Spider-Sales Chart

13 Comments

1. Aw sweet, 375 is the best Lizard story I’ve ever read…=

2. Thanks for the link to my site!

   >>Wasn’t 1993 around the time everybody though comics would make them rich?

   Yes, 1993 was the peak of the comics industry’s speculator-fueled boom — though the bigger factor was that there were more than 11,000 comic book stores, more than three times what there are today. There were a dozen different distributors, many of whom were opening accounts with what turned out to be too lax credit terms. Once the market hit a slowdown, many of those stores defaulted and a seven-year recession for comics followed. The best-selling single issue of Amazing Spider-Man ever appears to have been one of the ones from that year — #375, the Bagley 30th anniversary issue with the enhanced cover.

3. ‘Going out of their way to alienate the reader’ sounds a bit too dramatic to me, Scooter.

4. I’m glad BND isn’t doing too well, but I’m bummed that it wasn’t all that great before that either. I never cared for any of Straznskis run, what year did he start? He wasn’t there from just about when they really started selling poorly, was he? If so, then I’m glad again.

5. Wasn’t 1993 around the time everybody though comics would make them rich?

6. I just find it hilarious that the best selling period of Spider-Man publishing history was 1993–especially when you think of some of the stories that were going on at that time. The youth stealing Vulture? Peter’s robot parents? Demogoblin? Maximum Carnage? At least five different symbiote characters besides Venom and Carnage–which included a female symbiote? Mary Jane becoming a smoker? LOL.

7. Keep in mind that thrice-monthly ASM had more issues published in 2008 than the 99 reboot (which had two titles per month), so the lower sales are offset by that.

8. Marvel had built up a strong foundation (Spidey up to the Clone Saga), which they trashed in order to get a one-time payoff. They need to stop it with the event cross-overs, and build up more trust by working on that solid storytelling foundation (like his supporting cast of family and friends, not the Avengers). Too many “events” is like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, at some point the townspeople stop listening to you.

9. THE ECONOMY?????!!!!! BWA HA HA!!! No, it’s because the reboot, as bad as it was, didn’t go out of it’s way to alienate readers.

10. Dang, the 99 reboot and their two subsequent years sold better then BND?!?!? Must be because of the economy.

11. Didn’t Tom Brevoort claim they could “float” the BND issues on subscriptions only? Unless I’m reading this wrong, I’d have to say that he was lying.

12. Clone Saga at least had some coherent story telling and you were interested in the mystery. BND has none of that, that’s why its has such low sales.

13. So it appears 1993 was the highest point for Amazing Spidey in terms of sales where it sold close to 600,000 an issue. Compare that to the measly 105,000 sold in 2008. Clone Saga sold great as well.