Attack of the Variants!

bralinator

DC has announced a 1:5,000 cover for the first issue of the new Dark Knight book and Marvel has responded, cheekily, with a 1:4,999 variant for Deadpool #1. Both these factors and a general upswing in variants has gotten many to fear that a ’90s-level “collector boom” and subsequent “bust” are on the way.

Brian Hibbs, over at CBR, has a great article about how retailers are chasing slim gain when they jump through all these hoops to get variants.

I feel terrible for the retailers that have to do all of this higher math to figure out how to get variants. Look at this chart for the Hip Hop variants. This was put together by the folks at Strange Adventures Comix & Curiosities in Canada. It’s been making the rounds and really explains a lot. Click to make bigger.


What are your thoughts on the value of variants? Do you chase them? Is it getting out of hand?

fredzilla

DC had some variants recently that were done by Darwyn Cooke. I was all over those, but only the books/characters that I enjoy. If I get a variant, it's got to be from an artist or character that I enjoy. It also must be affordable. I'm not paying more than double cover price for a variant. Also, if there's a blank variant for a book I currently get (especially if it's a key issue) or something I'm somewhat interested in, I'll get that too. But I get it with the hope that I'll get a great sketch or cover art for it. I'm over the whole speculative market. Many of those variant books are too expensive for me to own.

Funny thing. I usually make it into a LCS about once a month just to see if there's anything I've missed in my DCBS order. I usually see tons of the variant books there for $9.99 or higher. They're bagged and boarded and usually sitting right next to the same book with the regular cover at cover price. I suppose if a shop wants to jump through those hoops and play the game, then they're willing to take that gamble. Unfortunately, it may be to the detriment of the store's future.

hauberk

I've got a complete disregard for all variants and really don't have much sympathy for the shops that get stuck by playing the variant game.

My thought is that the price for any variant needs to start at the cost of all of the copies required to obtain the variant in order to even begin to make the extra copies worth the risk.

compsolut

hauberk said:

My thought is that the price for any variant needs to start at the cost of all of the copies required to obtain the variant in order to even begin to make the extra copies worth the risk.

As a retailer, this is exactly what we do. There is simply no other way to stay afloat. We get calls every week asking if we got variants, or would order them for individuals at cover price. We try to nicely explain, but some people still point out that "it says $3.99 on the cover, you can't charge more than that." Sadly, they don't understand it is a "retailer" incentive variant . . . *shrugs*

Torchsong

I'll own up to picking up variants of things like the Lego, Darwyn Cooke and forthcoming Looney Tunes variants from DC, but those were all priced at the same as the actual book. If it's a variant set up as an incentive (with price tag to match) I'll pass every time.

And the truly sad thing is if you're a person like me who'll wait for the trade, 9 times out 10 that variant cover art shows up in the back of the book.

Evening639

I've never really seen the appeal of variant covers at all, honestly. Most of the coolest variants I've seen are always attached to books I have no interest in reading and as @Torchsong pointed out above, if a book I am reading has a variant it will probably end up in a trade. If I don't already want to pay $3.99 for a book based on the interior contents, I'm not going to shell out $6, $10, $12 or any other ridiculous amount of money just so I can have a cool cover that I'm going to bag and file and probably never look at again. If I'm going to pay for artwork, I'd rather do so by attending a con and getting a piece of original art done by an artist that I respect and can interact with and have a fun story to share with friends afterwards.

I don't even really see the appeal if one is planning to just resell the variant. Can it be profitable? I'm sure it can be sometimes. But what does that really say about the medium as an art form?

Profit > expression of creativity/entertainment value. Welcome to the Disney Age of comics.