RockMyAmadeus

"The plural of anecdote is not evidence."

Context. Was it hot because it was a Liefeld New Mutants Cable book? Yes. Was it hot because of Deadpool? Not in the slightest. That's one of the foundations of the discussion,.

New Mutants 87 was THE hot book of that run at the time. What time? March of 1990? Or June? Or September? Or December? Or June, 1991? Because these precise dates matter. The entire thing (that is, the time where the "buzz" would have actually affected PRINT RUNS and SALES) only lasted 14 months, from #87-100, from the very beginning to the end of New Mutants. I'm not quite sure where I stated "it" (which I presume to mean "the wildfire caused by Cable and Liefeld") wasn't happening during this nebulous period which you have left undefined. Can you please point out where I said such a thing? Because the reality is, you cannot, and I cannot, and no one can, state that "THIS is the day that New Mutants #87 took off", or "THAT is the day." No one can do that, because it is a matter of degrees, and always will be. Especially in the days before the internet, there was no way to know what was "hot" in one region, and what was "wildfire" in another, and what had "taken off" in another. I bought nearly every single one of my copies of #89-92 (10-20 copies each) AFTER #95 had come out, and for cover plus a quarter (because I never would have spent more.) Was #87 a rumbling book by #93? Yes. Was Liefeld getting a LOT of buzz? Yes. Was #87 a $20 book by the end of 1990? Yes. Yes. Yes. But these are degrees, and no one can define them, because they are undefinable by nature. What I CAN tell you is this: during ALL of 1990, Cable and Liefeld were not the hottest thing since sliced bread. In early 1990, that distinction belonged to McFarlane, Spidey and then Ghost Rider, and then Spidey by McFarlane. Proof? Check out the four OPG Updates published during the year...that was about the best thing in those days in terms of a "national comics market" news magazine, at least in terms of how the market was doing. CBG, as always, was more interested in the creative side of the industry. And what do they say? Well, for the entire year of 1990, Cable is barely mentioned. Liefeld is barely mentioned. By the end of the year, when the 1991 OPG was being compiled (about the same time that NM #98 was published), New Mutants #87 was listed for $6 as "First App Cable." But the entire year...not much of anything. Couple of mentions here and there. The whole year was dedicated to McFarlane, and Spidey, and Ghost Rider, and the X-Men, and Jim Lee, and X-Tinction Agenda. Now, granted, I understand that OPG was slow to catch up to reality, but as I have said before, OPG was the great equalizer nationwide...what was hot in one region, once confirmed in the Updates, almost always became hot everywhere. And Jon Warren was VERY good at keeping things updated in those days. In the 1990 Market Report by Bob, written in very early 1991, space is devoted to Spiderman, because 1990 really was Spiderman's year. McFarlane and Spiderman. That was the biggest deal, all year. An entire large paragraph was devoted to just that book. At the end of the year, the biggest books were Batman #457, then Superman #50, then Robin #1, all of which were instant huge hits. Superman #50 got national media attention as the engagement issue. All three are mentioned in the report as well. Lobo is also mentioned, because it was a fairly big hit, too. The other Marvel titles mentioned were GOTG, Namor, Hulk, and "the biggest surprise of all," Ghost Rider, which got a couple of sentences mention, and then Punisher, Wolverine, and "all Spiderman titles". What is missing from this? Not a single mention of the words "New Mutants", "Liefeld", or "Cable." In fact, in the 1991 OPG, #88 and #89 aren't even broken out...they're listed at $1. Ah, but with the cancellation of New Mutants with #100 in February of 1991...and the subsequent announcement of X-Force #1 in June, a scant four months later...then things got really interesting. THAT was when things got hot but, you see, that was AFTER all the New Mutants had been published. In fact, Marvel did almost the same thing with Liefeld that they did with McFarlane (why change what works?) McFarlane left Amazing in late 1989, and then Spidey #1 came out in June of 1990, more than 7 months later, during which time demand built to a fever pitch. The same thing happened with X-Force. NM #100 comes in February, and then there's a 4 month gap...and demand built to a fever pitch. One year later, in the Market Report for 1991, my how things have changed. The first paragraph in the 1991 year in review is dedicated to X-Force #1, Cable, and its ramifications on the market (as an aside, Bob Overstreet says X-Force #1 had a print run of 3.6 million. I think that's high, but still it's nowhere near 5 million.) Later in the report, he mentions the "controversial move" of issuing a metallic reprint of New Mutants #87, because, in his words, " it experienced a run up in price due to Cable's popularity as a member of X-Force." And, in the OPG itself, #87 is $50, #88 is broken out as "Cable's 2nd appearance" as is #89, #93 and #94 are "Cable vs. Wolverine", and #97 is listed as "Cable and Wolverine on-c, but no app." #86 is even listed as "Cable cameo (last page teaser)" My, what a difference that year made. And, in the last Update before the yearly, published in December of 1991, it's all New Mutants #87 all the time. In fact, Bill Townsend of Electric City makes a very interesting comment in his report "when I think of all the copies of New Mutants #87 I sold a year ago for $5, I want to cry." Again...this report was written around October of 1991. I don't dispute that people were speculating. They were. I don't dispute that people were buying multiples. They were. I was. But was it crazy during 1990? NO. And that was the reason the print runs for New Mutants didn't escalate sharply until #100. And there were complaints about Liefeld's art very early on, which was unlike what happened with McFarlane and Lee. I don't disagree with any of this. The question, however, is WHEN, which you won't state, and is the key issue. I've seen at least two-three mentions on wikipedia about a 4-5 MM run, so I know what you are referring to. But neither references the source. Even the Rob Liefeld page mentions a 4 MM book count, but no source. On the other hand, there have been interviews with Liefeld (NOT that he would be the distribution expert) where even he mentioned being told the final count - with all card versions included - was over 4 MM. But even with 2 MM X-Force #1s sold (still a crazy number to see in writing), that goes to show the demand and speculation around Liefeld's New Mutants work was way higher than just interest in New Mutants #87. Absolutely...long AFTER New Mutants ceased publication. I think we agree to disagree. By all means, feel free. "The plural of anecdote is not evidence." What time are you referring to? June of 1990? September? December? April of 1991? The numbers do not lie. There was no massive upswing in either the print runs OR the sales of the later issues of New Mutants. It simply did not happen, except for issue #100. I have already stated, multiple times, that the average print runs and sales were up approximately 60% from issue #87...but this is not a "wildfire." X-Force #1 being TEN to TWENTY TIMES the print run of #87...now THAT is an upswing. Although it was not happening frequently, there were speculators going out and buying newsstand editions because store orders were just being gobbled up. Sorry, but it is a fact. I'm not quite sure why you insist on repeating this, when issues #96, 97, 98, 99, and 100 were not "gobbled up" at comic stores. You reject the concept that speculators turned to the newsstands only when current issues were immediate sellouts, when all evidence and common sense states otherwise. If the books were still available at the distribution level...and they were...why would speculators NEED to turn to the newsstands, if they could simply reorder more? But for a book like Batman #457, Superman #50, Robin #1...yes, those DID sell out at the distribution level, and speculators WERE forced to turn to the newsstands, because the books weren't available for cover price through the DM anymore. We know they sold out fairly quickly at the distribution level, both through contemporaneous market reports, and the fact that second printings (and even a third printing for Robin #1) were issued within a month or two of the original books. What is your evidence that New Mutants #98 sold out at the Direct Market level? Since Marvel had JUST second printed #95, AND X-Men #270, AND X-Factor #60, AND New Warriors #1, AND Ghost Rider #5, and would again for New Mutants #100 two months later, they clearly had no problem second printing recent hot issue sellouts...and yet, there is no second printing for 96, 97, 98, 99...if Marvel didn't sell out at the distribution level (meaning reorders were available), what possible evidence do you have that speculators NEEDED to turn to the newsstand market to satisfy their "gobbling" demands...? There is none. Every store in the nation with a Cap City or Diamond account could EASILY reorder any book that had sold out at the retail level, but was still available at the distribution level. Clearly, since none of those issues sold out at the distribution level, the demand of the speculators was met with the existing Direct Market run. Because approximately 50,000 copies of the book sold to individuals across the US and Canada, via the normal newsstand distribution and sales market. That's how. This is self-evident, is it not? Speculators were doing what they do best - assuming value either currently, or in a near-future period. And with X-Force being announced and ready to launch from New Mutants #100, the heat was building up. But New Mutants #87 was still THE hot book. As I already explained...speculation AFTER the books had already become back issues has no effect on the print runs or sales figures of those books as new issues.

