Mikester

More variant talk? But it’s not even Monday!

filed under Categories variant covers 8 Comments

I sorta skipped over the comments to my Amazing Spider-Man #194 variant post, but there’s a lot there and I’m not sure where to start addressing what you folks said. So let me start with Chris V talking about this:

“I guess the biggest question is if it’s worth it to the comic store to order X amount of a certain comic book just so they can get the rare variant edition. I think the value of the rare variant is enough to cover the cost to the retailer.

“There is some trepidation that stores over-ordering in order to get a copy of the rare variant edition could be creating a bubble, but I think a majority of the comic stores that remain are run by people who understand the business.”

It really does depend on the variant in question. And if, of course, said variant is going to see in demand. You never know if the fickle tastes of the speculator market will deem it “worthy,” or even if someone will come along who just likes the cover for what it is to buy it. Seems like it was easier in The Old Days (i.e. the ’90s) to move all variants all the time, what with the higher traffic more stores saw, and more people being willing to pay a premium to take home a variant.

Today, with higher prices on your regular comics, and just great reticence against spending more money on your weekly funnybooks than deemed necessary, it feels like variants are in general a harder sell. Not if, like I said, the speculators and the YouTube channels and the apps and whatnot decide a certain variant Is It, in which case you’ll never have ordered enough. But aside from those unpredictable cases, a variant is just as likely to sit there as not.

The theory is that you’d price up a variant cover to make up for the cost of the extra issues you’d have to order in order to get that variant. Well, more or less like that, there’s no exact formula. But a lot of times nowadays, if I get a 1 in 10 variant, I may just put it out there at cover price. Ratios higher than that do get the higher price tags, but not as high as I would have thrown on them, say, 10 years ago.

Back when Superman Unchained #1 was released, it came with a boatload of variants, and we did have a large number of customers interested in those. As I recall, there were ratio variants going up to 1 in 100 and 1 in 300. Well, I did the math, decided what I’d make on the variants, especially the 1/100 and 1/300 variants, I’d make money if I went in on 300 copies. Given the number of Superman readers we had at the shop, even for a book drawn by Jim Lee, that was a lot for us. Maybe not a drop in the bucket for some of your larger stores in big cities, but for a shop in Ventura, CA, that was more than plenty.

So I ordered those numbers, and once the books we sold those Big Variants right away, then sold nearly all the rest of the more attainable variants, and plenty of the standard comics as well, so we definitely pulled a profit out of this. Definitely more money that we would have made had we just ordered a lower number of the regular issue and eschewed those higher-ratio covers. The only real downside is being stuck with a bunch of extra Superman Unchained #1s in stock. They were all basically paid for, and while I had some long-term plans for them (such as using them as Free Comic Book Day giveaways) I did leave that shop to open my own store the next year, so I never was able to enact any cunning strategies.

Years later, I did a thing with King Spawn #1 at my own shop that, in retrospect, I should have done with that Superman Unchained. I had to order a large number of that King Spawn #1 in order to get the limited variant signed by Todd McFarlane. In this case, I had a customer prepay for the signed comic, and he paid enough to where when the comics arrived, I was able to put out all the regular not-ratio #1s for ninety-nine cents.

Had I kept them at cover price, I might have made more money per piece, but I wouldn’t have moved as many pieces. But the comics had all basically been paid for, so anything I made on them would have been gravy. And by charging under a buck apiece, they’ll eventually all go away and I won’t be stuck with unsold stock. (In fact, I’m on the very last few copies of those #1s right now.)

Another case where I order more copies than I can actually use is BRZRKR, but that’s only because I have a customer who wants all variants to the title. I charge enough for those variants to make up for the extra copies I don’t sell (though not enough to also sell the BRZRKRs for a buck each…there can be an upper limit to what folks are willing to pay) so I’m not losing money. Now I could possibly have a higher margin of profit if I didn’t order all those extra copies, but I’m still making money and I’m making a good customer happy, so that works for me.

But beyond those exceptions…I take it easy on the variants. I don’t buy extra copies of the regular covers to get more the rarities, because if nobody cares, then you’re stuck. It’s easy enough to get stuck with stock even without adding fuel to the fire like this.

I keep thinking about doing one of those “custom retailer covers” for some book or ‘nother, but the buy-in (and number of copies involved) is so high that I haven’t convinced myself to bite the bullet. Again, there’s always the issue of “what if nobody wants that particular variant,” leaving you with unsold stock, though I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who buy things because they’re scarce. But you never know, and it can be a big chance to take, especially for a little ol’ comical book store like me.

