One, I finally got a Threads account open under my original personal Instagram account name, mikesterjr. For various reasons I had opened one up under a different name, but ignore that one if you know about it…”mikesterjr” is where you’ll find me there. (Alas, “mikester” and “mikesterling” were taken by folks surely unworthy of my good name.) Anyway, not that I need another social media thing (Bluesky is mostly enough for me right now), but in this scary post-Xwitter world, I’m just trying to hedge my bets.
“How in the world do you decide how many variant covers to order of some books, especially with DC’s extra dollar for variant cardstock covers?
The multiple covers bit started when I still was ordering comics in the 90s and it drove me nuts. It’s got to be ten times worse today with damn near every book having multiple covers.
How about the blank covers for sketches? Do you have customers that ask for those?”
Yeah, I occasionally think about how good we had it in the ’90s in regards to variants. At the time, it was annoying because, unless it was a ratio variant where we had to reach certain ordering plateaus to get that 1 in 25/50/100 copy, guessing what covers customers were going to want was quite the trick.
And it’s even more of a trick now, given that nearly every Marvel and DC comic has multiple covers, and many Image books have variants, and several Dark Horse comics have variants, and oy Dynamite Comics….
For the most part, the customers mostly want the main (or “A”) covers, although some folks don’t care what cover they get. I order enough “A”s to cover pulls and rack sales, and a smaller number of each variant for impulse buys and for those occasions when people prefer that variant to the main cover.
In the case of DC, where the variants can cost a buck (or more, if it’s a fancier variant with extra embossing or whatever), I’m a little more stingy about ordering some of those, sometimes just getting one or two copies, or maybe skipping a variant entirely if past sales data for a title indicates a big fat “nobody cares” on those. But if it’s a variant by Jim Lee or Artgerm, I’ll get a few extras because those always sell well.
For Marvel and other companies, the variants all have the same cover price (aside from the ratio variants, though I’ll sometimes just put the 1 in 10 covers out at regular price) so I feel a little more comfortable ordering extras on those. Like I said, “A” covers are generally preferred, so I’ll order heavier on those, though I notice on indie titles, some people don’t much care which cover they get. It’s the Marvels where customers are a little more insistent on getting the main cover if possible.
At this point, I’ve been ordering these long enough to get a general feel for what covers sell in what quantities, though sometimes I’ll get surprised by demand (like, it took some reordering to get enough of the recent Doctor Doom variants on some recent Marvels), but my typical strategy of “lots of ‘A’s, a coupe or three of the variants” works out. And I can usually place reorders if necessary.
I do have some customers who get every variant (or close to) of their favorite titles, so I make sure to accommodate them. And sometime a comic will pop up in the order form with more individual variants for me to order than copies I sell in the store, so I order enough “A”s and then pick and choose the likely variants that might sell, and hope for the best.
As for blank covers…I don’t always order those, but it depends on the title. I went ahead and got a copy of the blank Absolute Batman #1, for example (which as of this writing hasn’t sold yet, though I blew through all the other variants for this title in short order). Once in a blue moon I have someone show up asking for every sketch cover I have in the shop, so I like to have a few of those available.
I feel like, even as much of rambling answer I gave there, more discussion may be necessary. I mean, aside from the year or so I was doing these themed variant cover posts. Anyway, if any clarification is needed, just let me know.
• • •
Also, wish my dad a happy birthday today. He reads the site, so he’ll see it!
Due out this week is DC’s Ape-Ril Special one-shot, and one of the variants features a scratch ‘n’ sn–er, a rub and smell banana-scented cover:
Longtime readers of this site will remember that I have the perfect item with which to read this fine publication…the SCRATCH AND SNIFF 3-D GORILLA GLASSES:
Here I am from almost twenty years ago sporting this fine item:
Anyway, hopefully you won’t soon be reading headlines like “COMICS RETAILER O.D.S ON DOUBLE BANANA SCENT DOSE.”
I know, I’m a little late to this polybag party, but boy howdy what a weirdly pandering idea that’s only going to contribute to the idea that kids aren’t welcome to modern superhero comics. Which is okay, I guess, because kids got theirownstuff goin’ on, and aren’t likely to be interested in Marvels outside of Miles Morales and Deadpool anyway.
Basically, Marvel has announced that they’ll be releasing a comic, Blood Hunt #1, where apparently you won’t have to hunt far for that blood as a “Mature Readers” version of the title with all the gore and violence you crave will be presented in an unexpurgated fashion. Meanwhile, they’ll also produce a censored “general audiences” version of the same book that won’t sell. The naughty version, naturally selling for a buck more than its bowdlerized counterpart, will be sealed in a polybag for that extra attention from parents who already think superhero comics are all too violent for their kids anyway.
