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Chuck Gower
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 12
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | 1
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Been having a discussion elsewhere on the internet as to WHEN Wolverine became the breakout star of the X-Men book and when the X-Men book really became one of the top sellers at Marvel.
Did some research on this forum and can't reply to the thread that was there, but I did find this quote by JB: Posted: 20 April 2006 at 7:04pm "There was no loss in sales when Dave (Cockrum) came back. In fact, the book continued climbing, slow but sure, until Paul Smith came aboard. Then the sales exploded and the whole X-Madness was truly born."
Now, for me, personally, JB has always struck me as someone who is extremely conscientious and responsible when making even borderline definitive statements about his history, but SOME people where I'm having this conversation are questioning his... memory?
I swear, even if sales numbers from Marvel's archives were produced, some people would still find it less credible and comfortable than 'the way they remember it'.
They want to believe that when Wolverine looked up from the sewer at the end of #132 and said, "Now it's MY turn!", that the book shot to #1 in sales and Wolverine became the most popular character in comics.
So, JB, if you feel up to it (as I know these kind of topics must get pretty old), any insight you might what to give would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | 2
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Trust me on this. And if you don't, check the Statement of Ownership each year (usually around May).X-MEN did not "take off" until long after I left, and LONG after the sewer scene.
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Kip Lewis
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 March 2011
Posts: 2880
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | 3
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I think confuse when they started noticing
and when sales started skyrocketing. I
started buying X-Men when Mesmero turned
them into circus attractions. So I didn't
jump on any band wagon; the masses just
caught up with me. But I don't remember
the craziness of buying multiple issues
because they might go up in value until
the issue where Deathbird stabbed
Colossus. I don't know who was drawing
then.
They also might be confusing back issue
sales value over sales of the book.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 3:42pm | IP Logged | 4
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Many fans imagine their experience to be a microcosm of the whole. If they like something, it must be popular. If they don't like something, it must be unpopular.
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Chuck Gower
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2010
Location: United States
Posts: 12
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 3:45pm | IP Logged | 5
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I trusted you! I was arguing with some people who didn't....
Here's what I found:
Statement of Ownership numbers: April 1978 #110 (12months) 260,598 (nearest) 283,742
Steady growth April 1979 #120 (12months) 282,634 (nearest) 264,965 (+about 20,000)
Mar 1980 #131 (12months) 327,387 (nearest) 311,320 (+about 45,000) (Marvel Tean-Up #91: 426,418)
April 1981 #144 (12months) 345,288 (nearest) 349,845 (+about 30,000) (Amazing Spider-man #215: 609,059) (Marvel Tean-Up #116: 416,687)
Really starts to ramp up... April 1982 #156 (12months) 414,435 (nearest) 450,936 (+about 70 to 100,000) (Amazing Spider-man #227: 554,258)
Neck and Neck with Amazing Spider-man May 1983 #169 (12months) 507,493 (nearest) 524,923 (+about 70,000) (Amazing Spider-man #240: 513,585)
Jun 1984 #182 (12months) 546,070 (nearest) 556,783 (+about 30 to 35,000)
Surpasses Amazing Spider-man Oct 1987 #222 (12months) 630,020 (nearest) 622,005 (+about 60 to 80,000)
May 1988 #229 (12months) 645,041 (nearest) 684,758 (+about 15 to 60,000) (Amazing Spider-man #215: 469,913)
Jul 1989 #246 (12months) 633,760 (nearest) 577,440 (+about 15 to 60,000) |
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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6097
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 3:53pm | IP Logged | 6
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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. This was in full force right at the time JB left the X-Men.
This fan excitement presaged by a few years the titanic sales the title would eventually rake in-- a fact that I had no real knowledge of. The excitement led me to the impression that sales were already high when, for example, Phoenix died. The reaction at comic stores in Seattle was as if new championship belts had been handed out-- to John Byrne and the X-Men.
I was a kid at the time, but my mistaken impressions were not corrected until I started reading posts about this on JB's AOL boards. I think it's the fact that, way back in the '70s, there were thousands and thousands of sales to casual comic readers just didn't compute in the minds of collectors. When collectors everywhere were excited about John Byrne on the X-Men, they were still only a small part of the total market. Now they are the entire market-- and can't seem to imagine it was ever any different.
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William Roberge
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 05 July 2006
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Posts: 11292
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | 7
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Damn, look at those numbers.....I wonder what the numbers look like today?
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Chuck Gower
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2010
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | 8
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The other ongoing debate has to do with when Wolverine 'broke out' as a true superstar of the Marvel Universe. (Yeah, I know it's silly)
Some believe, he was popular within the Mutant Universe, and somewhat popular outside of it (he did get a mini-series in 1982), but really didn't break out into superstardom until his own regular series in 1988 (which coincided with the Punisher's SECOND monthly series Punisher War Journal).. and that was when he went on to become maybe one of the most popular characters in the MU.
The early popularity believers say that Wolvie didn't get that series because a) Claremont fought against it and b) his story was already being told in UXM. (As if Marvel would ever miss a chance to milk something based upon THAT.)
Here's a sample of the response to those numbers I posted:
Let's say John Byrne is right. Great! All it does is further bolster my case that Wolverine was the biggest character in comics by 1983 when UXM under Smith soared to new heights. I doubt that was all due to Smitty, so much as it was by the two factors that Byrne mentioned:
1. Given the rise in back issue prices of the Byrne issues around that time, everyone was speculating and buying multiple copies of UXM back in the day. I bought 2 or 3 copies of every issue that came out, and I was certainly far from alone.
2. The Wolverine mini series was a smash hit (somebody help me out - I know that #1 had a print run of at least 750K, but it may have been higher) in 1982, and the ending of #4 leads directly into UXM #172. I'm sure that #172-#175 were huge, maybe even record sellers for the title, precisely because Wolverine was the most popular superhero in comics in 1982 and 1983, and everybody wanted to read about what happened after the mini-series.
All logic would suggest that, if Wolvie hadn't achieved superstardom by X-Men #133 and DOPF, he certainly was in a league of his own by the time his mini-series ended, which is why UXM achieved new sales heights, Wolverine won those fan polls in 1982 and 1984, and just about everyone who was collecting back then has confirmed that he had broken out into superstardom already by that time, and that it didn't just happen in the late '80s. If anything, that was the beginning of the overexposure and saturation phase; the breakout phase was unquestionably the early '80s.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | 9
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Those numbers seem off. I don't recall anything that high during my run. In fact, we were constantly being threatened with cancellation. And remember, this was before royalties, so Marvel had no reason to lie!
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | 10
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A quick check -- I think you're looking at the total number of copies printed (Line A), not the distribution/sales (Line E).
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Steve Adelson
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 4:54pm | IP Logged | 11
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I was just about to post that.... #131 lists 311320 in the single issue nearest the filing date, but almost 144000 returns.... 171651 was the total distribution.
In the same month, The Fantastic Four listed 268101 and The Avengers, 229690. I picked those two simply because I have them available digitally, but both were significantly outselling X-Men at the time.
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Chuck Gower
Byrne Robotics Member
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 12 April 2014 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | 12
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Ok cool... good info... I'm going to go back and recompute all of that...
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Topic Closed)
