The Variant Question, by Mike Gold
Despite my firm belief that I know everything about everything, I humbly admit there is something about this variant cover thing I don’t understand. Therefore, I’m tossing these questions out to you, the public, for comment. I’m not really trolling for comments; I honestly don’t understand this stuff.
I got into this because I just finished filling out my part of the retailer’s order form for Diamond distributing. My wife will do so tomorrow, my daughter already did. None of us are particularly interested in variant covers. In fact, I can’t recall any of us ever ordering one, let alone juice up our orders so we can procure one of those “for every ten you get one” deals.
Some publishers release as many as five different covers on damn near each title they publish. Some only restrict themselves to two, and then only occasionally. I understand how the device works as a sales incentive for comics shop owners, but, really, do you – as a reader – enjoy this? Do you usually buy alternate covers? All of them? Some of them? Only particular artists? Do you ever pay a premium for one?
More important, if you can’t get one at your store, do you buy it at a premium on the collector’s market? If there’s an alternate cover out there you want, do you track it down online or at conventions or sic your friendly neighborhood retailer on the quest?
Collecting mania aside, there’s really nothing new about alternate covers – the magazine business has been at it since the invention of the staple. In our little donut shoppe, it goes back at least as far as 1956 – Mad #28 had three variant covers. About 15 years ago, our hobby (as opposed to art form) was consumed by gimmick covers: prisms, holograms, lenticular pasties, all kinds of stuff. More recently, we’ve even combined the two with the variant gimmick of the “pencil” cover. Yep, you’re paying more for an unfinished product.
Truth be told, I once proposed a gimmick cover as a satire. We were packaging Shamans’s Tears for Image (now on ComicMix, of course) and I suggested to Mike Grell we print the cover on the sort of bubble gum used in the old baseball cards, only larger. Mike loved the idea; Image didn’t. They thought we were making fun of them. Oh, well. A few years later Marvel licensed out the right to print one-page comics on slabs of bubble gum.
Variant covers have become the order of the day in the magazine world: TV Guide resorts to this gimmick every time they want to book their circulation by appealing to the teevee fan market, particularly when there’s a big science fiction story in the hopper. I don’t think it’s been working for them, as they have been sadly coughing up blood for several years now.
Does it work for comics? Well, no, not for comics as an artistic medium and it sadly reinforces the concept of collectibility over the quality of content. But I think the overpriced 36-page pamphlet is doomed anyway, so I see it as life support for a very, very old friend.
But, as a formerly funny person says, that’s just my opinion. What’s yours?
Mike Gold is editor-in-chief of ComicMix.
Perhaps it's what starts as an observed fact ("Variant covers sell comics.") back many years ago becomes ossified into a PR article of faith ("Variant covers sell comics."). It may no longer be true but it is THOUGHT as true and acted on without question as a result.We all, I think, learn survival tricks that get us through some period of our life. However, our life changes and then we either stick with the same rule — even if it is no longer applicable or even helpful — or we have to go through the tough task of unlearning it. Variant covers may hav done very well during that brief period when the collectors moved into comics and EVERYTHING was selling. So marketing continues to do it, trying to recapture those days. It's just dogma, Mike.
I've never been one to buy variants and I don't buy multiple copies of comics. I can see having a "regular" cover at the normal comics price if there is a "special" hologram cover or something that doubles the price of the comic. Even then, I'd buy the regular cover.There might have been a time when variants sold more issues. I doubt that's true today. Of course, if comics sold today in the numbers they did in the 70s and 80s, this would be a moot point.
Just coming up with ONE GREAT COVER is chore enough, sez me. Too much sizzle, and the steak loses its flavor. Assuming the steak had some flavor, to begin with.
When there are multiple covers at the same price, and I realize it, I may go as far as to look at the covers and pick one that I like the best (or, for instance, in the case of the ALL-FLASH special a few months back, dislike the least).I would rarely, if ever, pay extra for a variant cover.
When variant covers were a rare case I do remember buying more than one copy of some comics for my collection. I did buy some hologram (or glow in the dark) covers because some of them can be pretty cool. I can't remember whether there was always a lesser priced alternative. In recent years, though, I have not bought more than one copy of a comic. I have tried to pick whichever of multiple covers appealed to me the most.