Perhaps I sound a little annoyed at this.
Now chances are pretty good this series will go over like a thing that doesn’t go over very well, and the whole “pay that extra buck, see what the butler saw” gimmick will drop off the face of the direct market. Or everyone will decide “I don’t want the stupid version made for babies, gimme that explicit content” and it’ll sell like gangbusters and suddenly every Marvel comic has a polybag. (Then Marvel can push the “pure and innocent” unbagged variants and charge more for those.)
I was put in mind of Marvel’s publishing…let’s say “strategy” in regards to their initial attempt at doing Miracleman. In this post (and please excuse my optimism that new stories were “close”), I noted that they were polybagging Miracleman issues despite the content usually not warranting it. My assumption was that 1) it was a mature readers book under the Marvel logo, and thus should be hidden from theoretically innocent eyes, and 2) by polybagging every issue, when they got to the “birth” issue it wouldn’t stand out as the only polybagged one.
And also there’s 3) the hoped-for sales boost by providing the lure of the forbidden by sealing the contents away, which didn’t work and sales continued to plummet because nobody cared.
There is a chance this may not be the case with Marvel books, though, particularly ones set in the mainstream Marvel universe, under the Marvel banner, in a standard comic book format, and not shoved under some distancing mature-reader label like “MAX” or “Epic” or “Star.” (Yes, Star, that Heathcliff was a freak.)
As I said above, the main problem with this is the perception from parents in my shop that all superhero comics are “violent” and “gory.” I always try to tell them “there are plenty of kid-friendly superhero books.” But seeing this on the stands…well, okay, it’s just the one so far, but it’ll be more of a problem once Marvel starts cranking out more of them. Or, to be honest, folks tend to home right in on the very thing you’d prefer they didn’t notice, trust me on this. But this isn’t going to help dissuade the notion that superhero comics are scary and gross. (I mean, sure, some are, but not all of them!)
Also I’m being reminded of another time publishers tried this sort of thing, when Aircel offered “adults only” and “general audiences” versions of Barry Blair’s Leather and Lace. As I said there, given the overall look ‘n’ feel of even the supposed general audiences version, there was no way in hell I was going to sell that to kids. I’m hoping history doesn’t repeat itself with this newest iteration of the gimmick.
So, in the culmination of a process that’s taken, oh, about a year and a half, I found myself finally in possession of Amazing Spider-Man #1, #2 and #3, as well as a copy of Amazing Fantasy #15. I’ve been buying (and occasionally consigning) Silver Age Marvels from this particular person for a while now, and I knew he had those early Spideys but he wasn’t quite ready to part with them…until NOW.
Well, by “NOW” I mean “a couple of days ago” and before you ask, I only have the #3 left as of this writing and even that will likely be gone shortly after you read this. Or long before you read this, if our giant-brained, spindly-bodied descendant are reading this ancient archived post in the very distant Weird Science-ish future.
But that’s not what I’m here to talk to you about, mostly. What I’m here to talk to you about is another item that came along with this early Spideys…another early Spidy of some note. But first, let me show you a picture I took of the actual, real, straight-from-1963 issue #1 that I briefly had my mitts all over:
And here is the other Spidey…can you tell the difference between the two (other than my inability to take a decent photo that’s not at a weird angle)?
Yes, the 12-cent price is missing. And that’s because this comic is the reprint included in the Golden Records Book and Record Set from 1966, pictured here in an image “borrowed” from eBay:
Nope, I didn’t get the record, just the comic. But if you absolutely have to, you can listen to it via the YouTubes. WARNING: will challenge your ability to listen immediately.
There are a number of other differences between the two versions of the comic, as I’m sure comes as no surprise. The big one is the reprint has fewer pages, having removed all the ads. They also removed all the credits from the stories, much to Stan Lee’s chagrin I’m assuming. The story pages were also renumbered…in the original, once the second story starts, the page numbering starts over with “1” but the reprint just continues along enumerating the pages from 1 to 24. I’ll show you an example in a moment.