Most popular Marvel Bronze comics were in the 250,000-300,000 range, but there would have been newsstand return on that whereas NM #98 would not have returns. Relatively speaking, NM #98 is a high print run. DG 70's books would have a higher ratio of returns AND damage. The first is not true, as has already been explained in this thread re: newsstand sell-through, and the second is entirely anecdotal. What numbers? You mean, the published, verifiable data from Capital City, the Marvel Statements of Ownership, and the Krause Standard Catalog of Comic Books...? You dispute those numbers...? :shrug: And this discussion has nothing to do with surviving copies in high grade. No one disputes that, so far as I have seen. Knock yourself out! But can you answer one question? Why did you say that NM #98 would "not have returns"...?

Personal reasons.

Cap City*** for issues cover dated 2/91: New Mutants #98 - 55,200 Alpha Flight #93 - 21,400 Excalibur #34 - 37,400 (PS. Excalibur numbers blew New Mutants out of the water for all of 1989 and half of 1990.) West Coast Avengers #67 - 28,500 Conan #241 - 11,800 Thor #429 - 36,000 Daredevil #289 - 25,200 Captain America #382 - 28,800 Iron Man #265 - 31,800 You are comparing a title that WAS just coming off an incredibly successful crossover, was gaining a lot of popularity because of Cable and Liefeld, and was a mutant title. Comparing it to the absolute dregs of the Marvel line at the time doesn't say much, but it does say something that the Cap City orders for NM #98 were only about double those. ***Cap City accounted for about 20-30% of the market at this point. Do not misunderstand what I have said. I did not say that NM #98 had a low print run. I also never said that New Mutants #98 was subject to MORE attrition than "any other book of that era." I said it did not have a HIGH print run. It did not. I've also said nothing about why there are so many 9.8s and 9.6s. When I talk about attrition, I MEAN attrition...including the point of destruction/discarding. If anyone thinks there are the same number of copies of NM #98 in existence as there were in June of 1991, they'd be wrong. And you don't apparently understand how NOT HOT Deadpool was for a very, very long time. You know the New Mutants that would have gotten pulled? #87. That's it. That's the ONLY issue of the entire run that maintained a $5-$10 value since 1990. The only one. No one would have "yanked" #98, because no one wanted them. Many of the people who DID keep them, kept them very well, no doubt. But not all of them were kept, and certainly not all of them were kept in perfect condition. And the issue has been "OMG, why is NM #98 worth so much money, there's a BILLION of them in existence!!! They printed like 750,000-1 million copies of that book, just like X-Force #2!!" This thread is to explain why that's not really true.

