variant covers

Me in 1992: “You know, I really liked his normalman, I’ll give this a shot.”

filed under Categories variant covers 12 Comments


So, digging through some boxes in the backroom at the shop, I came across one of these. This is a newsstand edition of Jim Valentino’s Shadowhawk #1, which differs from the embossed silver foil stiff-covered one you could get in comic shops by having a floppy-covered version with a UPC code on the front. It still have a slight cover enhancement in that the mask is colored in silver ink.

Image had newsstand distribution on their initial releases, with the primary differences being the covers printed on a different paper stock than their direct-to-comic-shop cousins, plus the UPC code displayed on those ccovers somewhere. If there was some kind of fancy cover enhancement, it was generally removed, most notably on WildC.A.T.s #2. And of course, I talked about this during my variant cover-age posts from a while back.

I have noticed some back issue demand for these particular variations, as they tend to clear out of the shop soon as I get my hands on them. But I gotta be honest…not sure if that’s gonna extend to this Shadowhawk I have here. As I said on Bluesky regarding this comic, “on one hand is a relatively hard-to-find newsstand edition of Shadowhawk #1, but on the other hand it’s a Shadowhawk #1.”

Not to be overly harsh, but Shadowhawk, especially the various ’90s series, has been bargain box fodder for decades. Vastly overprinted during comics’ boom time, lacking any sort of back issue interest that Spawn or even Youngblood (main series only) has, I doubt if anyone’s actually ever paid full price for one since sometime around 1998.

As such, I’m not entirely sure what to do with this newsstand edition. I may very well decide to dump it into the bargain bins at the shop. But…it is a newsstand edition of an Image launch title, and may garner interest solely for that reason. I don’t know, I’ll decide when I get back to pricing more comics. Given the wear on the spine, it may only end up being a buck or so anyway even if I do grade and price it.

• • •

In totally unrelated news…there’s a crowdfunding campaign to make Justice Machine action figures! And since I figure my readership is probably right there in the main demographic of “people who remember and may have actually read Justice Machine,” I thought I’d let you know! Hasn’t launched as I type this, but it’s supposed to start within a day or thereabouts, so watch that space!

The Lone Variant Rides Again!

filed under Categories variant covers 7 Comments

So anyway, as I was saying back in 2021, I hadn’t seen one of the apparently-rare “red shirt” editions of Lone Ranger #37 “in the wild,” as it were. There was that image of it on the Grand Comics Database (which I’m not linking directly to just yet, for reasons that will become apparent), that looked…not quite natural to me, for some reason. I mean, I could have been wrong, but I still wanted to see another copy to compare.

Well, in steps my Bluesky pal Comics in the Golden Age (an old family name, I’m presuming, but a good follow if you like comics!), who informed me that on the Lone Ranger Fan Club Facebook page, someone posted about having the red shirt variant, and was asking for information about it.

Mr. Comics in the Golden Age replied, pointing this person to my (eep) five year old post on the topic…and the end result is that I am in contact with Cedric, the owner of these comics, and he graciously offered photos of them for me to present here.

Just a little bit of background: these used to belong to Cedric’s father, who recently passed away and for which I’m sure we all offer our condolences. Cedric says he vaguely recalls that it was his father who notified the Overstreet Price Guide of the existence of this red-shirt variant, which is why that bit of info was even in the guide for me to find in the first place.

And to remind you all, the change seemingly came as the owners of the Lone Ranger wanted the licensed material to feature the blue-shirted costume, as opposed to the red shirt he had previously worn. Given that a few copies of Lone Ranger #37 got printed with the red shirt, this may have been a real “STOP THE PRESSES!” situation so that the publisher could slap some blue paint on everything.

Thus, here is the main attraction…Cedric’s copy of the Red-Shirted Ranger:


…which, by the way, someone already used an image of Cedric’s copy to replace the one that had been on the Grand Comics Database page for this issue. You can see the image that used to be there in my original post.

Here’s Cedric’s copy of the vastly more common Blue-Shirted Ranger edition:


The changes extended inside as well, with the red shirt version looking like this:


…and the blue one appearing as so:


Cedric also sent along a pic of the indicia of one of these issues, if you needed a little more authenticity for these items:


Finally, let’s get a good look at that arrival stamp, letting us know just when, at least at whatever newsstand this was sold from, when the comic arrived:

Only a couple of months ahead of the July 1951 cover date! Note that this was on the rare red-shirt variant, which seems to confirm that copies of this version did in fact get distributed, and weren’t just, like, office copies or whatever.

This was not a follow-up I expected to post, though I’m glad I got the opportunity. This is indeed a rare item and it’s nice to see actual additional visual proof of its existence. A big ol’ thanks to Cedric for allowing me to share this ere (and be sure to visit his site for his illustrative services), and to Comics in the Golden Age for helping to make this happen.

Now let the debate begin: do you prefer the Lone Ranger with the blue shirt, or are you wrong? Let me know in the comments!

57.

filed under Categories old, variant covers 19 Comments

So Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion, the 1955 Charlton comic book adaptation of the television show:


…had both a regular newsstand edition and a “Heinz Foods Premium” edition, which featured the Heinz emblem on the certificate on the back cover:


…and had a listing of the 57 varieties of Heinz products on the inside back cover:


Heinz was a sponsor of the TV show, hence this tie-in comic, though I couldn’t find any video or images of Buster Crabbe juggling bottles of Heinz whilst espousing their fine qualities.
 
 
 
 

images from this eBay auction — also, a happy day to my birthday brother pal Andrew

The shocking return of VARIANT TALK.

filed under Categories pal plugging, question time, self-promotion, variant covers 15 Comments

First, a couple of things:

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.

Two, blogging-and-birthday-brother Andrew is doing his Halloween Countdown over on Armagideon Time. One of my all-time favorite writers on these here internets.

Three, let’s try to get to another of your questions:

JohnJ hits me with

“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!

For those of you keeping track, this post continues the “one posting of these glasses per decade” run.

filed under Categories this week's comics, variant covers 5 Comments

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.”

The one with the gannet.

filed under Categories marvel, publishing, variant covers 9 Comments


Well, this is certainly something.

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 their own stuff 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.

Catches variants just like flies.

filed under Categories variant covers 7 Comments

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.

And you’re gonna get yet another post about this comic when that bullet arrives.

filed under Categories indies, jab, variant covers 5 Comments

So I somehow ended up in a Twitter thread with Too Much Coffee Man‘s creator, the wonderful cartoonist Shannon Wheeler, and I took the opportunity to ask him a couple of questions about Jab #3. You know, the comic what had a bullet shot through its middle?

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.”

Universal Variant Code.

filed under Categories variant covers 1 Comment

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.

This isn’t really a variant covers post.

filed under Categories blogging about blogging is a sin, jab, variant covers 2 Comments

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.

• • •

A couple of brief responses to comments here:

Scipio asked

“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.

And then Gregory Burgas said on the topic of the comicsweblogosphere

“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.