There were a few pages devoted to espousing the virtues of Golden Records and advertising their wares, such as this message to parents and teachers on the inside front cover:
And here’s a list of other records in the series. Tag yourself, I’m “Bozo Finds a Friend:”
And here’s the back cover, with a convenient order form that I’m going to clip out and mail in right away:
The most interesting difference is this, I think. The very last panel of the second story of the comic looks like this in the 1963 original:
Here it is in the Golden Records reprint, with the blurb removed (and you can see the page number now reads “24” instead of “10,” since, as it says in the parents/teachers note, the narrator reads off the page numbers and starting over again from #1 might have been confusing):
Someone had to go and draw in that little web to fill the panel. I’m assuming some art guy at the record company, or maybe Marvel did it for them. Unless that was something Steve Ditko did originally in that panel and it was covered by a pasted-in caption, but from what I know about actual comic production, that doesn’t seem likely. I don’t know, but still, it’s pretty neat. What a weird panel to end a story on in the reprint…and without that blurb, how will kids know there were any more Spider-Man adventures? Maybe they thought this was it! Spider-Man tried to get a job with the FF, then fought the Chameleon, and then was never seen again.
Anyway, neat item…and something I noticed when pricing the book was that in the latest Overstreet price guide, this comic is worth more on its own than with the record, which is…weird? And not something that was true in previous years’ guides, far as I can tell. It’s also not like that for the Fantastic Four Golden Record. I’m guessing it’s an error and prices got switched…or it’s simply a case of that’s just how the sale prices reported to the guide worked out. Strange, and I guess we’ll see how it looks in the next edition of the Guide.
Should also note that yes, this technically isn’t a variant, but a reprint…but what the heck, close enough. It’s been a while since I’ve done a variant covers post and it’s probably not a bad idea to remind people this series of posts exists.
• • •
By the way, as of this month I’ll have been in comics retail for 35 years.
My questions both involved this ad that was inside the comic, for copies of the magazine shot with more powerful guns than the .22 caliber used on the “normal” books.
My first inquiry was “were the variants advertised a real thing?” to which Mr. Wheeler replied “Yep!” He stated they only did a few, and that they didn’t take any pictures of the process. That was a shame.
My next question was “did you sell any?” and his reply was that they “seemed like they sold a handful, but not many.” He did volunteer the added info that the shotgun variant “was the most fun (but scary)” which, as someone who’s fired a shotgun, I can probably attest to.
Best of all, he offered to send me a spent bullet and casing from the shoot, and boy oh boy I can’t wait to have that. What a great, hilarious addition that’ll be to What’s Left of the Vast Mikester Comic Archives.
A big thanks to Mr. Wheeler for letting me bother him a wee bit about this weird but wonderful piece of comics history.
• • •
Speaking of the Twitters, I don’t know if folks without an account can read tweets there again, but the Twitter widget I had in my sidebar seemed to be working when I just checked right now. And by “working” I mean “running dozens of my tweets down the side of my page instead of the usual five,” which is par for the course considering the new management there. For the meantime, I’ve removed that widget and replaced it with a simple text link.
Also here’s a reminder that I’m also on Bluesky (still invite-only, sorry) and Mastodon. And (yuck) Threads as (also yuck) “mikesterlingjr.”
It’s the stunning return of Variant Cover-age, only because I found one this oddball thing that threw me off for a bit. Now, from the front this copy of the the first issue for 1996’s Kingdom Come looks like your typical first printing of this item:
But when you flip it over to enjoy Alex Ross’s wraparound cover, you notice a strange ommission…no UPC code!
For comparison, here’s what supposed to be in that little white box at the bottom there:
Kingdom Come #1 had a second printing, which this book in question isn’t, as there’s no indication of being as such in the indicia, plus it doesn’t have one of these Roman numeral doodads on the front:
And the second print does have the UPC code, too.
Soooooo…I didn’t know what the deal with this comic was. But I wasn’t the first to be puzzled by this variant, as seen in this message board thread. The thread starts with some business about UPC stickers being plastered on some copies of Kingdom Come, but eventually gets into the blank UPC box thing. One person there says he has the Kingdom Come Collector’s Set in which there was a #3 with no UPC.
I found an eBay auction for the Collector’s Set, from which I liberated this image:
The auction was very thorough in its scanning, giving backs and fronts of all the covers of the included books. No UPC-codeless copies, but it did have two second prints like the message boarder reported with his set.
Thus, if we take the person on the message board at his word, then the collector set was perhaps at least one source for this particular variant. However, seemingly not a consistent one, based on that one eBay listing. (No other open copies seemed to be on eBay, either current or recently ended.) Were the blank UPC copies whipped up to help fill these collector’s sets, which also dipped into the 2nd printing stock? I don’t recall this variation being made available otherwise.
If you’ve seen this version of the Kingdom Come comics, or if you have one of the Collector’s Sets your own self, please report in and let me know. I’d like more data points to nail down the origin of this book.
