Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics, Spider-Man | Tagged: dan slott, spectacular spider-man, Word Balloon
Dan Slott Credits Comic Shop Pull Lists For Spectacular Spider-Man
Dan Slott credits the comic shop pull lists for the continuation of Spectacular Spider-Man past issue 5
Article Summary
- Dan Slott says comic shop pull lists helped Spectacular Spider-Man beat the comic industry’s five-issue curse.
- On Word Balloon, Slott urged fans to add Spectacular Spider-Man to pull lists, not just buy copies off the rack.
- Slott explained strong issue #2 and #3 sales are crucial, as Spectacular Spider-Man needed a higher plateau to last.
- Marvel labeled Spectacular Spider-Man a five-issue run, but Slott says reader support helped push the series past #5.
Dan Slott has credited comic shop pull lists with helping Spectacular Spider-Man survive what he calls the industry’s “five-issue curse.” Speaking on the Word Balloon podcast, Slott thanked readers who followed his earlier request to do more than simply buy the book off the rack. He said he had returned to the show specifically to make that point. “I came on last time on Word Balloon to tell people I wanted to keep doing Spectacular Spider-Man, and if you were a fan of my work and you liked the book, that it wasn’t enough to go pick it up off the stands, that you had to go to the store and tell your retailer, ‘Please add this to my pull list.’ Because the way retailers decide how much they order of each thing, a lot of times it isn’t even how much they sold off the rack. If they have a strong pull list, they know automatically to order x amount plus.”
Dan Slott then laid out how sales charts typically work and why the second and third issues matter so much. “The way all sales work nowadays is your issue one is way up here, and then no matter what, because retailers have to guess based on how everything sells, your issue two is down here, and then your three and then your four and then it plateaus out. That’s every sale. So if you don’t do well on your first issue, you’re immediately screwed. But worse, because we do all these things to help the first issue, and people want the first issue, it’s the second and the third. If you can slow down that chart, if you can have a strong number two and a strong number three, you plateau up here, and your book stays safe. We’re in a market now where a lot of these books are only guaranteed for five issues.”
Dan Slott said publishers are reluctant to promise retailers a longer run. “You don’t want to make a retailer mad. You don’t want to tell them that, oh, we’re going to, this is an ongoing series and it’s going to go to 10 because chances are most series will only go to five and stop because of that and where the market is now. So you’re doing the retailer a service by saying this is one out of five.”
Dan Slott recalled making the case to Marvel that Spectacular Spider-Man should be treated differently because it was a satellite title tied to the main Amazing Spider-Man book. “I was saying to Marvel, ‘This is Spectacular Spider-Man. This is a satellite book off of the legacy book. They always do well. If you don’t tell them one out of five, we’re going to start higher. We’ll have a better chart, and we’ll last longer.’ And their take was, ‘No, this is the way everything is. It’s only fair.’ But thanks to people coming out and doing this, we beat the curse.”
He ended with a direct appeal to readers who are enjoying the series. “Please don’t remove it from your pull. If I’m not asking you to buy a book you don’t enjoy. I’m saying if you like it, please continue to keep it on your pull list and that will continue a healthy run for the book. I would like to do this as long as humanly possible.” Will you let him?
Spectacular Spider-Man #5
Spectacular Spider-Man #6
- Spectacular Spider-Man: Brand New Day #5 (of 5) by Dan Slott, Marcus To
SPIDEY MUST SAVE…THE PUNISHER?! CAN SPIDER-MAN FREE THE PUNISHER FROM MR. NEGATIVE’S CONTROL? HE’D BETTER- OR THE ENTIRE CITY IS DOOMED! $4.99 September 23, 2026
- Spectacular Spider-Man #6 by Dan Slott, Marcus To
SPIDEY GOES BIG TIME! SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN is moving past his BRAND NEW DAY and into the BIG TIME! The full scope of this series is revealed as the seeds Dan and Marcus planted in issues #1-5 move with them through time where they will bloom into trees that could DESTROY PETER PARKER! Not only will you get more of TURNCOAT whose full debut happened in #5, but this issue introduces a big-time new villain THE SCAVENGER! And we’re only one month away from the 50th ANNIVERSARY of the SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN so you better believe we’ve got BIG-TIME PLANS! $4.99 November 25, 2026
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