"HA!"

§ September 23rd, 2004 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on "HA!"

Tim posted an Alf cover over on The Hurting, which brings to mind something that I remember reading a while back: that the Alf comic was actually one of Marvel’s top sellers on the newsstand (as opposed to comic shops) at the time, outstripping even the X-titles’s newsstand sales. I don’t remember exactly where I read that, otherwise I’d pull the exact quote, but I think I’m recalling that correctly. If true, it’s amazing what 1) recognizability and 2) availability can do for sales. Even on Alf.

That cover Tim posted does highlight one of Marvel’s problems with licensed books like these…Marvel insisted on squeezing in parodies and references to their superhero books, which at best meant nothing to kids buying these on newsstands, or at worst alienated fans of these licensed properties who had no interest in superheroes. (Alf wasn’t quite as bad about this as the Mighty Mouse title was.) I realize that Marvel did this only to expose potentially new audiences to properties Marvel actually owned (and maybe to pick up sales in comic shops), but it seems to me that it may have hindered as much as helped.

Anyway, all this Alf talk gives me an excuse to post my favorite Alf cover (sorry about the low quality…I don’t have a copy in the store currently, and this scan was found online a while ago):





Even The Comics Journal highlighted this cover. Who could blame them?

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