Since we’re talking numbers, Todd Allen gets a look at Marvel sub and newsstand figures via Marvel’s circulation audit. The #1 subscription title is the kid-friendly MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN with 31,479. #1 at the newsstand is CIVIL WAR CHRONICLES with 7,824.

Interestingly enough, Marvel Adventures Spider-Man didn’t even register 1,000 copies sold on the newsstand. I guess parents must subscribe their children after one issue. If you take the Marvel Adventures titles out of the subscription list, it isn’t completely different from your direct market sales charts. Newsstand, on the other hand will blow a couple minds.


Allen concludes that the newsstand is marginally more kid- and teen-friendly, although the numbers are so low.

1 COMMENT

  1. Can’t speak for anyone else, but when it comes to the Marvel Adventures stuff, I either get a sub or wait for the inevitable digest (which is considerably cheaper) for the younguns. My nine year old loves the digests, because he can easily throw them in his backpack. Marvel has great sub discounts. That’s how I get Captain America. DC’s sub discounts are less impressive. Their digest publishing is much more sporadic, too.

  2. > Since we’re talking sales data, aren’t we overdue for the October sales charts analysis?

    Oh yes. Before they started posting them only here, they were posted within a week of the figures being released almost every month. Now? It tends to be closer to the NEXT month’s figures than that month…

  3. I have both columns in hand — Marvel will run Monday, DC on Tuesday. Marc just moved to the US and Paul has been on holiday. Consiering they both do this as an UNpaid volunteer work we’re lucky they do it at all.

    But yes, will get up as soon as possible.

  4. I would guess that the vast majority of subscriptions are bought from subscription drives from schools. I can see parents or grandparents wanting to support the school ordering a comic book sub “for the kids.” The real question is what is the churn rate? how many of those subs get renewed?

  5. If TASM would be at 35k/issue (rather than /month), that would make sense of the “I could float the book on subscriptions alone” comment. If TASM is at 12k/issue, the comment wouldn’t seem to make very much sense, IMO.

    Very pleased to see NOVA ranking so high on the newsstand.

  6. One thing I can say: MA Spider-Man doesn’t register 1,000 copies sold on the newsstand because it’s not sold on newsstands! Its “nesstand” version is MA Two-in-One.

    And by the way, Marvel seems to have “stealth cancelled” the other Marvel Two-in-One. Which is too bad, since I got most of my Jeff Parker fix there.

    As for the Amazing Spider-Man subscriptions, what Samy says makes sense. Well, we’ll find out in six months. Or maybe on the next Statement of Ownership.

    Best,
    Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

  7. I’d always thought my comic reading habits were more general public mainstream than usual, and the newsstand numbers seem to bear that out. I read, or until recently read, nearly every series on that list, and almost nothing that isn’t. I suppose that shouldn’t be surprising, since I came to comics through the newsstand (excluding a monthly trip to a local comic shop for Perez’s Wonder Woman before I started reading comics on my own).

    Also, does it look to anyone else like Uncanny X-Men may be Marvel’s highest mean annual seller when newsstand, subscription, and direct market sales are combined? Until being rebranded as X-Men: Legacy, X-Men was probably right there with it. Interesting.