It is good to be right

So, I picked up my weekly comics the other day and one of them was Amazing Spider-Man Annual 2008. Well, while I haven’t read the issue as of yet, I couldn’t help but to notice that the cover of the issue had three numbering sequences on it, first it was (correctly) labeled as the 2008 annual. Next, I saw that Marvel had chosen to re-start the numbering sequence with #1. Totally understandable, as the last ASM annual was published back in 2001.

However, what surprised me was the “alternate” numbering sequence (a number 35). Now I remembered that the original ASM annuals ran from #1 to #28 (1994)then continued on to four annuals that carried only a year (1995, 1996, 1997, 1998). This was followed by the next three annuals (which continued with years not numbers — 1999, 2000, & 2001). Keep in mind that Amazing had also been renumbered at this time.

Well, as the Sr. Title Coordinator for SpiderFan as I was entering the title inthe database, I wanted to verify our count and contacted Spider-Editor, Stephen Wacker, who confirmed that our count was correct. The current issue should have been numbered 2008 / 1 / 36.

Oh, and just for the record,I’m not making this post to show up Stephen — who is being very helpful, and a real good sport in all of our correspondence — but to keep the record straight, and because I’m totally anal in this regard...mostly because I’m anal about the numbering system for both my own collection and the SpiderFan database.

Cool, eh?