maybe they learned their lesson by the early 90s from the mile high II mess

exactamundo. why are we assuming these went into the shredder, especially when these are probably books that could have been bulked out out to dealers 6/$1 or whatever through the back door before hitting the shredder because the title/artist was hot? as we know from the mile high II collection, this is kind of how it was done back in the day. It is PRECISELY because of situations like Mile High II that more books ended up in the shredder, because the authorities were watching. Not destroying these books and then selling them was a CRIME, and created no small amount of problems for many people in the 1970's. By the 1990's, you can believe that they were NOT doing "back door deals" for returns. And if you think the average newsstand dealer cares, or even KNOWS, about the latest "hot title", when his/her comics sales account for maybe 2-5% of their entire business, you'd be wrong. Apparently you don't have much experience with the treatment of books in stores, at cons, especially of books that no one cares about. 15-17 years of lying around, not being cared for, is not only not "silly", it's reality. That is why it is called "attrition." It happens, even in the best of conditions. I have all sorts of books that I carefully picked out brand new that got smashed because of bad box conditions that I wasn't aware of, and I'm wayyyyy more anal about storage than most. Not only did lots of them "get ding'd up"...but SOME of them were even thrown AWAY. I know, SACRILEGE! Are you aware of the comics market in 1999-2001? People were throwing comics by the pallet-full into the landfills. Were they throwing New Mutants 98 by the long box? No, of course not. But were lots and lots of dealers trashing inventory that simply wouldn't sell? Yes. Were there lots and lots of back stock that was wasting money being stored from failed stores? Yes. Is it reasonable to assume that, for every case of X-Men #1 that got tossed, a copy or two of Liefeld New Mutants were tossed, too? Yes. If you're paying storage on stuff that isn't selling, and no one wants...and Liefeld New Mutants were at the top of that list, I assure you...what do you do with it? Wait until the market might turn around? Yeah, ok. Better to not throw good money after bad. That's right, they do. And 23 years ago, they were not anywhere near what would be called "high." (thumbs u I have 3 copies of NM #98 left: an SS 9.8, an SS 9.6, and a raw 9.6 that I happened to find in a long box of mine a month or so ago. I sold the rest...18 9.8 slabbed copies...through 2010-2012. So...no. I have no horse in this race, there is no ulterior motive here, so try not to imagine what isn't there. My motive for posting this is to correct the quite common misperception that New Mutants #98 had a high print run, relative to other books of the day. Nothing more, nothing less. (thumbs u

In fact.... New Mutants, particularly #87 and #98...fit quite comfortably in that niche of "not too rare", and "not rare enough." Very few X-Men issues after #142 have and sustain any real value precisely because there are just so many of them available. And so, there aren't any issues that sell as raws for more than $10 on a regular basis except #266. But there's a flip side to that as well... Things can be too rare for their own good. If any particular item only rarely shows up for sale, and isn't available for long periods of time at ANY price, all but the most dedicated buyers will get frustrated and move on to something more obtainable. For example...pound for pound, New Mutants #98 is worth more than TMNT #1. "You're crazy, RMA! A 9.8 Turtles #1 is worth $15k! New Mutants #98 is only worth $400!" Granted. But Turtles #1 suffers from its own rarity. There are only 11 copies of Turtles #1 in 9.8U, while there are 1112 copies of New Mutants #98 in 9.8. That means for every 1 copy of Turtles #1 in 9.8 at $15k, you have 101 copies of NM #98 at $400 each. If NM #98 had only 11 copies in 9.8, extrapolated out, that means that each one would be worth $40,400. There are 1112 copies of New Mutants #98 in 9.8, and it STILL sells for $400. If that sort of demand were transferred to Turtles, it would be a $1.5 million book. Pound for pound, copy for copy, New Mutants #98 is worth more than Turtles #1. Crazy, huh? And that's what happened with New Mutants. They were in the sweet spot: they weren't sitting by the long box in dealer's back rooms, but they weren't so rare that even at the height, there weren't 5-10 copies of #87 that could be found at a convention. The fact that they were sitting there, staring potential buyers in the face, helped to fuel demand, even if they weren't always purchased. They were just "rare enough" to be worth something, but not "too rare" that buyers got frustrated looking for them. I imagine that's a good deal why a lot of the books from the 2000's aren't worth much: most of them are genuinely hard to find, so out of sight, out of mind, they aren't worth anything to inspire anyone to offer them for sale, no one has them stockpiled in any large numbers, and without an external influence, demand remains nil. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of books just as rare and rarer than Walking Dead #1...but they're worthless. Hence the huge, immense price increases when even the slightest sort of demand pressure is applied.