I have more to say on comments to that post, but that’ll have to wait for another day. And as a reminder, I may be in low content mode for at least part of next week as I attend more early morning doctor visits. I’m fine, I’m pretty sure, just the appointments all bunched up at around the same time. Thanks for reading, and we’ll talk again soon.

It was either that or “Signie.”

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, retailing 2 Comments

It’s because the atomic number of iodine is 53.

Anyway, about Monday’s post…the plan was to respond to some of your comments from a couple of weeks ago, long delayed because of early morning doctor appointments disrupting my late evening blogging habits. However, I got caught up with looking into that whole Saturday Night Live thing I decided to make investigating that the whole post. Of course, being weeks after the fact, the matter had already been long settled and I’d come to the wrong conclusion anyway, so there you go.

I did get in a brief anecdote about my previous place of employment helping out a local theater production, as well as ending the post with a fairly solid gag, so it wasn’t all in vain!

Speaking of the previous place etc., Eric had this question about the old sign I procured from there:

“Did the dragon have a name?”

Here’s a better pic of the dragon from the sign:

And no, to the best of my knowledge the dragon had no name. Which is weird because we sure liked putting names on things at the store. At one point former coworker Rob had brought in a skull sculpture (a skullpture?) that he’d just kept on a shelf behind the counter. The skull was dubbed “Sid,” and eventually, when we got a second somewhat smaller skull from parts unknown (or forgotten), it was called, of course, “Marty.” And there were other things around the shop we named…most notably, the old wooded baseball bat Ralph kept behind the counter that was referred to as “The Peacemaker.” (No relation.)

But alas, our painted dragon friend lacked a sobriquet. Well, the sign’s mine now, so I shall dub…her, let’s say she’s a her, “Jennifer,” for no good reason I could adequately explain.

And adrian hunter sez about the sign

“I love how signage like this always ends with ‘science fiction.’ Science Fiction…what? Double-Feature? Books? videos? games? all the above? I don’t know about the rest of the world, although from this sign it seems endemic but in CT it happens a lot. It’s just amusing to me.”

Ralph (if you recall from my recap of his retail history) had been in a shop up in Santa Barbara that specialized in science fiction books and comic books. Ralph was the one in charge of the sci-fi books, as that had been, and still is, a particular interest of his (along with comics, of course). So, when he opened up his own shop it was probably no surprise that he wanted to emphasize the “science fiction” part of the business, especially with all the Star Warsing and Star Trekking going on.

And to your question of “science fiction what,” the answer is “yes.” Books, videos (eventually) games, even comics sometimes. And “double feature” of sorts…Ralph had plenty of Ace doubles.

But seriously, “science fiction” is a good, overall eye-catching term to grab people where things like “comic books” and “baseball cards” might not. Come to think of it, I should probably replace that “SPECULATIVE EVOLUTIONARY DIESELPUNK” painted in the window with “SCIENCE FICTION” instead. Might get more positive attention.

The Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Spider-Man comic.

filed under Categories television 8 Comments

Okay, I have a brief break from those early morning appointments for the week (though they’ll be back in action next week…ugh) so I’ll try to do a little catching up!

In my post about the “variant” for Amazing Spider-Man #194 (the first Black Cat), Joe replied

“Thank goodness it apparently wasn’t a yellow variant [Saturday Night Live] destroyed this weekend.”

And then Joe links to this video of the sketch in question, where the premise is an ’80s kids TV show is working out the kinks on how to “slime” the performers. [NOTE: uses a derogatory term as part of the running bit about how the ’80s were more…lax about such things.]

Yup, as far as I can tell, that’s a gen-you-whine Amazing Spider-Man #194. I’m going to post a couple of screen shots in case that video goes away:

And here’s as good a close-up as I can manage. COMPUTER, ENHANCE


As Joe asserts, it doesn’t appear to be a yellow-stripe edition, so the SNL crew only destroyed a $600 comic, not an $800 one.

Now I tried to catch the show in an anachronism, so I checked some dates. The comic was released in April of 1979, according to the Grand Comic Database. The Wikipedia page for the television show being parodied here, You Can’t Do That on Television, says the show started in February of 1979, and that “slime” was a thing there from the get-go. As such, I guess the timeline works out.

I wonder if the SNL crew knew exactly what comic they were getting…I’m presuming they were seeking out a period comic to fit the setting for the sketch. It surprises me that they singled out this particular issues, instead of some other easier-to-obtain comic from the same time. Especially since right now Spider-Man comics are red hot in the back issue market, in particular notable issues like the first appearance of the Black Cat.

