Can we admit that ASM title is in a sales slump?

[blackspidey2099]

Honestly, the only thing that would have a significant and permanent effect on sales (in my opinion) would be addressing OMD somehow and bringing MJ back as a major character, even if not Peter's wife or romantic partner. The main problem for ASM right now, as I see it, is that the Spider-Man fan base is heavily fractured with a large number of people who simply won't buy Amazing Spider-Man out of principle, no matter how good or bad individual issues are. If a large enough number of those readers are brought back, I can definitely see ASM doing at least 70k consistently.

[WebLurker]

I don't think so.

Saying it's in a sales slump suggests there's something uniquely wrong with this title, which leads to solutions that are applicable to this one book (Swap out Slott, Bring back the marriage, Make Peter a reporter again) which ignores that it is doing better than any other Marvel Universe ongoing title.

Well, speaking for myself, those three conditions would have to be met in order for me to buy modern ASM trades. However, I don't think that that's tied into the series "success" or "failure," just what I need to make it worth anything to me and mileage always varies (heck, I think Slott is a bad SM writer, others think he's one of the greatest of all time).

True. But even then, ASM isn't Marvel's biggest title. That's still Star Wars. But just because ASM is doing "well" (relatively speaking), doesn't mean there also aren't problems.

First of all, Star Wars outselling ASM is arguably a no-brainer; Star Wars is bigger than Spider-Man is. Also, how do we know that low sales are because of problems within the series and not other outside factors?

[Kevinroc]

First of all, Star Wars outselling ASM is arguably a no-brainer; Star Wars is bigger than Spider-Man is. Also, how do we know that low sales are because of problems within the series and not other outside factors?

I do think that Marvel's pursuit of short term gains have created long term stability problems. ASM certainly is no stranger to this. You could tell there were problems with the way Marvel does things when ASM issues that tied into the Clone Conspiracy were ordered higher than Clone Conspiracy itself.

Edit: Also, Star Wars is still under Batman.

[boots]

the way comic sales work is a bit of a mystery, but purely basing it on the info in this thread, if ASM is the highest selling solo superhero comic at marvel, it doesn't seem like an issue with ASM specifically.


if it can't be leveled at the industry-wide, then maybe it could be called a company wide thing? it's extremely hard to separate loss of sales due to creative choices from industry wide shrinkage with the data we have

[Mister Mets]

True. But even then, ASM isn't Marvel's biggest title. That's still Star Wars. But just because ASM is doing "well" (relatively speaking), doesn't mean there also aren't problems.

To be clear, I did specify "Marvel Universe ongoing." And when this book tops the other Marvel Universe ongoings in sales, it complicates efforts in determining what this one title could be doing better.

[boots]

made me curious enough to do a quick google (otherwise known as empirical peer reviewed research) and found heidi macdonald's article on comics beat

http://www.comicsbeat.com/dark-night...han-rebirth-1/

these parts caught my eye


“Erosion at the top” is really the issue we’re dealing with here. The final issue of Secret Empire sold a mere 86,123 copies, pretty modest for a storyline that cost Marvel all of it’s meagre store of good will among fans.

On the other hand, just to show how low the bar for a “hit” is these days, Mister Miracle #1, the hottest comic of the month sold a mere 33,493, to come in at #60 for the month. Although it sold out quite a bit and was clearly underordered, it will be interesting to see if it undergoes standard attrition or picks up steam.

they might be common knowledge to the more committed readers here, but i thought it was worth sharing.

[Kevinroc]

To be clear, I did specify "Marvel Universe ongoing." And when this book tops the other Marvel Universe ongoings in sales, it complicates efforts in determining what this one title could be doing better.

Sure. But the Marvel Universe line of comics doesn't exist in a vacuum. I think it's completely fair to compare sales of ASM not only to other Marvel Universe ongoings, but also other comic book publishing lines.

[oldschool]

I don't think so.

Saying it's in a sales slump suggests there's something uniquely wrong with this title, which leads to solutions that are applicable to this one book (Swap out Slott, Bring back the marriage, Make Peter a reporter again) which ignores that it is doing better than any other Marvel Universe ongoing title.

The point of this post was not to bash Slott or to suggest a change; it was merely to observe that----over the last several years---the title has quietly shed readers,slowly decreasing in readership to the point where it now seems to live in the 54,000-55,000 world when an issue is not event-driven or a relaunch. I am not suggesting that is horrible, simply that it seems to be in a slump as compared to the recent past (and not comparing it to sales of 10 years ago which of course were much higher across the board).

[Aruran.]

Marvel should get a huge chunk of blame for the sales for doing the whole relaunch within 2 years and bragging about a new #1 issue. It wasn't a sustainable model, and it hurts comics outside the big two.

[JGC]

Marvel is in a slump. Fix Marvel, fix Spider-Man.

[DanMad1977]

The Internet voices shouted out for a Spider-Man book that brings SM back to the roots. Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man is that book...and is selling less than ASM.

Scratching my head...

[oldschool]

The Internet voices shouted out for a Spider-Man book that brings SM back to the roots. Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man is that book...and is selling less than ASM.

Scratching my head...

Except it's really not that book. I had the same high hopes as most others when the title was announced last winter but another team-up book that portrays Peter as an incompetent jokester is not exactly "back to it's roots" IMO.

[Vaegrin]

Except it's really not that book. I had the same high hopes as most others when the title was announced last winter but another team-up book that portrays Peter as an incompetent jokester is not exactly "back to it's roots" IMO.

I suspect that is exactly Marvel's understanding of Spider-Man's roots.

[Vaegrin]

I am not suggesting that is horrible, simply that it seems to be in a slump as compared to the recent past (and not comparing it to sales of 10 years ago which of course were much higher across the board).

Agreed. It is untenable to suggest that Amazing Spider-Man is uniquely bad in its performance. The X-Men are in a much worse place, for example, especially due to major problems that are fairly specific to the X-Men. But that doesn't mean that Spider-Man is doing as well as it could or should do. If Amazing Spider-Man is failing to meet its full sales potential--and sales from recent years suggest that to be the case--it can be a result of a mixture of problems common to many comics in general, problems common to the Marvel Universe in particular, and problems specific to Spider-Man.

An interesting note here with regards to comparisons over time. Looking at comic unit sales by year, the top 300 comics each month sold 85.27 million copies in 2007. After 2007, there was a decline of between 5% and 8% each year, until comic unit sales for the top 300 comics bottomed out at 69.2 million in 2010. But unit sales have generally increased each year since then. By 2016 and 2017, the top 300 comics sold 89.35 million copies. In other words, more copies of the top 300 comics are being sold today than ten years ago. That could be a result of any number of factors, of course.

[Uncanny Mutie]

ASM is definitely in a slump, sales wise AND creatively. I don't know WHAT issue #32 was supposed to be, but it was so awful that hardly anyone is even commenting on the discussion thread for it. People are definitely losing interest in this book, Spider-Man or not. The creative team is going to HAVE to do better than this, when the title reverts back to Legacy numbering/goes into its next volume.