Are you disagreeing that mutant books were popular in 1991? Not in the slightest. X-Men, as I have stated, was at or near the top of the print run and sales charts through 1990-1991 and beyond. NEW MUTANTS, on the other hand, was not anywhere near as popular. Everyone remembers that New Mutants were HOT HOT HOT!!!!!...but a lot of that recollection is from AFTER the entire run was completed, and was founded on the very fact that New Mutants did NOT have X-Men type numbers available to purchase. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the demand was absolutely fueled by the fact that there weren't enough copies to go around. Again...the print run info bears this out. At a time when Spiderman had a 750,000 print run, Uncanny had a 600,000 print run, X-Factor was in the 400s, and even FANTASTIC FOUR was in the 300's, New Mutants had print runs less than 1/2 of X-Men, and sales of less than 1/2 as well. And we're not talking about 1991. We're talking about 1990. New Mutants #87 came out in Jan of 1990, and #98 in Dec. Remember: New Mutants was a dying title. Liefeld and Louise were given pretty much carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. The low point was reached around the 80's, with Cap City orders from 33-35k. Yeesh! Did Cable become popular? Yes. Immensely so. Was he popular in Jan of 1990? No. How about June of 1990? Yeah, there was definitely an active buzz. September of 1990? Now we're starting to see some results. But did it translate into exponentially higher sales? No. In fact, from #87 to #99, actual print runs and sales only increased about 60%. That's good...but still less than 1/3 of Spiderman's numbers. The only issue of the entire run with a print run over 400,000 was #100, the very last issue. At a time when Spidey had a print run of 750,000, and X-Men now had print runs in the same neighborhood (because of Jim Lee.) Some might say "well, of course there couldn't be THAT much increase in demand in just a year, so that does reflect a huge increase, right?" Wrong. Watch this to see some astonishing, demand driven intense spikes in print runs and sales: Cap City orders - Adventures of Superman #496 - 17,700 Adventures of Superman #497 - 25,450 Adventures of Superman #498 - 80,500 :o :o (an astonishing FIVE FOLD increase in TWO MONTHS.) Adventures of Superman #499 - 81,800 And, of course, three months after those... Adventures of Superman #500 - 879,050 In the span of 7 months, the amount of copies ordered increased an absolutely astounding 50 TIMES. Quite a bit more than 60%.... New Mutants was the least of the mutants titles in 1989. Liefeld helped, quite a bit...but he didn't quadruple, triple, or even double print runs and sales...he increased it just about 60%. Good...but that doesn't translate into the silly numbers of X-Force #1, Spiderman #1, X-Men #1, Adventures of Superman #500, Turok #1, etc etc etc. That's precisely why they were oh so hot by the time X-Force #1 came out.

True. And #93 was 6 months after #87. And still #87 was at that point only a $5-$10 book...if you could find one. Yeah, that wasn't really the case though with the issues after 96-97. 97 especially was available for quite some time at the comics stores, and even moreso #100. Several stores in the Bay Area actually had copies sit long enough to get bagged and boarded and put in the back issue bins at a quarter or 50 cents over cover. Walking Dead #115 just had a print run of 352,000 copies...every single one of them non-returnable...and it sold out....

