Is a twice-monthly Amazing Spider-Man a good idea?

[blackspidey2099]

Either twice monthly, or two monthly titles with different writers. The best, though, would be twice monthly ASM and another monthly title by a different writer (like we have now). I can never get too much Spidey!

[comicscollector]

I did liked when Amazing Spider-Man was being published three times a month during Brand New Day,so i voted for twice monthly.


I forgoten how Howard Mackie was writing the two main Spider-Man comic books in the late 90´s.
Dunno about this option,to me that way it would make the stories of diferent comic books look to similiar because the stories are from the same writer.

[Mister Mets]

I did liked when Amazing Spider-Man was being published three times a month during Brand New Day,so i voted for twice monthly.


I forgoten how Howard Mackie was writing the two main Spider-Man comic books in the late 90´s.
Dunno about this option,to me that way it would make the stories of diferent comic books look to similiar because the stories are from the same writer.

Bendis has been doing it a lot. He had two Ultimate Spider-Man books (Ultimate Marvel Team-Up), two Avengers titles, two X-Men titles, two Iron Man books, and now two Superman books at the same time. It could make sense with team titles, if you have different groups of heroes, but with solo titles, it messes with the order in which the adventures occur, which makes it difficult to appreciate the effect of events on a character.

[Inversed]

Bendis has been doing it a lot. He had two Ultimate Spider-Man books (Ultimate Marvel Team-Up), two Avengers titles, two X-Men titles, two Iron Man books, and now two Superman books at the same time. It could make sense with team titles, if you have different groups of heroes, but with solo titles, it messes with the order in which the adventures occur, which makes it difficult to appreciate the event of events on a character.

Hickman also did this with Fantastic Four & FF (as well as Fraction) and Avengers & New Avengers. I always liked the idea of a writer working on two different yet inter-connected books with their own stories and focus but when put together create a much larger narrative. I think with Spider-Man it works best when the side books are done by other writers because unlike most of the other examples, Spider-Man would be the lead of both so it feels like it would be better to have a different voice to give the other book a good distinction to differentiate from the main, like what Zdarksy did with Spectacular.

[comicscollector]

Bendis has been doing it a lot. He had two Ultimate Spider-Man books (Ultimate Marvel Team-Up), two Avengers titles, two X-Men titles, two Iron Man books, and now two Superman books at the same time. It could make sense with team titles, if you have different groups of heroes, but with solo titles, it messes with the order in which the adventures occur, which makes it difficult to appreciate the event of events on a character.

With team titles i don´t mind being written by the same writer,because the characters of the teams are not the same.For example i was collecting both Avengers and New Avengers by Bendis when he was writing those two comic books,but if the comic books are just about one character i think the stories could be too similiar.
I think there are writers that could do that,Howard Mackie stories were diverse enough from what i remember,so i guess it depends of the writers but generally speaking i prefer more, diferent writers writing the main Spider-Man comics or one writer writing ASM in a twice a month format.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

While there are the drawbacks Scott/Lunal mentioned, the twice monthly issues of the same title with the same creative team is something I appreciate more for the sake of consistency.

[oldschool]

Well the ASM writer or current storyline in ASM may blow and I need an alternative.

Not generally a fan of 2+ monthly schedules. The quality seems to suffer, eventually, and it costs me more money to keep up. An exception to that would be if it were only temporary for a month or two for a big storyline.

Yeah, IIRC the twice monthly schedule was done for the first time back during the David Michelnie era sometime late 1980's and was ostensibly done for some big story arcs and also for summertime (not sure why that mattered unless comics were easier to sell during the summer back then).

But I do understand Marvel's strategy since comics are a tough way for them to make money these days and so if you have a proven winner in a title like ASM why not publish it twice monthly, as long as the quality doesn't suffer? If Spencer can keep up, the art team of Ottley and Ramos could make this work long-term and that sounds like an overall win-win to me.

[Superfly Frankenstein]

I actually would like to go back to the way it was early 90s: four monthly titles slightly connected but with slightly different feels. Amazing Spider-Man being the flagship, Peter Parker Spectacular Spider-Man being street level, Web of Spider-Man being a little darker and Sensational Spider-Man being more goofy and fun. Miles can keep the Spider-Man comic title.

[Scott Taylor]

Yeah, IIRC the twice monthly schedule was done for the first time back during the David Michelnie era sometime late 1980's and was ostensibly done for some big story arcs and also for summertime (not sure why that mattered unless comics were easier to sell during the summer back then).

But I do understand Marvel's strategy since comics are a tough way for them to make money these days and so if you have a proven winner in a title like ASM why not publish it twice monthly, as long as the quality doesn't suffer? If Spencer can keep up, the art team of Ottley and Ramos could make this work long-term and that sounds like an overall win-win to me.

Yah, there are fewer people buying comics so those of us who do can expect our monthly fee for them to go up one way or another. As long as the quality is good, I'm good. BND suffered quality issues, I think, and consistency issues. Those were a turn off for me, it was the first time I've ever just given up on even trying to keep up with ASM.

[Mister Mets]

I got the impression that you guys have really enjoyed the last few issues. Would it be better with a longer wait between chapters?

[Inversed]

I got the impression that you guys have really enjoyed the last few issues. Would it be better with a longer wait between chapters?

I think in terms of quality of the book I would still be saying the same thing, but the double shipping really helps the pacing and makes everything feel all that more exciting. Even if he did something like in Slott's Worldwide era alternating between 2 and 1 a month I'd still feel about the same.

In comparison, I do think Brand New Day would've suffered a bit more if those 100 issues were released over 4-ish years as opposed to 3.

[Snoop Dogg]

I got the impression that you guys have really enjoyed the last few issues. Would it be better with a longer wait between chapters?

HECK no! This year of the book was just settin' the table, baby. We gotta GO, GO, GO to the real madness! Triple shipping! Quadruple shipping! Five a month!

[John Ossie]

Given how much I'm enjoying it at the moment I've voted for twice monthly.

[millernumber1]

I prefer two monthlies by different writers. A monthly generally allows a single art team for multiple arcs, whereas a twice-monthly always has to have at least two art teams, and as we've seen, significant amounts of fill in. (The fact that I like the fill-in better than Ramos is irrelevant - I don't like fill-in.)

The one thing a twice-monthly has in favor of it is that it gets the story out faster. And that's really enjoyable - but only because I think storytelling has gone too serialized. If they focused on making each issue more satisfying, I don't think it would be as necessary.

[millernumber1]

HECK no! This year of the book was just settin' the table, baby. We gotta GO, GO, GO to the real madness! Triple shipping! Quadruple shipping! Five a month!

Five a month? Wow. I'm trying to think if I've ever seen something like that, barring a weekly comic like 52 or Batman Eternal (or the current X-Men and Avengers projects).

But the art always suffers a lot when that happens. It wouldn't be too bad if they could schedule it so that the guy who does the first issue also does the last issue, but I've never seen that happen.