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Sales declined when the writer-artist creators left
Patrick Ford
7 August 2016
Roy Thomas has long claimed that sales of the FANTASTIC FOUR went up
after Kirby left the title in early 1970. I'm highly skeptical of that
claim.
[Editor's note: The source of this claim will be examined in another thread. It is related to claims from other people, like this one: "Steve Ditko left Marvel and Spider-Man after issue #38. And sales went up. Kirby leaves Marvel in 1970 and sales went up, surpassing DC, where Kirby had migrated to." The first part of the quote refers to sales of Spider-Man, which increase slightly in 1967, almost certainly due to the launch of the very popular Spider-Man cartoon, based on Ditko's stories. After that sales went down. The second part of the quote appears to refer to total sales across all of Marvel: at a time when Marvel was publishing far more titles, obscuring the fact that sales of individual titles were going down.]
John Jackson Miller's comic book sales site Comichron posts sales
figures by year and by title. Miller has not yet posted the figures
for the FANTASTIC FOUR years 1970-1973 which would show the
circulation numbers, but he has posted the numbers for SPIDER-MAN
which was Marvel's best selling title at that time and those number
show a *significant decline* between 1970 and 1974.
Comic book pro Richard Howell wrote that Roy Thomas told him the sales
on the FF increased after Kirby left, and that sales at Marvel as a
whole increased during the years after Kirby left. The documented
numbers do not support what Thomas told Howell.
Thomas has told this tale in a number of interviews and has also
claimed that sales of DAREDEVIL and SPIDER-MAN increased after John
Romita replaced Wally Wood on DAREDEVIL, and Steve Ditko on
SPIDER-MAN. And of course it was Marvel company man John Romita who
replaced Kirby on the FF. Curious isn't it? But true?
According to the company supplied circulation numbers SPIDER-MAN sold
an average of 322,195 copies in 1970, 307,550 in 1971, 288,379 in
1972, and 273,204 copies in 1972. This contradicts Roy Thomas' claim
that Marvel's sales improved across the line in 1971.
http://www.comichron.com/titlespotlights/amazingspiderman.html
Patrick Ford: Roy Thomas told Richard Howell that Marvel's sales
across the line improved after Kirby left. The sales of SPIDER-MAN
contradict Thomas. The sales of THE AVENGERS also contradict Thomas.
http://www.comichron.com/titlespotlights/avengers.html
Patrick Ford: What would be a logical explanation for Thomas saying
that when John Romita took over DAREDEVIL from Wally Wood the sales
went up? That when John Romita took over SPIDER-MAN from Steve Ditko
the sales went up? That when John Romita took over the FANTASTIC FOUR
from Kirby the sales went up?
A good possibility is it belittles the importance of freelance talent
and boosts the idea that Lee's methods and the Marvel sausage factory
house style were more important than the individual talent.
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