Found out today that Spawn outsold every indie comic in 1992 by a landslide

I was digging through some old Wizard magazines my buddy lent me, and I ran across a sales chart from 1992. Turns out Spawn #1 sold 1.7 million copies that year. That's not just a lot for an indie book, that's more than most Marvel and DC titles were pulling. I knew Todd McFarlane had hype coming off Spider-Man, but I didn't realize it was that big. The chart showed the next closest indie was like 400k. Makes me wonder if any creator-owned book today comes close to those numbers. Does anyone know if something like Saga or The Walking Dead ever broke a million?

3 comments

3 Comments

sandrat241mo ago

Oh man, I remember that era well. I was working at a shop back then, and Spawn was the only book where we had to put a limit on how many you could buy because people were grabbing stacks of them as investments. Your mileage may vary on whether that paid off, but the hype was real. For your question about modern books, Walking Dead #115 sold around 380k at its peak, and Saga's highest was like 350k. Nothing's hit that 1.7 million number since the 90s bubble, take that for what it's worth. The market's just so different now with digital sales cutting into print numbers.

kelly_nelson951mo ago

And here I thought my stack of X-Force #1s was gonna pay for college. Guess that's what happens when you trust a comic book with a hologram cover as your retirement plan.

milestaylor1mo ago

Man, tell me about it. I still have a longbox full of X-Force #1 and Youngblood #1 that I swear will be worth something someday. Right after my Beanie Babies collection pays off. It's funny how we all thought we were geniuses buying a dozen copies of the same book. But hey, at least my kids can use them for coloring books now, so that's something.