Not so sure about the digests, school book clubs might be a good bet, but i remember Queseda anouncing in one of the Fridays that the book with the highest amounts of subscriptions that they published was marvel age: spider-man. I vaguely remember that he was saying that the number of its subs were more than double of new avengers or asthonishing. He said all ages were selling heaps and loads through subs and i guess it’s same with spider-girl..

Paul O’Brien writes “CIVIL WAR continued to loom over Marvel’s output in January, in more ways than one. Not only did the publisher continue to produce CIVIL WAR tie-ins, but thanks to the delays on the core title, they’re still not in a position t…

Wasn’t that in the early 00s? I certainly remember Exiles being one of the titles involved, so if it was the 90s, it was the very, very end.

> 63. GHOST RIDER FINALE
> 01/07 Finale - 29,841
> This is the notorious lost issue of the 1990s GHOST RIDER series, which was cancelled due to Marvel’s bankruptcy. It’s a surprisingly good number, considering that not many people were reading the book at the time.

According to CBGXtra - http://www.cbgxtra.com/Default.aspx?tabid=1012 - this outsold #93, the last published issue (itself included with the “lost” #94 in FINALE) by more than half (18.3k vs. 29.8k)

> 67. IRON MAN: HYPERVELOCITY
> 01/07 #1 of 6 - 28,630
>
> A modest debut for Adam Warren’s Iron Man miniseries. This may not be the ideal time to launch a basically straight take on the character.

I’m not sure “a straight take” is the phrase I’d use…

> (Exactly where is a bit of a mystery, because the digests don’t register significant sales in the Bookscan charts that track the major US bookstores. But they’ve got to be selling somewhere.

Well, I remember them claiming a year or two back that the Spider-Girl digests were doing very well in school book clubs… *shrugs*

Sheesh. Considering that the book series ends in a time loop back to the beginning of the series, I wonder how many people will actually bother buying this.

Because IT’S GOOD FOR YOU. Also, EAT MORE BRAN. ”

Is it sad that I read that as “EAT MORE BRAIN.”?

But yeah, anecdotal evidence only, I don’t know where these non-direct market sales for comics are coming from, because the only comics-related (non-manga) periodical that ever sells at our store is Wizard.

Well, if you’re judging it by Max standards the obvious comparators would be HELLSTORM and ZOMBIE. WISDOM #1-2 did roughly 20K and 15K in the direct market. HELLSTORM was 27K and 17K, and ZOMBIE was 27K and 20K. So WISDOM tails behind the other Max books too.

Because IT’S GOOD FOR YOU. Also, EAT MORE BRAN.

You’re absolutely right, it did. I also should have mentioned that they solicited this issue as featuring the first appearance of Wolverine’s son, and the death of a beloved character, which might also account for some of the boost.

On the subject of blatantly wrong comments about variant covers, while NEWUNIVERSAL #2 did have a variant, it didn’t ship until February. That would eliminate the artificial boost as an explanation for the sales rise on this chart.

I’ll get the main text changed to reflect both these points (since these are genuinely important errors). My mistake.

Low selling, sure, but ouch? It only dropped 8,000 total, didn’t move much there at the end, and stayed above the 5-digit mark.

I think the most attention Marvel gave it was by announcing they’d be collecting this in a hardcover along with the Golden Age first appearances/origins of the cast…….

……then again, that may’ve just been thru Jeff Parker and Leonard Kirk telling the loyal readers that.

I’ve seen them in Target stores, along with the digest DC stuff.

I don’t pick up individual issues even if the trade won’t come out for years. I’ve just lost interest in having hard-to-shelve, incomplete stories full of ads.

It would be interesting to see some market research on how much effect the “lag time” between individual issues and collections has on other buyers, though. I have no idea if I’m typical.

Speculators AND Completists who have to have every thing that has a Civil War stamp on it. Some of those civil war tie ins are insane, there like double what the book had before. I think there killing their other titles like Ant Man.

Non-famous creators, a $3.99 price tag, a MAX book, AND a niche character to begin with. I don’t think this is too surprising.

There used to be a phrase bandied around—a self-fulfilling prophecy; Marvel seems to be creating a self-defeating policy.

Here’s the proof:
http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=list&title=96787054891&snumber=1

Scroll down a little toward the bottom.

1. variant covers

2. huge event crossovers

3. controversy

4. shock

5. putting a popular NAME comic book creator on a book

6. hireing a CELEBRITY NAME writer from outside of the comic book industry to write a book

7. relaunching books with a new #1

And for the record, this is also the case for DC as well.

Libraries? That’s where I picked up and read the first two digest-format Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane books (which, of all the attempts, is the best American shojo title to date). Our local library has (in addition to many manga titles) the digest versions of SMLMJ and Runaways on the shelves.