During 1991, the New Mutants run was receiving attention because of Cable and Liefeld. People were buying up multiple because they saw this hot property really taking off. How hot? The very last issue of New Mutants, #100, was released in February, 1991. All issues before that were now back issues. By April 1991, so was #100, newsstand returns for the others were long since done, and the remaining pool (heh) that were still available was set...once those returns were destroyed, they were out of the market (and, for the most part by this time, returns were actually destroyed...again, it must be stressed, for the most part.) The interest...and all published information confirms this...was in #87 and the other early Liefeld/Cable issues (so, of course, does my personal experience, but since memories become fuzzy, I won't introduce that as actual evidence, and instead rely simply on contemporaneous data to confirm these things.) The average speculator did not care about, and did not buy, multiple copies of, in general, issues 98-100, especially #100 with its actual ridiculous print run (500-600k copies), which still sold out at a distribution level and went to a second, and even a third, printing. But this was a different situation than previous sellouts, which happened at the retail level: this was one of the very first books that DEALERS speculated on across the nation, and so while the book was "sold out", once dealers realized that every other dealer had hundreds of copies of NM #100 on hand, it got dumped pretty unceremoniously a few months after X-Force #1 came out (keeping in mind that this was still before the days of the internet, and information took a long time to catch up to reality.) Where do you get this figure? It has been repeated in this thread by others, and is not correct. Cap City orders for the book were 806,100. If Diamond was twice that, which would have been quite astonishing, that makes another 1.6 million copies, or 2.4 total for the DM. Since the newsstand was generally immune to the print run madness, it's likely that not more than 2-300,000 newsstand copies were printed, which puts the total at, at best, 2.7 million copies. The published reports at the time were 1.75-2.5 million copies printed. For a figure of 5 million copies to have been printed, Diamond's orders alone would have had to have been a staggering 4 million copies, or 5 times Cap City's order numbers. As well, the SOO for issue #20 states that an average of 936k copies were printed in the period reported, which would have included #1's figure (or the average would be substantially lower.) If the print run of #1 was 5 million, for the average to be only 936k, the following issues could not have been printed in numbers more than 500,000, and we know that's not true, because the single issue nearest to filing date was 720k (and we know #2 and #4 couldn't possibly have had only 550,000 copies printed.) So where does this "5 million" figure come from, other than an unsourced statement on Wikipedia? And why does Wikipedia claim that it is "the second best selling comic of all time"...? Adventures of Superman #500 had Cap City orders of 879,000 copies, against Cap City orders of X-Force #1 of 802,000! That's almost 10% higher! Diamond's orders were certainly going to be similar. How, then, can anyone claim that it was "the second best selling comic book of all time"...? The numbers do not add up. It sold out at the distribution level...not the retail level. The horse was out of the barn. I bought 80 copies myself, brand spanking new, for $1 each (I would have been far better served putting that $80 into a nice high grade SA Spidey. Sigh.) I still have those 80 copies, sealed in precisely the same ten packs that they were handed to me by the retailer who sold them to me. While technically "sold out", that doesn't mean it was sold out like Superman #75 sold out. No, actually, they weren't. The bloom was most certainly off the rose by the later issues. While X-Men #268, 270, and then #248 were selling for "big bucks" (keeping in mind that X-Men was at or near the top of print runs even during 1990), 274, 275, 276, 277 never were. The same is true for the later issues of McFarlane's Amazing (and for ALL of the adjectiveless series.) And the same was true for the latter issues of New Mutants. People were crazy for #87...not the later issues. And speculators focus on the NEXT hot thing...not the remnants of the LAST hot thing. Not completely accurate. {snip} That is what the words "almost never" mean: it doesn't mean no one ever did, it means that it was a very rare occurrence. The average newsstand buyer would consider it lunacy to buy multiple copies, and this has been true for most of comics history. The people who bought multiple copies were buying them at comics stores by this time. Hoards of newsstand copies set aside for speculation (as opposed to books simply warehoused), were and are extremely rare. Please see above. Your assumption about newsstand purchases are not accurate You've taken out the context of what was said, so let's go back and see what it was I was replying to. This is what you said: And again, this is not an assumption. As I already explained, New Mutants #98 was a LATTER issue of the run, long after Cable's and Liefeld's beginnings on the title, and while speculators DID run to the newsstands for the latest hot sellout, they did NOT do it for average, typical latter run issues. You have to understand the nature of the newsstand: there are no back issues. Once an individual issue has been on sale for a month or two, any remaining copies are pulled and returned/destroyed. They do not, in general, have issues that are 6 months to a year old still on sale (yes, in general, because some newsstands did.) Liefeld/Cable fever did not kick into overdrive until X-Force #1 came out. This was SEVEN MONTHS after New Mutants #98 was on the stands...they were long since gone. The book was not an instant hit, nor was it a sellout, and speculators did not...like they did with books like Batman #457, Superman #50, and Robin #1...run to newsstands to scoop up copies because the DM copies had sold out. It just didn't happen. No one needs to trust anyone. The data bears this out. And since, 1-2 months after these books came out (New Mutants #98-100) they were readily available at just about any comic store, why were you running to the newsstands to get whatever copies they may have had, which at this time were mostly