I don’t think there were any “facsimile” editions for this issue, which is Marvel’ s direct reprints of some of their older, occasionally classic, comics. If there were, the cover would look the same, save for a different cover price and…the UPC code, sometimes? Anyway, there was one of those $1 “True Believers” reprints of this issue, but that had a big, bright yellow banner across the top of the front cover, which is definitely not present in the original.

Or it could be a mock-up of a #194, with the cover for that issue printed out somewhere and then glued over the face of a more recent, and much less expensive, issue. A long time ago, at the previous place of employment, we helped out a local theater production that wanted a spinner rack of period comics as a stage prop. We took a number of 1950s comics we had in stock, made color copies of the front covers, pasted them on bargain box comics (probably cheap stuff like Incredible Hulk #271) and there we had it. It doesn’t appear that’s what they did on SNL, but thought I’d made note of the possibility.

For what it’s worth, that does appear to be the actual back cover of the comic:


…so they would have copied the back cover, too, if this was a paste-up, or found another comic with the same back.

Or they just happened across a really beat-up copy of that #194 and got it cheap. Who knows? Well, they do over there on that TV show, I guess. Anyway, ignore all that speculation above because I’m sure no one was going to go through that much trouble to construct a prop comic when it was much easier just to spend TV money and buy one. Frankly, I’m surprised they bothered, but I guess someone over there didn’t want to hear about it from dorks like me if they used a 2022 Spidey in a sketch set decades ago. On the other hand, SNL has historically been on top of things when it comes to comics, so I guess I can’t be too shocked.

[EDIT: Joe returns to inform me that he found a TikTok video where someone with a better resolution video than what I’ve got determined it was a paste-up job…apparently over Thor #461. So please ignore most of my post!]

[Also, Googling shows that I’m two weeks late on this particular story. Oh well, What Can You Do?]

What would have been a little funnier, I think, is if the Saturday Night Live sketch had used a copy of this comic instead:


It’s only a little older than the comic they actually used…and much less expensive, I bet!

53.

filed under Categories old 10 Comments

(and a special shared birthday wish to my equally-atomic blogging brother Andrew)

Normal operations will resume shortly.

filed under Categories low content mode 2 Comments

There are probably going to be a handful of days this month which require very early mornings from me, so the late-night blogging will continue to be a tad sporadic. Next week should be back to normal, and the week after will again be in low content mode. Sorry about that, but everything all sort of bunched up at once, so What Can You Do?

Thanks for continuing to read, and I’ll back in blogging shape soon enough.

Low or no content mode for a few days.

filed under Categories low content mode 3 Comments


Due to some early morning doctor appointments this week, I’m not going to be doing my usual late-night-blogging-for-the-next-day for the next few days. I may have something up Wednesday, but I will have a new post at least on Friday.

Thank you for your readership and your patience, and normal service will resume shortly.

Fun flies when you’re having time.

filed under Categories retailing 4 Comments

yet another artifact from the Previous Place of Employment (if you missed it, I posted one on Wednesday): the Ralph’s Comic Corner clock!

Gifted to the shop by a customer (and alas, which customer I can’t remember), the image for the clock’s face was blown up from a business card and colorized. (The drawing, like nearly all drawings done for the store’s business cards, fliers, signs and such, was by cartoonist/animator Tom Foxmarnick).

As a nod to the ol’ role playing game part of the business, please note that the clock’s numbers are made up of teeny-tiny dice:

When Ralph brought it to me, he wasn’t sure if the clock still worked, as he replaced the battery in the back and no tempus fugited. However, I am happy to report that I had a fresh new battery at home, and once placed in the clock, the hands once again started ticking off the remaining seconds of our fleeting lives. Hooray!

• • •

In other news, comments have been left on the posts from earlier in the week, and I’m not ignoring them! I will respond to those that need responses sometime next week. Thanks for reading, and commenting!

Sign of the times.

filed under Categories retailing 8 Comments

As was mentioned before, my former boss Ralph had moved from the back room of a thrift store in downtown Ventura, CA, to a small storefront midtown, in the early 1980s. To help grab some attention for the shop, in 1984 Ralph’s friend Tom Foxmarnick (a cartoonist and animator, graduate of the Joe Kubert School) painted this sign for him:

If you look closely, you can see this sign is now sitting in my store, brought to me by Ralph after the closure of Seth’s Games and Anime (the shop Ralph’s eventually became). It’s wood, pretty good size…the exact measurements I meant to get prior to making this post but like a dummy, I forgot. I’ll try to edit them in later. But it’s up against the side of one of my comic tables there, so that should give you an idea.

