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Carmen Bernardo
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Joined: 08 August 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 3666
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 5:23pm | IP Logged | 1
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Robert just pointed out something that I noticed in those early X-Men appearances in reprints and the few early issues that a friend once had. Nightcrawler could be mistaken for a demon in his first appearances, but as subsequent appearances changed he became almost human. (There's a Kiss song with that title.)
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Robert Bradley
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Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4825
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 5:37pm | IP Logged | 2
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Exactly Carmen -
And Rogue got a huge makeover between her appearances in Avengers Annual #10, X-Men #158 and ROM and Dazzler appearances and Smith's art in Uncanny X-Men #170.
She looks to have dropped quite a few years in age and was another character who got "prettied up." |
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Jason Czeskleba
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Joined: 30 April 2004
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | 3
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JB wrote:
| It's important to remember that the rising sales of the X-MEN corresponded to the increasing influence of the Direct Sales Market. |
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Indeed. X-Men was a top seller in the burgeoning fan/direct market long before it became a top seller overall. I was a regular buyer of The Comic Reader in the early 80s, and they used to run an informal, nonscientific monthly sales chart that was based on polling sales figures from about 30 or so comic shops (here's an old thread where I posted their chart from July 1980).
Anyway, from about 1980 onward, X-Men was always #1 on that chart, and it remained in the top spot through JB's tenure. Based on those charts, I mistakenly assumed X-Men was a huge seller during the Byrne years, a misconception I carried for years until finding out otherwise on this forum. So apparently it wasn't that the title's newsstand sales grew substantially as the 80s went on. Rather, the title simply maintained its popularity in the comic shops/fan market, and it was the increase in comic shops that led to the increase in sales.
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 13 April 2014 at 6:31pm
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 7:50pm | IP Logged | 4
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Anyway, from about 1980 onward, X-Men was always #1 on that chart, and it remained in the top spot through JB's tenure. ••• Not a whole lot of "tenure" left by 1980!
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Joe Smith
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Joined: 29 August 2004
Location: United States
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 8:00pm | IP Logged | 5
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JB will always be THE X artist because he was the Dark Phoenix/Hellfire Club/DOFP guy.
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Robert Bradley
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Joined: 20 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 4825
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | 6
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Well Joe - I can't narrow it down to one because those Neal Adams/Tom Palmer issues are pretty amazing too!
That stretch where we were fortunate enough to have artists like Dave Cockrum, JB, Cockrum again, Paul Smith and John Romita Jr. was pretty exceptional.
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Jason Czeskleba
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Joined: 30 April 2004
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 11:02pm | IP Logged | 7
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JB wrote:
| Not a whole lot of "tenure" left by 1980! |
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I was thinking "cover date of January 1980 or later", rather than publication date or the date when you likely would have drawn it. Going by that standard, we do get a bit over 40% of your run on the title as being "in the 80s."
Edited by Jason Czeskleba on 13 April 2014 at 11:03pm
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7617
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| Posted: 13 April 2014 at 11:25pm | IP Logged | 8
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This is an interesting thread. I come at this from the standpoint that I was introduced to the New X-Men through the UK reprints (Rampage) which were months if not a year and a half behind, so my dates are really, really off.
I was content to buy the comics through that medium until the Dark Phoenix saga - that got to the point that I couldn't wait and made me start to try to track down the imported issues available in newsagents. But by that time JB had left and we were on the Brett Anderson fill in issue. I did eventually manage to track down all the issues but that was a mammoth effort for a 9 / 10 year old. It helped that a local chain seemed to have bought a ship's ballast worth of recent back issues including all the missing issues (bar the aforementioned 137 and 142 how annoying was that? - Those I had to through mail order and didn't get until around 1982).
So yes, my timeline is all over the place but the sales figures speak truth and my younger self's perception and reality were mixed. I do remember there was a fair bit in the bulletin pages when Frank Miller was on Daredevil talking about how Daredevil was catching the X-Men up. But that was again around 82, so long after JB had left.
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Jack Bohn
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Joined: 13 July 2013
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| Posted: 14 April 2014 at 7:03am | IP Logged | 9
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Username wrote:
| For people who were collecting comics at the time, I think it is hard to separate the X-Men "buzz" from actual sales. By 1979, the X-Men became a hot collector's title with climbing back-issue prices for all the All-New X-Men books. Everything after X-Men 94 was becoming expensive and the JB issues were getting more expensive, more quickly than the rest. |
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I'm always reminded of the prophetic cover of #137!
Being a comics reader, I thought I'd try taking in Chuck Gower's numbers visually. Here's 1978-89 over-the-counter sales (blue) and subscriptions (red):
The Subs seem to show a bigger ramp up (for all that smaller numbers are more volatile) does this represent the harder core fans who definitely want the title? I am unsure, because my sister is represented on the graph in 1982 (just before that anomalous notch -- I suspect a bad data point, but can't be sure); during the previous 12 months her BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was cancelled, and she was given a choice of titles to fill out the subscription, she chose (on a whim, I think) X-MEN. Which story also reminds me that something as simple as getting added to the choice in Selling Magazines for School could be behind the rise. (My representation on the chart begins in the last three years of counter sales; having an income and falling among comics fans.)
Y'know, it wouldn't take much encouragement for me to extend the chart forward and backward through time, and sideways to other titles. I find myself curious about FANTASTIC FOUR, which during Byrne's run was noted as the second best-selling title for Marvel, and the entire country as well.
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Bill Collins
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Joined: 26 May 2005
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| Posted: 14 April 2014 at 8:22am | IP Logged | 10
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My memory is hazy,but weren`t both Uncanny X-Men and Frank`s Daredevil bi-monthly around that time,both going monthly as sales started to pick up?
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 14 April 2014 at 9:56am | IP Logged | 11
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My memory is hazy,but weren`t both Uncanny X-Men and Frank`s Daredevil bi-monthly around that time,both going monthly as sales started to pick up?•• UNCANNY went monthly shortly after I started. That was the reason for switching artists, really.
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Bill Collins
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| Posted: 14 April 2014 at 10:00am | IP Logged | 12
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Thank`s J.B.
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Topic Closed)