As long as there is money to be made in the secondary market, variant covers will continue. The variant covers for last year's Civil War (1-for75) were going for over $100 on eBay. Customers were even paying a premium price at the LCS just to put them up for sale on eBay.
I wonder how many of those 1-for-75 CW covers that were going for over $100 on eBay actually sold for over $100, on eBay or elsewhere. And I'd like to compare that number against the total number of such covers.I remember the activity at the annual Diamond retailer shows where people would be lined up for hours to get their copy (usually only one) of special variant cover books made strictly for the show. One of our crew measured the amount of time it took for those special books to make it onto eBay — complete with cover scan. It was measured in minutes.Did they sell? Some, and some sold to retailers who were already in line. Others sold later at substantially lower prices.
I think the whole thing is stupid, unless the covers have lenticulars. Then it's GENIUS!
I don't mind variant covers that much — nobody's being forced to buy them, and they usually mean extra money for artists. When a variant cover is done by someone I like I'll try to secure that one if I don't have to pay extra for it; otherwise it doesn't much matter to me.
The simple rules of thumb:1. Does it boost sales in the short run?2. Would the short term boost exist if people didn't buy multiple copies? (And if so, should you as publisher care?)3. Does it help or hinder sales in the long run?4. What does market research indicate would help future sales? For example, there have been two separate covers for the Watchmen trade paperback. Has it been determined which one was more successful in getting sales, and was that used for later editions? Otherwise, we're back to purple, gorillas, and go-go checks.
You say 'go-go checks' like it's a BAD thing.
Market research? MARKET RESEARCH???Back in 1976, DC Publisher Jenette Kahn bemoaned the fact the total amount of market research conducted in comics was less that that which triggered any change in the packaging of a single brand of toothpaste. Not much has happened since then.But that's beside the point. Collectors like collecting stuff; I'm asking if readers care.
If I se a variant cover in a quarter bin, I'll pick it up. If I see a variant cover that I like more than the "regular" cover in my LCS for the same price, I'll pick it up. But, is the fact that there is a variant cover enough to get me to pay extra? Nope. I was young and dumb once. Glad I have grown out of the flash and hype. Unfortunately, comics have not, and I find myself dropping more and more titles. I am finally at a place in my life financially where i can buy pretty much anything I want, and I find there is little I want to spend my money on. My dollars have headed to independent and small(er) press operations as the big 4 get too wrapped up in events and covers.
The only magazine I buy regularly is Asimov's, and they don't have variant covers, although some covers are pretty spiffy (I have two as prints). However, I do have all three Serenity comics, with the three variant covers for each one. Considering how long Firefly/Serenity lasted, it's easy to be a completist. (I have all the Girl Genius comic books so far, too.). Oh! And I still have (and haven't read) the Choose Your Weapon sampler from last year's Free Comic Book Day. My LCS, which is not very L, didn't have a lot of interesting choices.
I think i've intentionally bought one variant cover because it was cooler (Puppet Spike vs pupet ninjas) – and i think there were equal numbers of both variants of that one. OTOH, there have been times when i would buy a variant (if available for the same price) because the primary cover was butt-ugly.
Well, as you already noted, I don't buy variants these days. Mostly because of 2 things: 1. I'm not paying that much attention when I'm ordering which probably speaks to my utter lack to caring about variant covers and 2. I am in no way going to go for the 10 to get 1 deal. When I did my shopping at the comic shop, which seems like a lifetime ago, I did often buy into the hype. But not out of investment but out of colllecting based frenzy of having to have it all.While doing some catching up on my backlog of comics over the past few days I noticed I had recieved (i'm assuming through either sheer luck or Mike's benevolence) a variant cover. I know this because it said so. I wondered at the time what the regualr cover looked like, opened it and read the story. And now, less than 48 hours later I have read so many comics since then I couldn't tell you what it was. I did however enjoy tyhe story, whatever it was, I do know that.
Personally, I don't buy the variants. After surviving the Nineties and the die-cut, holographic, tyvek-printed variants-in-law, I'd only buy a variant if it restored my youthful hairline and cured world hunger. But this strikes me like the talk from local politicians who want to generate more revenue by adding a few cents of tax onto cigarette purchases. It doesn't affect me, but I'll see some benefit from it, no doubt.If that gets a publisher a few more dollars (note: from someone else) to encourage that entity to continue publishing a title I like, then I love variants! :) But otherwise, they're pretty much dead trees to me.