Amazing 600 – Spider-Man & Comics Today
Amazing Spider-Man #181
In June, 1978, I went to Collector’s Comics in New Jersey and bought a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #181. On that day, I promised myself that I would buy every issue of this comic for the rest of my life. (Taking an oath at 11 years old is a quaint notion, but bear with me, this story goes somewhere.)
Flash forward to 2009, when I recently bought a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #600.
Let’s consider a few things about the comic series Amazing Spider-Man, which was originally launched March, 1963.
- The original comic (cover price 12 cents – March, 1963) is now worth an estimated $40,000.
- Issue #600 was cover price $4.99 (in 2009) and can probably be purchased for about $4.99 today.
- Both Stan Lee (writer) and Steve Ditko (interior artist) of Amazing Spider-Man #1 are still alive today. (In fact, I recently saw Stan Lee at the Long Beach Comicon.)
- Despite a few starts and stops, Amazing Spider-Man has been running one consecutive story line about the same cast of characters. Amazing Spider-Man #600 featured characters and situations that were originally started in the 1960s.
Amazing Spider-Man #1
And here’s the point I have been working toward. For the most part, Amazing Spider-Man was published as a monthly print magazine. Recently, Marvel Comics has accelerated that schedule, but the majority of the issues in this series were monthly.
From the year of my personal oath to buy every issue of Amazing Spider-Man (starting with #181) until roughly now (#600), approximately 31 years have passed. On a monthly schedule, it takes Marvel Comics around 8 years to reach a 100th issue milestone. Looking forward, it would take Marvel Comics until around 2017 to release Amazing Spider-Man #700.
And that makes me wonder…
- In what format will I buy Amazing Spider-Man #700? Will it be a print publication? Or will it be an eBook? An eComic? Or something else entirely new and unique?
- Considering the ages of Stan Lee (born 1922) and Steve Ditko (1927), is it possible they will be alive to celebrate issue #700 in 2017? With modern medicine, this is no longer unimaginable, right?
- If the first issue was 12 cents and the 600th issue was $4.99, how much will I pay for the 700th?
- If it’s an eBook, will it be less expensive, since there’s no printing and distribution cost?
- Will Marvel Comics print an electronic version and a print version for nostalgic purposes? Certain musicians still release vinyl albums, despite the fact that most people buy CDs or just downloads of their music.
Amazing Spider-Man #600
When you consider this accomplishment, it’s amazing (pun intended) that the mainstream media didn’t make a bigger deal about issue #600.There were a few news stories and articles, but not much, considering how much impact the Spider-Man character has had on popular culture.
From a pop culture perspective, Amazing Spider-Man #600 was a pretty impressive milestone that probably should have made the cover of Entertainment Weekly. Speaking of Entertainment Weekly, the July 24, 2009 cover featured the cast of the Iron Man 2 movie. Iron Man is yet another Stan Lee creation that was published by Marvel Comics. Also published in March 1963, the same month as Amazing Spider-Man #1.
To make it even more significant (and newsworthy), Stan Lee even wrote a short Spider-Man story for the 600th anniversary issue. Not bad for an 87-year-old guy.
If you’ve made it this far in this post, you may be wondering if I kept my personal promise to buy every issue. The short answer is “no,” I did not. I stopped reading comics for many, many years and rediscovered them in college. I’d missed a lot of those comics when they first came out, but went back and bought them as back issues.
It would be silly of me to try to estimate the impact Stan Lee’s Spider-Man has had on pop culture, and what sort of significance the character will have in coming years. From comics to movies to television to toys, Spider-Man is just about everywhere in pop culture.
Flash forward. And in 8 years, I’ll be buying a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #700. The issue will probably be an eBook. Hopefully there’s a print version for nostalgia buffs like me. But either way, no matter what it costs, no matter how it’s delivered, no matter how it’s written, I’ll buy it.
I promise.
Nook Brings B&N’s Might to eBook Fight
Amazon is having a great year. Huge earnings. Lots of buzz around the Kindle. Maybe too much buzz.
Well, it looks like the sleeping-giant of book retailing has awoken. Barnes & Nobles, which forever changed the landscape of book stores is jumping into the burgeoning ebook marketplace. The recently announced “Nook” is looking pretty good from the initial press releases and announcements. Nice size. Great screen. Neat extras.
As a Kindle user, I am excited about more players in the marketplace. More devices means more options. If the industry can settle on a digital format, it’ll all come down to hardware.
