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That Time Rob Liefeld's EXTREME Characters Were More Popular Than Batman and Spider-Man

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goldenliefeldDo you remember when the characters from legendary artist Sir Robert Liefeld's Extreme Studios were more popular than both the Batman family of titles and the Spider-Man family of titles? No? Well, you know who does? Rob Liefeld. He reminded all of us with a post on Facebook today:

Liefeld doesn't say where the chart came from, other than "1995," but it does indeed show Extreme Studios with a larger share of the comics market than everything other than the X-Men books, which Liefeld pointed out were popular at least partially due to him anyway. Liefeld was indeed at the top of the comic book mountain in the 90s, even appearing in his own Levis Jeans commericial.

There are some sales numbers available today, but 1995 was also a year where comics distribution was a complete mess, making it difficult to go back and figure out how these market shares add up. Comichron lists the Youngblood and Brigade #1s that debuted in September as #38 and #80 respectively, at least on the Diamond charts, with other Extreme books like Prophet and Glory falling in between and comics like Supreme and Bloodstrike: Assassin falling near there as well. Glory Avengelyne and Avengelyne Glory, however, took the number 4 and 5 spots respectively, with Glory and Friends Bikini Fest coming in at #23.

glorybikinifest

Good times. The October numbers look about the same, but without the Glory and Avengelyne crossover, and Avengelyne Power debuting at #17. But again, comics distribution in 1995 left something to be desired, so it's unclear how reliable those numbers are. The Diamond charts from that time did not include Marvel, since they were distributing through their own Heroes World, which worked out great in the long run. So Liefeld's recently unearthed chart may actually be the most accurate thing to go on for the entire era.

In other news we can take away from this Facebook post, Marvel only published 25 simultaneous X-Men titles in 1995. Those were the days!

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Jude TerrorAbout Jude Terror

A prophecy once said that in the comic book industry's darkest days, a hero would come to lead the people through a plague of overpriced floppies, incentive variant covers, #1 issue reboots, and super-mega-crossover events. Sadly, that prophecy was wrong. Oh, Jude Terror was right. For ten years. About everything. But nobody listened. And so, Jude Terror has moved on to a more important mission: turning Bleeding Cool into a pro wrestling dirt sheet!
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