mangled? They were not sellouts, and if someone could buy near mint copies at their local comic store...and there were many in the winter of 1990/1991...during that 2 month window in which the books were on the newsstand as well, why would they go to the newsstand? They wouldn't. I did state "(assuming Mile High is not confused, or attempting to boost the value of newsstand resales)" in my final comments. So I did assume there was some fudging of the numbers. But if he is cutting the actual distribution in half, that is just crazy on his part to further hurt his reputation. Folks are going to have access to various data, and can put a decent estimate together like you are attempting. Looks like a pretty successful attempt, n'est-ce-pas? In looking over #99's statement of ownership, it states "preceding twelve months" as a reference point. So this data on returns could even be referencing pre-Liefeld return numbers. It does, as I noted. But when one goes back to the LAST SOO, printed in #89, the numbers are HIGHER, not lower, on the pre-Liefeld books covered in that SOO, Avg printed - 313k (as opposed to 289k), and 210k sales (as opposed to 182k.) And the previous SOO has even HIGHER numbers. New Mutants was a languishing title (which is one of the reasons Liefeld got it, and was allowed to do pretty much whatever he and Louise wanted.) No. As noted, that average includes pre-Liefeld issues that were almost certainly HIGHER than the Liefeld issues that followed. What needs to be understood is that Liefeld and Cable madness was NOT instant. It heated up during 1990, absolutely. But the reason #95 was a sellout was not because of either Cable OR Liefeld...it was because of X-Tinction Agenda. Cable/Liefeld madness did not hit its peak until X-Force #1 came out, in June of 1991, and by then, all the New Mutants issues were long since printed, newsstand returns done, and copies distributed. In fact, I found (quite by accident), 5 copies of New Mutants #87 for $1.25 at a local store AFTER New Mutants #93 had come out, as well as all the rest in between (#93 was the first issue I bought brand new of the title.) And this was a store that was very up on "the latest hot books", being an SF Bay Area store. It wasn't instant chaos, it was a slow simmer that took about a year to really hit the heat. Let me say this again: New Mutants, as it came out, was NOT the market juggernaut that some may claim it was. It wasn't, and the numbers bear this out. What WERE the sales juggernauts at that time? Spiderman. Cap City orders of 202,000 copies for #6 (this is a STAGGERING figure.) That's nearly 4 times the orders for New Mutants #98. Uncanny X-Men...#273 has Cap City orders of 91,500 copies, well on its way to double the numbers for NM #98. Were the numbers for #98 HIGHER than #87, 88, 89, etc? Of course. But were they higher than #95-97? No. #95 had the same Cap City numbers, #96 was higher, and #97 was 9,200 copies higher...just Cap City. And for perspective: Cap City orders of #98 were 55,200...#87? 34,500. So, the numbers for #98 were only about 60% higher than #87! And were they "hot" numbers? Not even close. Again, this is one of the reasons why NM #98 is so valuable today, and why the other issues shot up in value so quickly back then: print runs were low compared to other books being printed at the same time. The reported number for #87 has traditionally been 110,000 copies. This isn't likely, but it's not too far from the truth. And that's why #87 was a $65 book in the Overstreet Update by the middle of 1991, and X-Men #266 was only ~$20. Supply did not meet demand in the case of the former. So, no, because of Wolverine's appearance (#93-94) and/or X-Tinction Agenda (#95), that "issue nearest filing date" would have been unnaturally high, so it's not safe to assume that #98 would be HIGHER than the average, and close to the highest printed issue. In fact, it was most likely lower than the average, hence the ~ 250k figure. I think there are some assumptions here that though an educated assessment, it can still be off. 1) The Statement of Ownership was referencing averages over a twelve month period (where that average starts and stops would be interesting). 2) Returns referenced in the SOO could also be questionable, as you would need to know what period of the run is it referencing? If it is pre-Liefeld and the excitement that came with his involvement at the time, the numbers are questionable. These are legally documented numbers, filed under penalty of perjury with the USPS. Why do you think these numbers would be questionable? We have a general idea which issues are being addressed, because the issue published "nearest to the filing date" of Oct 1, 1990 was #95, which came out in September. If that wasn't enough time, then it was #94. Again...there was no "excitement" concerning Liefeld or Cable in any appreciable way that would have affected these numbers. That came later. I didn't assume that; it's a fact. Historically, newsstand buyers do NOT buy multiple copies (with rare exceptions), and speculators only ran to the newsstand when the DM copies were sold out, which wasn't true of #98. And "assuming 50% returns vs. a higher number" demonstrates a staggering ignorance of the newsstand comics market: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/18/business/cover-story-oh-how-far-a-magazine-will-go-to-stimulate-newsstand-sales.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm That's ALL magazines, including the most popular like TV Guide, Time, and Newsweek. And: http://www.icv2.com/articles/indepth/300.html (That is an article from 2001, but things weren't radically that much different 10 years earlier. Maybe a few percentage points higher.) And, as already explained, it does not jive with the numbers published in the statement of ownership. If the newsstand sell-though is 50%, as you claim, that means that since the average return number was 107,000 copies, then the total newsstand copies printed was 214,000, with Cap City orders between 33,000 and 55,000, which means Diamond orders on average for the period were only 20,000 to 42,000 copies...? You cannot assume a 50% sell-through at the newsstand; no one can, not on any comic published after about 1980. Maybe...possibly...Superman #75. Maybe. But absolutely not even close on a non-hot, typical, non-sellout issue like NM #98. If NM #98 had a 30% actual sell through, that would be pretty amazing. It likely was less, around 25%. Indeed.