Anyway, the sign would rest in the front of Ralph’s 1984-1990 location, sitting on a large brick step that was just to the side of the shop’s door. When we (yes, we, I started working there in ’88) moved to larger digs across the street, the sign was put in the front window. And in ’97, when we moved again to the larger space next door, the sign also came with us and, at least for a while, put in one of the windows there.

Eventually, when Seth took over the majority of the store, the sign went to the back room, where it stayed, well, pretty much until earlier this week when Ralph hauled it through my front door.

A little worn, clearly had seen some use — I’m talking about the sign, not Ralph, to be clear — but it’s a nice memento of a shop that meant a lot to a whole bunch of people, myself included. A big chunk of my past, now on display in my store, reminded me of where I came from and what I hope to continue.

The color out of variants.

filed under Categories collecting, variant covers 14 Comments

So the other day, customer Ryan asked me if I’d heard about a particular error (or dare we say, variant?) cover that’s been making the rounds lately. “I have not,” sez I, and he goes on to inform me about this issue of Amazing Spider-Man, #194 from 1979:


Well, okay, not this version specifically (which is a direct-sales edition, as noted by the slash through the UPC code, as opposed to a newsstand edition), but rather this one:

See the difference? Take a closer look:

Apparently there was a problem in the printing process somewhere along the line leaving that miscolored strip on the Marvel Comics banner. At some point early in the process the problem was noticed and fixed (reminding me a little of this), making the majority of the books printed with the solid red bar, but the handful with the error were kept and passed along into distribution, since, you know, it’s such a minor thing. Doesn’t affect the readability of the book at all, who’s gonna care?

Well, cut to the 2020s, where there is a whole new market out there of folks looking for just about any reason to make any comic into a desired collectible. Given the huge emphasis of late on speculation in regards to first appearances of characters (whether or not that character has any real impact, (cough Gold Lantern cough*), one would think it’s enough that this specific issue is the first appearance of longtime Spider-Man frenemy the Black Cat, already skyrocketing in price as-is with eBay auctions titles including things like “Marvel comic KEY” and “Black Cat MCU Sony.”

However, this “error” variant is demanding a little extra chunk of change on the secondary market (“RARE YELLOW ERROR PRINT! MCU SOON!”)…to the tune of about a couple of hundred extra bucks at the high end, if the Hot Comic App is to be believed.

I can’t say if I’d ever come across one of those over the decades. It’s possible I haven’t, if the item is as rare as being ballyhooed. But even if I had, I doubt any of us at the shop would have paid it any mind…or possibly, in those early days of youthful optimism and/or ignorance, even marked the price down in the hopes of countering any initial buyer reluctance toward buying a book with such a sorely-visible misprint. Well, time and the current marketplace has surely corrected that oversight.

Anyway, thought this was an interestingly extreme example of the lengths the back issue market has gone through to make a fancier silk purse out of a plain ol’ silk purse. Mark my words, when the Ka-Zar movie happens, all those copies of Ka-Zar comic with the missing panel I’ve been stockpiling will make me rich, rich I tell you.
 
 

* Yes, I know he’s involved in that JLA/Legion of Super-Heroes thing.

“Are ye gluttons for punishment?”

filed under Categories golden age 4 Comments

A little bit of interesting comics trivia, via a copy of Yellowjacket #9 (Charlton Comics, 1946) provided by Customer Sean. Along with stories featuring the title character, and a story with the somewhat Wonder Woman-inspired “Diana the Huntress,” was an installment of “Tales of Terror.” Your host introducing said story: the Witch:

Not to be confused, of course, with the Old Witch introducing stories at EC Comics a few short years later:

The Overstreet Price Guide is on it, with describing the Witch and the “Tales of Terror” debut in Yellowjacket #7 in terms that make it fairly clear that the later EC Comics version was…inspired heavily by its Charlton Comics cousin:

“…Narrated by the Ancient Witch, wearing a red cloak, stirring her bubbling cauldron at beginning and end of the story, just like E.C.’s Old Witch 5 years later; tells story ‘The Avenging Hand’ similar to ‘The Maestros’s Hand’ in Crypt of Terror #18”

Sounds like this old Charlton may have introduced (or at least used previously) the story format that EC Comics would lean hard upon for their popular horror comics line. Overstreet credits the initial story to Alan Mandel, a person I don’t believe worked for EC later, so it’s not like he brought the concept to him. And perhaps the format and host character are broad enough to have been a wild coincidence, but however it happened, it remains a fun bit of comics history.