So I apologize…I’ve been getting home lately feeling under the weather and pretty worn out, so “typing out long-form commentaries at the computer deep into the night” hasn’t been a huge priority for me for the last few days. It’s just a bug I’m fighting (NOT COVID, I ASSURE YOU) and I should be back to whatever passes for normal within a couple of days.
In the meantime I’ve been lazily watching a lot of television, with a good dollop of YouTube mixed in. Now, I don’t usually watch comic book-related YouTubery, preferring instead to let the sound of this video drape over my wearied brow.
But I happened to find this one, discussing the history of variant covers:
Unlike my long-running and currently waiting-for-new-content series on this here site, where I jumped all over the place discussing this, that, and the other thing, this video gives more of a chronological context to what was going on.
What surprised me was that I was cited in the course of the video, when the Jab #3 from Adhesive Comics was featured. You know, the one the publisher straight up shot with a real bullet. Specifically, the usage of a panel scan from that post was noted in the video, and a link back to my website was provided in that video’s notes, which was nice. I do feel like that post provided a lot of the info used in that specific segment, beyond the one panel, but eh, Information Wants to Be Free an’ all that. Happy to be a research source.
I should also note not all those Spider-Man #1s were the same price, as the black bagged version was two bucks. Why was it two bucks and not $1.75 like the others? Because they could charge two bucks for it, that’s why. I wrote about this infamous first issue here.
Anyway, it’s a good video and you should watch it. Also, kudos to the fella for pulling a Silver Surfer #50 off his rack and revealing a U.S. 1 underneath.
“Any idea why the Comic Treadmill old posts are inaccessible?
“All of H and Mag’s work.. .gone?”
I just took a look, and yeah, the last few posts are on the one page, but the post calendar is way out of date on the right there. I feel like that may be a page template error or something, like it hasn’t been updated for current browsers or something. I’ve been in contact with H recently, so I’ll send him another email and ask what’s up.
“I think the ‘Golden Age’ was around 06-11/12 or so. Before that, it was a bit Wild West, but around 06, everything seemed to be humming, but around 11/12, people began to drop off. Of course, those years are fluid, but that seems about right. I’m glad you’re still cooking!”
I’m still standing, as it were. I don’t plan on going anywhere soon, I’ve still got posts about the Death of Superman and Frank Miller’s The Spirit to write.
But yes, the 2006-2012 timeframe sounds pretty close. I started this site in late 2003 (with BBS stuff and LiveJournal before that), and there were a few earlier than me (like the immortal Neilalien). The late, lamented Journalista daily linkblog by Dirk Deppey from the early 2000s on drove a lot of traffic to sites, including mine…and I’ve told Deppey plenty of times that a lot of what I’ve accomplished today, including opening my own shop, stems from him pointing out my dumb site in one of his updates. The exact quote:
“…Definitely one of the better new comics bloggers to emerge so far this year.”
…made me very happy, particularly coming from The Comics Journal, a magazine I’d long read and admired. Hopefully my long decline since hasn’t made him regret his statement.
But I can’t say when I first noticed the dropoff. I know a lot of my online pals with whom I most directly interacted started to cut the blogging habit as the years wore on, and boy, I sure heard “blogging is dead” a whole lot over the last few years. I know the big thing is video, or image-heavy stuff on Instagram and the like, and giant blocks of text like the one you’re currently enduring being somewhat on the outs. But folks are still out there writing and posting on their WordPress installs and their Blogger sites, so The Blog is still hanging in there.
I mean, for your sake, it better…you don’t want to have to look at my face on TikTok or whatever for your comics content.
Anyway, I said I wasn’t doing a long post since I’m feeling yucky, and here I am still trying. I do tend to be a creature of habit, which may be as much a reason as any for my continuing to write here, even when I should be in bed sleeping off my sickness. So, thanks for reading pals, and we’ll all meet back here again in a couple of days.
So I’m sure most of you recall the 1993 series 1963, an homage by Alan Moore ‘n’ pals to Marvel’s Silver Age, littering bargain boxes everywhere due to being forever uncompleted:
Well, I picked up a collection the other day that contained the following unusual item…a retailer exclusive edition of 1963 #1 with a gold wraparound cover:
And here’s the back, showing the name of the comic shop for which this edition was produced:
Inside the gold cover, we find…the signature of Dave Gibbons, famously the inker for this comic and also apparently the artist of the prequel to Doomsday Clock:
Oh, hello, cameo from Mike’s finger.
And bound between the gold cover and the comic’s regular cover is a numbered Certificate of Authenticity:
As you saw in the last couple of scans, this edition was produced to raise money for cancer research, which is a good cause, of course.