Even though Amazon has a huge presence in the online retail world, they don’t have the physical storefronts that Barnes & Nobles enjoys. This could be a big deciding factor for most people, since buying a Kindle is a leap of faith. If you can walk into the local Barnes & Nobles and handle one of these, it could lead to a purchase of a Nook.
Let the ebook-reader wars begin. (Oh, and let’s all skip the “nookie” jokes, okay?)
Other Kindle Posts:
Auto-Tuning the News
Latest ‘Net rage: Auto-tuning.
It’s goofy stuff. But it shows how the age of mashups and sharing has enabled some small, random audio technique to explode into a pop culture sensation.
If you’re a marketer or advertiser, you should be asking yourself how you can leverage this temporary fad.
If you look at the embedded video, you’ll see that Progressive Insurance is placing a pre-roll ad (at least they were when I posted this).
I don’t know if the Progressive ad drives clicks and conversions to their website, but at least they were quick enough (and smart enough) to jump into this early. You don’t necessarily have to create the next Internet viral video (you would if you could), but sometimes you can just leverage the opportunity to tap into those eyeballs.
7 Tips for Better Flickr Traffic
Since I first discovered the analytics features in Flickr, I have been obsessed with my stats. I just can’t help myself. Stats and analytics fascinate me. (Note: Stats are only available to Flickr Pro users.)
Here are a couple of observations regarding Flickr’s chocolaty goodness:
- Post consistently. My stats hovered around a depressingly low number for many months. The key to getting more views on photos was to actually upload photos more consistently. Sounds obvious, but the reality is that people in a social community tend to interact more with people who are contributing consistently.
- Give the people what they want. If you know what photos get the most traffic, that means there’s an audience for your work. If people like your dog photos and label them as “favorite” then keep posting your dog photos.
- Share timely events. My stats skyrocketed recently when I uploaded 388 photos in one batch. (Thank you Flickr Uploader!). I attended the Long Beach Comicon 2009 and uploaded my pictures within two days of the con. My average views went from 500 a day to over 5,000 per day. That’s a HUGE increase in traffic. Not all of it is sustained, but I have definitely increased my daily views significantly.
- Include links to your other sites. The traffic from Flickr to my personal website BuddyScalera.com is increasing. The more people look at my Flickr photos the more they go check out my webpage. I saw a pretty nice jump when I uploaded that batch I just mentioned. Flickr users tend to check out my photo reference books, which is good.
- Join groups & create groups. I belong to dozens of informal Flickr groups. Plus, I’ve created two Flickr groups, which has increased my overall photo traffic. Since I have particular photography interests, it makes sense for me to contribute to certain groups. But some of my interests didn’t already have a group, so I created Long Beach Comicon – Official Flickr Group and Comic Book Creators & Pros. One complaint: they don’t give administrators much access to group analytics, beyond giving a list of members.
- Participate. People are sharing their photos online because they want the world to see their pictures. Give people feedback on their photos. If you share a comment, people will want to see your photos, which will increase your base of viewers.
- Contact ‘em. There’s a “friending” feature on Flickr called “Contact.” Basically, it’s like friending someone on Facebook, except you get a feed of new photos that is being uploaded by your contacts. If you like someone’s work, you can check out their work in thumbnails as they upload the images. And unlike Facebook, people on Flickr are uploading photos, so you don’t have to wade through dozens of throw-a-sheep and super-poke invitations.
More on Flickr in the future. In the mean time, check out 10 Tips to Boost your Flickr Profile. Very good article about increasing Flickr traffic.
Bad News Travels Fast
Bad news. You wish it would go away. And before the Net, sure, you had a good chance of your bad news getting shuffled away with yesterday’s news.
Now, well, nothing goes away. For better or worse, bad news just lingers.
Right now, the designers who created a recent ad for Ralph Lauren are probably wishing that the Internet would just turn off. Or at least turn attention elsewhere. But for now, they are the bad news celebrities of the day.
An image that was Photoshopped to make a Ralph Lauren model look thinner seems to have gone a bit too far. This photo shows a woman with an impossibly thin waist. Is it a commentary on models? On our obsession with thinness? Well, according to initial reports…no. Apparently, it’s just someone who went too far with their image manipulation.
Now the bad news is everywhere. Ralph Lauren released a statement, but the Net is buzzing with conversation, including on the Photoshop Disasters Blog.
Today, a photo is worth a thousand blogs.
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