET WARS) represents the
arrival of the speculators?
*********************************
The number was 35%, and no I wouldn't. I would attribute it to the work you
did with Claremont, readers tried it out and stayed.
••
1980 is when I LEFT the book.
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Topic Closed)