According to this article I found Googling around, this was produced by a UK comic shop for a charity there actually just straight-up called “Cancer Research.” Which, honestly, not to make fun, that reminds me of a Bill Hicks routine in which he was asked to do a commercial in England for “Orange Drink.”
Anyway, there were only 500 of these things printed (and only 125 of the Platinum Edition), so it’s no wonder this is the first one of these that I’ve seen. I presume it’s slightly more common in the UK, but maybe my readers from Over There can let me know. But, somehow, one made its way over to Southern California, and before you ask, it’s already on its way to somewhere else — I work fast, friends — though it was nice to have it make a brief stopover so that I could enjoy it for even this brief period of time.
So here’s just a quickie “variant cover-age” post today, featuring a comic I came across in a collection recently. It’s a reprint of the first issue of the Batman Beyond mini-series:
aa
…with “FREE” replacing the price, and a Six Flags logo printed in the corner:
Not to be confused with the other version of this promo comic with just the blank box, of course.
Not much to say about it aside from “hey, look, it exists,” an jhd a good reason to return to this series of posts on my site.
I presume this was given away at the amusement parks under the Six Flags banner. This copy I had in my possession still had a coupon flyer inside for other attractions:
Before you ask: already sold and gone. The going price on the item was higher than I expected, though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. If this was a park giveaway, I suspect most copies ended up dumped on the ground, tossed in the trash, or just plain mishandled while carrying it around and transporting it home. As such, not a whole lot of mint copies out there, I think.
I don’t know (and can’t seem to look up anywhere) if this was a specific tie-in to a Batman-themed ride. I mean, the last time I was at the nearest Six Flags attraction, Magic Mountain, it was well before the Six Flags acquisition and the park’s mascots were trolls. I mean, there were plenty of Batman-themed rides, but I don’t think any of them were Beyond-related (aside from being temporarily “skinned,” maybe, like the Nightmare Before Christmas reworkings of Disney’s Haunted Mansion).
Anyway, it’s a neat little item, thought it has me wishing for a comic based on those trolls.
So as huge Fantastic Four fans, as I’m certain most of you are, you’re probably familiar with this cover for issue #299 from 1987, with cover art by John and Sal Bucsema:
Well, imagine my surprise when former boss Ralph turned up this copy from parts unknown:
And here’s the back cover:
As any fool can plainly see (“I can plainly see that!”) at some point during the printing process whatever applies the black ink to the cover went awry, leaving this odd coloring on the covers (though some black ink did make it onto the bottom quarter of the front). I’ve never really looked into the actual printing process involves lots of big and heavy machinery, very fast-moving parts, and probably elves, so I’m not sure what exactly happened to cause this. I mean, “the black plate was jostled” is probably the best you’ll get out of me, and I don’t even know exactly what that means or even if I’m saying it right. Anyway, I need to look into that side of things a little more deeply, is what I’m saying.
Regardless of my printing ignorance, this is a weird example of this particular comic, one that neither Ralph nor I had seen before. I imagine it probably had to survive quality control at the printer, not being spotted as “defective” at the distribution level, somehow getting past the Direct Market retailer and not getting tagged as a damage to be reported, and actually selling to someone who didn’t care that the cover was misprinted. That’s assuming the retailer didn’t pull it out of the stack and mark it “RARE HOT VARIANT” and sell it at a premium from the get-go.
But here it is, existing in my shop (and already spoken for, so no offers please!), an apparently unique item. I’m sure it can’t be the only one who made it out of the printers/etc. alive…but there’s a chance it could be. Isn’t that neat?
I’ve added this entry to my “variants” category as part of the long-running (though recently resting) series of posts I’ve been calling “Variant Cover-Age” because I think I’m clever. And it is, technically, a variant, in that it differs in a significant visual fashion from the other copies of the same book. Sort of like these error variants of the first Venom mini-series. But it’s not a purposeful one, like Marvel sent someone to the printer and had him kick out the giant Black Ink tube at an opportune time.
But it’s neat, I don’t think there’s any confusion on that point. Let’s take a look at some details from this cover, such as the corner box with the creepy Faceless Four:
I’m sure someone at some point did a She-Hulk image that looked like this on purpose…it’s pretty cool, actually:
And introducing Spidey’s new costume! Artists everywhere rejoice over not having to draw those damn webs:
Also, that’s totally a diaper.
So, my ProgRuin Army, if you spot another of these out the wild, or a similarly-afflicted comic, please let me know! I’m sort of interested as to how many just outright obviously-misprinted-like-this-FF comics are out there. …Oh, wait, I just thought of Superboy #0 from the 1990s. I’ll get into that hopefully soon!