This is not true. I will explain why later in this reply. Oh goody, I get the opportunity to puncture Chuck's musings with hard data. Yay. Sorry, but Mile High's numbers here are pulled from thin air. My numbers are from The Standard Catalog of Comic Books, by John Jackson Miller, the owner of website comichron.com and the editor of Krause's Comics and Games division. John Jackson Miller and the Standard Catalog of Comic Books have far superior credentials than Chuck Rozanski when discussing publication data. As well, Chuck is trying to explain (read: defend) his reasoning for charging more for newsstand copies, especially where no such defense is acceptable (ie, 1980-1990 issues, which are just as common as DM.) That is, it is in his own interests to underestimate, sometimes significantly, the number of newsstand copies in existence, to justify his pricing scheme. So, Chuck's numbers, coming with no source behind them, are made up out of thin air, while the Standard Catalog takes data from the Statements of Ownership, Capital City orders (where available), Diamond orders (where available), and other sources to come up with these numbers. As well, Curtis Circulation, which distributed the vast majority of newsstand copies for decades, kept meticulous records of newsstand returns, as this was the foundation of the entire newsstand distribution system: that unsold product could be "returned" (or "stripped") for credit, which required every dealer to keep accurate numbers for accounting purposes. In fact...according to the Statement of Ownership printed in New Mutants #99, 37% of the ENTIRE PRINT RUN was returned during the period covered, on average. More on that in a bit. On top of all of that, Chuck's article is FACTUALLY wrong. The Direct Market DID NOT...repeat, DID NOT...start with the June, 1979 issues. It had been tested much earlier than that. While it is true that Ed Shukin agreed with the problem of DM retailers buying books from DM distributors, returning them to their newsstand distributors for credit, and there needing to be a way to differentiate the two, this did not happen in 1979...it happened in 1976! In fact, the original largest "distributor" in the Direct Market was Whitman. This is why, beginning with Feb 1977 dated issues, we see the first "fat diamonds"...to distinguish the DM from the newsstand issues. These ARE NOT, and NEVER WERE "reprints." They were ordered by Direct Market distributors like Seuling and Western (Whitman), some for sale to comics specialty stores (of which there were very few in the mid 70's) and most for sale to Whitman to go into their long time 3-Pack program. The fat diamonds WITH barcodes were mostly for the actual direct market, while the blank UPC codes were specially requested by Whitman, so that the new UPC scanner system, having been phased in nationwide in the mid 70's, wouldn't scan an individual issue (at the individual issue price), but instead the bag itself would have a barcode to scan, with the correct price for all 3 (or 2 or 4, whatever it happened to be.) These "fat diamonds" (and some slim diamonds, in some cases) exist for almost every issue of the major titles of the time, like Amazing Spiderman, Spectacular, Fantastic Four, etc. It was definitely a test period, to find out if the Direct Market could actually work, and how they could differentiate between "returnable" and "non-returnable." The June, 1979 date is simply when Marvel decided that the test for the DM had worked, and applied the cover difference across the line on every title. It was not the "start" of the DM by any means, which had been chugging along for 3-5 years at this point. So, if Chuck is factually wrong about the start of the DM, the rest of his "pulled out of thin air" numbers are highly questionable. First, when discussing these numbers, it is critical to differentiate between newsstand PRINT RUNS, and newsstand SALES. Chuck's numbers are referring to newsstand SALES, not print runs. So, right off the bat, you've confused his numbers for SALES with the total number of copies PRINTED, which is wrong. But even then, Chuck's numbers don't add up...by a longshot. Returns on the newsstand market were typically 50-70% at this time, which while not great sell-through, was usual. It cost very little more for Marvel to print 300,000 copies as it did 200,000...because the big costs were upfront, as any publisher can tell you. The numbers bear this out. If 37% of the entire print run was returned (and we know that from the SOO), and we know that about 290,000 copies were printed on average for the period, and Cap City orders for the period were between 33-41K (putting Diamond roughly at 80-100k copies), that means that the newsstand portion of the print run, from about issue #82 to about issue #94, consisted of about 55% of the print run, and of that, about 70% was returned, which was typical. Understand that print runs and total distribution for each title and, indeed, each issue, varied from issue to issue, as well as the ratio of newsstand to DM copies. So, no, Chuck doesn't really have any idea what he's talking about. The numbers simply don't bear out. There were 289,000 copies, on average, of each issue printed from about issue 83 to about issue 94 (the period covered by the SOO.) On average, 105,000 copies were returned. Since the DM accounted for ZERO returns, and all of the newsstand copies were not returned, as you have correctly pointed out, then no, the newsstand market accounted for far, far more than "15%" during 1990 (though it was certainly on the decline.) It accounted for about 30% of the market, and in the case of New Mutants (which probably did better on the newsstand than most anyways), was as much as 55% of the print run. In that respect, I even underestimated the amount of copies that were distributed to the newsstands! Consider...if you take Chuck at his 15% of sales for the newsstand, that would mean, according to the SOO for NM #99, that would be 27,000 copies of the 182,000 sold on average. That means the total print run of newsstand copies (since we know that there were ~105,000 returned) was about 132,000 copies...and the return rate was almost 80%! That's a very, very high return rate. (Yes, it gets muddy when one has to separate the DM, non-returnable copies, from the newsstand, returnable copies, vs. the entire print run vs. sold copies vs. returned copies.) If one considers that Capital and Diamond controlled approximately 70% of the comics distribution market (these are SALES numbers), and also takes into account that Capital City orders for NM #98 was 55,200 (9,200 copies fewer than #97, by the way), and Diamond was roughly 100,000 copies, give or take, you come up with about 155,000...NONE of which were returnable. Since Marvel did not print as many newsstand copies for cancelled titles (since cancelled titles weren't likely to gain new readers), it's reasonable to figure that they printed 100,000 or so newsstand copies (though that number could certainly have been as high as 150,000.) The newsstand market was hardly in the doldrums that Chuck Rozanski imagines when this book came out in December of 1990. Anyone who was purchasing comics from both the Direct Market and the newsstand during this era would have been aware that the newsstand comics market was not dead yet, and wouldn't really be until the mid to late 90's. As explained above, these numbers have no bearing in reality, based on these made up "10-15% newsstand" numbers from Mile High, which doesn't even take into account that Chuck was taking about sales, not print runs, which makes the numbers even more out of whack. For there to be a Direct Market print run of 212,500-225,000, and we know that Cap City orders were 55,200, that means Diamond's numbers were 157,300-169,800, which is not reality. That would also mean that, from an average of 105,000 copies RETURNED between #83-94, by #98, the numbers of returns plummeted 80-90%...also not in the realm of reality. It would also mean that, between the average of 83-94 newsstand copies of about 150,000 printed, that number plummeted 75-85%. Again, not in the realm of reality. It would also mean that the total amount of copies SOLD from #94 (or #95 or #93) would have jumped from 194,000 to 225,000-243,000? That's, again, out of the realm of reason, especially when you consider that the sales of the nearest issue to filing date...93, or 94, or 95...only sold 6% more than the average of the previous year, which includes 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92....but then it's reasonable to think that the sales from 93, or 94, or 95...with Wolvie or X-Tinction agenda...jumped 14-20% ABOVE that particular issue? And 21-25% above the average sales for the previous year, which INCLUDES 87-93 or 94 or 95? When the Direct Market numbers went DOWN after X-Tinction agenda? It makes no sense. Ultimately, you need to understand that these numbers are APPROXIMATIONS. Only the publisher and printer know the exact amount of copies printed, and they don't tell. As APPROXIMATIONS, there will necessarily be room for error: it is assumed. On top of the error you have made confusing Chuck's SALES numbers vs. PRINT RUN numbers (and, again...if 105,000 copies ON AVERAGE were returned for each issue...a whopping 37% of the ENTIRE print run, and not a single one of those could be a DM copy, then, no, 15% of the sales being newsstand...whether copies PRINTED or copies SOLD...simply isn't possible), you've also made an error in the idea that speculators ran to the newsstands to scoop up copies. It is true that speculators ran to the newsstands for books that were INDIVIDUAL hits, right away...enough to grab the books at the 2-3 week mark after their DM counterparts showed up, and before they were sold to readers or otherwise mangled on the newsstand...and that isn't true of ANY of the New Mutants from #86-100, with the single exception of #95. New Mutants #98 was Liefeld's 14th issue (11th if you don't count just covers like #85, 92, and 97) and was Cable's 12th appearance in New Mutants alone. He had also appeared in multiple other books by that time. Just like McFarlane before him, where later issues of Amazing Spiderman like #320-up were NOT sellouts anywhere, neither were New Mutants #96-100. There were plenty of copies of each and every other issue available through DM channels to satisfy speculator demand, and no real instant demand that would cause speculators to run to the newsstand, like they did with books like Superman #50, #75, Robin #1, or other books that were instant sellouts at the DM level. New Mutants #98 was NOT one of those books, not be a long, long way. It is true that order numbers for the books went up for the Direct Market during this time period, especially for the Wolverine and X-Tinction Agenda...but they didn't go up by multiples, and while sell-through may have been better for the newsstand issues, it wouldn't have been so much that they would have upped the newsstand print run, especially, again, for a cancelled title, because newsstand buyers almost never bought multiple copies, and speculators already had plenty of DM copies that they wouldn't have gone to the newsstand for copies. There was no sellout, again, for any issue except #95. The numbers just don't add up.

