Questions within questions.

§ June 13th, 2016 § Filed under question time § 1 Comment

In response to last week’s post, David asks

“Have you ever seen a market for ‘misprint’ comics?”

Well, in fact, I was Googling up a couple of misprinted titles that I remembered, and what appeared before my eyes was the site Recalled Comics, which appears to be a very thorough database of what it says on the tin, there. Not just recalled comics (like the infamous Elseworlds Giant and that Hooters comic) that were presumably error-free, but things like that Venom: Lethal Protector #1 where errors in the foil application resulted in some oddball variations (and enormous eBay prices).

One specific error comic that I’m still interested in obtaining is the All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder #10, in which the naughty words in the dialogue that were supposed to be “censored” by black boxes were in fact still legible due to the insufficient opacity of said boxes. It did answer the question, at least in the case of this specific release, that when comics do the redacted black-box thing, the actual words they’re blacking out are there. My memory of the event is that, when this comic first was released, the copies that made it out into the wild did end up on the eBays for a significant amount of money. Right now, just doing a quick search, you can get a copy for around $20. so there’s still some demand for this, too.

That comic was quite literally recalled at the last second, as it was on the invoice that accompanied that week’s shipment. Our copies were pulled out of the boxes prior to being shipped to us, but other stores did get their allotment, and I’m sure in some cases they “sold” “out” before word of the recall came down.

Not all errors result in demand, of course. Comics with the pages out of order and never corrected with reprinted editions (like Batman: The Cult #4) or comics reissued with corrected cover prices (like a recent issue of IDW’s Popeye, initially released with a $3.99 price, with a $4.99 replacement coming a week or so later)…nothing’s ever happened with those. And there’s that All-Star Squadron annual where everyone’s green for half the issue…it’s amusing, but it was never corrected either, so there’s no rarity to it.

So, David, my answer is “yes, sometimes, depends on the comic.” In general, if every copy of the comic has the same error, there’s probably no extra demand, but if only a few copies have the error and was re-released in corrected form, some demand may accrue. In general, I repeat myself. I’m sure there are exceptions.

And then there’s this comic, where the error can only repel due to its disgusting nature:


UUUUGH.

Anyway, so that’s my commercial for the Recalled Comics website (which I’ve been enjoying over the last few days), and was also me pushing reader David ahead in the old Question Time queue. Back with more in a day or two.

One Response to “Questions within questions.”

  • Mike Loughlin says:

    The only misprint comic I have is X-Men/ Spider-Man 3 (or is it Spider-Man/ X-Men 3?) which was printed with the cover for X-Men: Manifest Destiny 5 in its place. I kind of wish I bought the regular edition, though, because that Manifest Destiny cover is really ugly.