When did Slam Dunk run in Weekly Shonen Jump?

Slam Dunk began in Weekly Shonen Jump issue 42, dated October 1, 1990, and ran until issue 27, dated June 17, 1996. Across that run Inoue published 276 chapters, collected first into 31 Jump Comics volumes between February 1991 and October 1996.

The timing matters to collectors. Those years were Weekly Shonen Jump's commercial peak, when the magazine's circulation climbed past six million copies a week and Slam Dunk shared the anthology with Dragon Ball and Yu Yu Hakusho. Inoue has said he drew the series from his own high school basketball years, and the real sport's Japanese boom followed the manga rather than the other way around.

First printings of the Jump Comics volumes come from this window, and the magazine issues themselves, especially issue 42 of 1990 and issue 27 of 1996, are the paper artifacts at the top of the Slam Dunk shelf.