V1 Circulation Numbers?

[nycjadie]

Wasn't there a source on here that had circulation numbers? I'm creating a spreadsheet of information on Valiant books (starting with V1), and it would be helpful to plug this data in.

With the loss of ValiantDatabase, I just decided to make my own, hopefully finishing before ECCC. It's super helpful to have when digging in stacks and searching artists for books to sign.

[greg]

It's not currently working but there's a web archive snapshot of the old data that I have on ValiantFan.com
https://web.archive.org/web/20100821124 ... ytitle.asp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[nycjadie]

You are awesome. And so is archive.org. Thank you!

[The Chosen 1]

The numbers dropped off pretty quick after the titles hit their peak.

[jmatt]

I look at those numbers from 27 years ago and weep for the industry.

[nycjadie]

Exactly. Titles were killed when they hit 70K. That’s a home run first issue these days.

[greg]

The numbers dropped off pretty quick after the titles hit their peak.

The numbers dropped off pretty quickly after the industry hit its peak.

[Chiclo]

Just looking at comic numbers of that era neglects a certain boom-bust cycle that roamed through several genera within the collectibles field, and one could argue the second to have hit comics in less than a decade. I honestly believe the 80s comic bubble, the trading card bubble, the 90s comic bubble and maybe even pogs and beanie babies were connected.

[rkjock1]

Just looking at comic numbers of that era neglects a certain boom-bust cycle that roamed through several genera within the collectibles field, and one could argue the second to have hit comics in less than a decade. I honestly believe the 80s comic bubble, the trading card bubble, the 90s comic bubble and maybe even pogs and beanie babies were connected.

I've read a number of articles over the years that suggest you are 100% correct. At the very least, almost everyone connects the sports trading card bust with the 90s comic book bubble, as casual investors shifted their money out of the collapsing card market and into, what was then, the emerging comics market. The sudden rise of Image, Ultraverse, and yes Valiant, played key roles in this happening.

[jmatt]

I've always thought that the rise of Ebay played a big role. Suddenly, people could complete their collections of whatever without having to traipse to thirty comic shops and cons.

Then it occurred to them that not only could they buy issues to complete their runs, but maybe someday they could be the guy selling them and making some cash. Swirl in a fat dollop of mania, and there's the bubble.

[rkjock1]

I've always thought that the rise of Ebay played a big role. Suddenly, people could complete their collections of whatever without having to traipse to thirty comic shops and cons.

Then it occurred to them that not only could they buy issues to complete their runs, but maybe someday they could be the guy selling them and making some cash. Swirl in a fat dollop of mania, and there's the bubble.

The comic bubble started in the early to mid 90s and was almost completely over by 97. The internet itself didn't exist really until 96/97 and Ebay didn't show up on the scene until 99. So while a good theory, it dosen't pan out.

[jmatt]

Well Ebay's been around since 1995 but point taken.

[Aram]

I've always thought that the rise of Ebay played a big role. Suddenly, people could complete their collections of whatever without having to traipse to thirty comic shops and cons.

Then it occurred to them that not only could they buy issues to complete their runs, but maybe someday they could be the guy selling them and making some cash. Swirl in a fat dollop of mania, and there's the bubble.

The comic bubble started in the early to mid 90s and was almost completely over by 97. The internet itself didn't exist really until 96/97 and Ebay didn't show up on the scene until 99. So while a good theory, it dosen't pan out.

The internet hit its stride in 1995 with windows 95 and aol. AOL had 20 million users in 95. Not sure where your getting the 96/97 from?

[nycjadie]

I remember dialing up to use eBay in 1995-6. Very, very few pictures. No hosting on eBay. Descriptions were ample. Now its the opposite. I can hear that dial up noise now.

[rkjock1]

I've always thought that the rise of Ebay played a big role. Suddenly, people could complete their collections of whatever without having to traipse to thirty comic shops and cons.

Then it occurred to them that not only could they buy issues to complete their runs, but maybe someday they could be the guy selling them and making some cash. Swirl in a fat dollop of mania, and there's the bubble.

The comic bubble started in the early to mid 90s and was almost completely over by 97. The internet itself didn't exist really until 96/97 and Ebay didn't show up on the scene until 99. So while a good theory, it dosen't pan out.

The internet hit its stride in 1995 with windows 95 and aol. AOL had 20 million users in 95. Not sure where your getting the 96/97 from?

I'm always amazed by how anal people can be about 1 year. I got 96/97 from memory. This isn't a research paper. It's a discussion board. You ask me, that's pretty damn close.

At the end of the day however, my initial point still stands. The root causes of the 90's comic bubble predated wide use of the internet, and therefore Ebay, so that was not an ingredient of the phenomenon..

[rkjock1]

Well Ebay's been around since 1995 but point taken.

It was launched in late September 1995. Not in wide use until sometime later. So yes, not an influence.

[rkjock1]

I remember dialing up to use eBay in 1995-6. Very, very few pictures. No hosting on eBay. Descriptions were ample. Now its the opposite. I can hear that dial up noise now.

Ugh. Dial up. Remember when it took 5-10 minutes to DL a grainy picture?

[nycjadie]

I used to get home from working out, dialing up, and cooking dinner while I waited.

[grendeljd]

I remember dialing up to use eBay in 1995-6. Very, very few pictures. No hosting on eBay. Descriptions were ample. Now its the opposite. I can hear that dial up noise now.

Ugh. Dial up. Remember when it took 5-10 minutes to DL a grainy picture?

Haha! Oh man... it’s positively archaic by today’s standards. But I remember that too. Somewhere around summer of ‘96 was the first time I looked at an image via the Internet... a girl I dated at the time had it at her parents home. She looked up the Incredible Hulk for me because she knew I liked the comics, and it took something like 10 minutes to download a pin-up or something drawn by Dale Keown. Line by line. It’s also crazy to think that hardly anyone I knew at the time even had internet access.

I can go back even further than that for my very first Tale from The Internnnneeeeeet...

A friend of mine in high school was the only person I had ever heard of with internet access... I never went to his house the entire time we were friends (weird parents), but one day in art class he brought me a printed out document he had found on the internet... it was a listing of every episode of the original run of Doctor Who (‘63 to ‘89), printed on that crappy paper with the tear away perforated sides. I used it to keep track of every episode I had seen on tv, as there were so many missing from the bbc archives at the time.

That must have been in ‘91 or ‘92... I still have that printout stashed away somewhere. It’s an artifact!

[grendeljd]

The numbers dropped off pretty quick after the titles hit their peak.

The numbers dropped off pretty quickly after the industry hit its peak.

Interesting... I had thought the print runs for Bloodshot #1 & Ninjak #1 were much higher than that!

It also reminds me that I still need to hunt down copies of RAI 3 & 4...

[grendeljd]

Oh, never mind - I see that’s an “average number of copies” Y axis.

[greg]

Oh, never mind - I see that’s an “average number of copies” Y axis.

Right, it's the average for all Valiant titles for three months at a time.

[Aram]

I used to get home from working out, dialing up, and cooking dinner while I waited.

How about bbs’s?

[jmatt]

Oh, never mind - I see that’s an “average number of copies” Y axis.

Right, it's the average for all Valiant titles for three months at a time.

Gotta admit, I didn't catch that either the first time because of the specific issue callouts. Great stuff!