Most popular Marvel Bronze comics were in the 250,000-300,000 range, but there would have been newsstand return on that whereas NM #98 would not have returns. Relatively speaking, NM #98 is a high print run. DG

Some facts: #1. Deadpool was NOT a "hot character" at the time that New Mutants #98 was published. In Deadpool's first year of existence, he appeared in a total of five comic books: NM #98, X-Force #1, 2, 4, and 5. Of those, three were cameos. Of those, two of them...X-Force #1 and #4...were single panel cameos. It would take quite some time for Deadpool to become much of anything, quite unlike the scenario with Cable and Gambit. #2. 250k copies is the entire print run for the issue, nearly 30% of which were distributed to newsstands, most of which would have been subject to destruction as returns from news agents. That would make the total available supply about 175,000-200,000 copies from the beginning. #3. The print run for the book, about 250k, was roughly typical Marvel at the time, during a period when the print run for Spiderman was 750,000, and X-Men (Uncanny) was in the 600,000s, for perspective. X-Factor at the time had a print run in the 400,000s. Fantastic Four had a print run of 300,000 at the exact same time period, and FF was not a "hot" title. #4. Deadpool would not become a hot character in his own right until his 1993 mini-series, two+ years after his first appearance. At that time, New Mutants #98 "broke out" and became a $5-$15 book. However, this proved to be a flash in the pan, and soon petered out, and NM #98 would become a cold book for the next decade and a half. #5. Because NM #98 had this small breakout during 1993, many thousands of copies that had been hoarded initially were distributed, as speculators and hoarders took advantage of the mini-bump in popularity, spreading out the print run amongst more owners. #6. After that, the crash of 95-96, and the great malaise of 1997-2002, took its toll on just about every formerly "hot" mainstream comic from the previous nearly 20 years. NM #98 wasn't even able to keep New Mutants #87 or X-Men #266 status, and settled right back to being a "dollar issue" for the 15 years after the first mini. After the crash and during the malaise, nearly all the speculators were driven completely from the entire industry, and any remaining hoards that were not distributed during the light 1993 market spike were then dumped and absorbed into the greater market, or forgotten in boxes. In all cases, attrition took its toll. To imagine that only 10% of the print run was lost to attrition after 15 years of essentially no demand, and nearly 23 years of existence, is not really within the realm of reason. #7. New Mutants #98 was nothing like Amazing Spiderman #361, which was, indeed, hot from the beginning, because of the immense visual appeal of Carnage, as well as the excellent layout of its cover. Carnage was an immediate hit from the moment #361 hit the stands. While an available pool of 175,000-200,000 copies may seem like a lot in this era of 30,000 average print runs for mid-level Marvel books, the fact is, the book is 23 years old and went through the majority of that time as a book with almost no demand. This is why the book continues to defy projections and rises in value, while at the same time, books like X-Force #2 see very little increase (in fact, the book can still be found in dollar boxes, while even ratty copies of NM #98 are $50+.) There simply isn't the supply that some think there is or should be, and never was. The same thing could happen with a book like New Mutants #99, or Detective Comics #647, if Feral or the Spoiler ever become as popular as Deadpool. Yes, not anywhere near possible, but that's what would happen.

:shrug: It didn't.

Um. No. Not ever. As in never, ever. http://1995wproofsilvereagle.com/ Google is your friend.

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Now all I need is the GID #1 and I'll have all the Maxx variants in SS signed by Kieth.