Is there too much back-material available?

[Mister Mets]

You could probably expect a well-stocked comic book store to have hundreds if not over a thousand Spider-Man issues available in some form as a cover-price reprint (the majority of Stan Lee's Amazing Spider-Man, much of the Michelinie/ McFarlane run, the majority of JMS' Spider-Man, the majority of Brand New Day, the majority of Slott's Spider-Man, the majority of Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man, the Clone Saga epic collections, recent runs like Spider-Man/ Deadpool, Zdarsky's Spectacular Spider-Man and Radioactive Spider-Gwen, etc.)

Is this too much of a good thing? Stores are expected to keep a lot of material available which takes up space. New readers can be overwhelmed. And could there be any solution?

Or are the downsides of having so much content available well worth the positives (more entry points to new readers, a lot of arcs available for long-time fans)?

[Revolutionary_Jack]

If there is demand there must be supply. I think this is market forces. It's not far from any bookstore having all the classics.

CentralPower talked at the life story thread about canon depending on defining runs but spider-man is unique for having many defining runs. Whereas Xmen is Claremont, FF is Kirby and lee and then Byrne and recently Hickman. Thor is Simonson. Daredevil is Miller, Bendis and maybe Waid.

Spider-Man is more consistent and defining. Never having s bad decade until the 90s.

[MajorHoy]

I thought there was a trend where some comic book shops were starting to decrease their reliance on back issue stock since a lot of that stuff is easier/cheaper to find digitally on-line?

[WebLurker]

I think that a balance between older and newer stuff is the right call. Between reprints, regular bookstores, and the web, you can find just about any older stuff you'd want.

[Mister Mets]

I think that a balance between older and newer stuff is the right call. Between reprints, regular bookstores, and the web, you can find just about any older stuff you'd want.

One issue with the web is that there's less need to have the obscure, and even the okay stuff eternally in print.

I wonder if a better way would be to have the acknowledged classics/ great material and the new stuff in print, much deeper collections online, and every 5-10 years cycle through the rest (IE- Tom DeFalco's non-Alien Costume Saga stories, Early Marvel Team-Up)

[WebLurker]

One issue with the web is that there's less need to have the obscure, and even the okay stuff eternally in print.

I was also thinking of Amazon and Ebay and the like where print copies of stuff can be gotten, but I see what you mean.

I wonder if a better way would be to have the acknowledged classics/ great material and the new stuff in print, much deeper collections online, and every 5-10 years cycle through the rest (IE- Tom DeFalco's non-Alien Costume Saga stories, Early Marvel Team-Up)

Could. I also like how the Epic Collections are doing stuff (even if I wish they had all the subseries put there as well).

[Jekyll]

To me that is never a bad thing. I love visiting a well stocked comic store and digging through old stuff.