A post from my Marvel blog of a decade-plus ago, this one talking about circulation figures from the year 1998.
April 28, 2007 | 1:00 AM | By Tom_Brevoort | In General
Another week begins another round of odds and ends. Continuing our irregular series of postings on sales figures past, here’s a snapshot from November, 1998, a little bit under a decade ago. There aren’t any issue numbers listed herein, but I can recall that this was the month of the Spider-Man renumbering, when AMAZING and PETER PARKER restarted with new #1s (hence their higher-than-usual position on this chart.)
What’s interesting about looking at these figures from this vantage point is just how similar they are to the numbers of today. We’ve all heard tell that the marketplace has turned around, and that things are better now than they were in the late 90s. And that’s certainly true from a stability standpoint. But these sales figures mirror the sorts of units we’re doing today pretty accurately–in fact, they may be marginally better.
Of course, the big difference between now and then are the additional revenue streams that have opened up. When these numbers were catalogued, Marvel had virtually no collections program to speak of, whereas now TPBs and Hardcovers are a standard part of our publishing plan.
NOV ’98
1 Unc. X-Men — 140111
2 X-Men — 135585
3 Amazing Spidey — 125871
4 Peter Parker — 116545
5 Wolverine — 106244
6 Avengers — 101777
7 Daredevil — 85668
8 Fantastic Four — 84003
9 Capt. America — 77267
10 Mutant X — 76392
11 Aven. Forever — 76189
12 Spidey Chap 1 — 75435
13 Webspinners — 75338
14 Iron Man — 72993
15 Thor — 72757
16 Generation X — 57623
17 Spider-Girl — 56497
18 X-Force — 56195
19 X-Men Liber — 53593
20 X-Man — 52202
21 Iron Man/Cap — 51384
22 Thunderbolts — 50570
23 Cable — 50568
24 Cap SOL — 50405
25 Inhumans — 49301
26 Black Panther — 49191
27 Cap/Citizen V — 48028
28 Punisher — 47992
29 Hulk — 47986
30 A-Next — 46503
31 Slingers — 46323
32 Deadpool — 40226
33 J2 — 37416
34 Alpha Flight — 36696
35 FF Fireworks — 31632
36 Ramp Hulk — 28841
37 Heroes For Hire — 27731
38 Warlock — 21144
39 Union Jack — 18787
More later.
Tom B
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