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!
[NOTE: I’ll get back to Multiverse Talk shortly, but I wanted to address this topic before the news got too old!]
Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in! Yes, it’s time for your regular Death of Superman post, here on your official home of Death of Superman Talk, Progressive Ruin dot edu backslash deedeedeedeathofsupes. And yes, it’ll be a little bit of a Variant Cover-Age post, so I’ll finally be returning to that subject as well.
So, what’s this all about, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Smith from Anytown, USA? It’s about this long the new Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special that DC will be releasing this coming November, featuring the original creative teams doing a number of stories for this 80-page giant.
And will there be variant covers? Well, of course there will be variant covers. Most importantly, there will be a new black-bagged edition, just like the original back in ye olden tymes, complete with armband:
Which brings us to a more earthly concern: cost. DC seems to have been occasionally testing the waters with a $10.99 price point over the last year or two on their squarebound 80-page giant things. Mostly they stick with $9.99, but once in a while a $10.99 one would slip out there.
These Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Specials will run $10.99 a pop. Which may get quite expensive for some folks as some of the variants they’ve shown us so far look pretty neat and I’m sure even at that price point I’ll be selling multiple copies. In fact, I guarantee I’ll be selling multiple copies because I’ve already been getting preorders.
However, the black-bagged edition…hoo boy. Those are…going to cost you a little more. My planned price for these is $15, but based on the wholesale cost, I wouldn’t blame stores for going for $20 or so. And I’m wondering if there will be some measure of scarcity on these, either via retailer reluctance to put so much money into this event, or just straight up production issues leading to allocations. I mean, I don’t expect the latter, but in case I’m wrong about the first part and retailers do go all in on this comic, production could be overwhelmed. I mean, I don’t know, we’ll see I suppose.
Anyway, my guess is that the black-bagged version will be underordered, hit with huge demand outstripping retailer anticipation, and suddenly we’ll be seeing them for sale online at $50 or more.
I also feel like right now is probably not the time to be putting out an $11 comic, but hey, we’ll see if anyone still has money this fall.
But back to the comic itself…when I first heard about the bagged edition, my first thought was that, in a few years, I’ll have people coming into the shop to sell their copies of this anniversary issue, thinking it’s the original, and wondering why I won’t pay Big Money for it. (Not that the original generally trends to be that much, but I go into that here.) The new version does have that anniversary logo on the bottom of the front cover, so that might help a little, maybe.
What I’m most interested in is the continuity nonsense around the Death of Superman event itself as presented in this new comic. After some minor references here in there to the event having happened in Superman’s past in the post-New 52 universe (weird to think that a Superman that supposed had only been around five years was dead a good chunk of that time), it’s nice to have a straight-up, absolute, post-Rebirth, post-whatever the last thing was, confirmation that Superman kicked the bucket in DC’s cobbled-together current continuity. (Oh, and I forgot Death of Superman: The Wake, a digital-first comic which also addressed this storyline…have it, haven’t had a chance to read it so I don’t know what it adds. Will report back.)
One point I’m surprised has actually been addressed by Chief Superman-Deather Dan Jurgens is Australian Luthor, who was the extant version of ol’ Lexie when this story originally went down. (I kinda explain Australian Luthor in this list of Luthors from, egads, 2005). Anyway, Jurgens’ response? Not in the new stories, no space to explain what was up with that “new” Luthor. Also not included: Matrix Supergirl.
Speaking of continuity, I’m going to need to spend some time comparing the original Funeral for a Friend poster to this new rendition Ivan Reis and Danny Miki for a variant cover:
At first glance, the new variant does appear to include many elements of the very snapshot-of-DC-in-the-1990s-ishness original, which is appreciated. I mean, Legion ’92-3 is in there! Agent Liberty! Hawkman in his red outfit! Still can’t find Bloodwynd, though…gotta be in there somewhere.
Another neat variant coming is this Francesco Mattina Doomsday cover, which apparently is die-cut:
and that looks pretty neat.
There’s also going to be a reprint of the original Death of Superman comic, Superman #75, which will include new interviews with the creative team. I haven’t found a cover image for that yet.
Like I noted above, I’m already getting orders placed for these books. My personal guess for the 30th anniversary edition is that the vast majority of requests will be for the black-bagged version, even if some of the other covers (not all of which are readily out there yet) are pretty nice. I personally might want that Funeral cover and the bagged edition. Hey, I’m the guy doing the orders at my shop, so why not. Regardless, I hope this turns out to be more an original Superman #75 sales situation, and not an Adventures of Superman #500 one.
Also, have I mentioned it’s weird that I’m selling the 30th anniversary edition of something that I sold originally? Because it’s definitely an eye-opener.
So as I may have mentioned once or twice in the past on this here weblog thingie that I enjoy Watchmen ephemera and other inappropriate tie-ins. Not that I think they’re important additions to the Watchmen story, but rather I enjoy observing how people who aren’t Alan Moore or Dave Gibbons and their Watchmen creative pals handle characters and situations that were never really intended for usage outside their original context. Sometimes it’s an ill-advised crossover comic, sometimes it’s a big ol’ box of Heroclix game figurines, sometimes it’s a poster featuring even more merchandise. But whatever it is, I’m invariably interested in it.
Similarly, I have an interest in Marvelman/Miracleman and whatever weird tie-ins exist beyond the original comics themselves. There’s not nearly as much as there is for Watchmen (I mean, there’s the button, and this wacky series) which makes things a little easier on me trying to track down all this nonsense.
One that nearly got past me was Marvel’s one-shot Timeless, which hints at a coming meeting between the Marvel Universe and Miracle/Marvelman. By the time I found out about it, all my copies were sold out, which actually worked out since they eventually released a reprint with a nice Miracleman cover by its current-if-decades-interrupted artist Mark Buckingham.
Which leads me to why I called you all here today. In honor of the 40th anniversary of the initial Moore/Garry Leach revival of the character, pairing ol’ MM with a variety of superheroes on variant covers of their titles. I know, I know, I’ve said in the past that I hate these misleading cover images featuring (sometimes) the stars of the book with other folks who don’t appear inside. But I am weak, and have decided that I need one of each of these. “But Mike,” you ask, “why not just download the images from Marvel or wherever instead of taking home even more comics,” and my reasoned response to you is “SHUT UP, JUST SHUT UP.”
Anyway, here are a few of those images…I’m quite taken the X-Force one:
And this Captain America one is nice and cheery:
This one is quite busy:
And…I don’t know, your guess is as good as mine:
These are just a few of the many MM variants that are heading our way, and at least a couple make me wish we’re getting actual team-up stories inside (“Miracleman and Sam Wilson go out for a nice flight around the city.” “Wolverine finds himself with a tiny Miracleman lodged in the side of his head.”) but I guess that’ll have to wait ’til we get whatever was teased with that Timeless comic.
While finding these images, I did spot an old solicitation for the Miracleman: The Silver Age #3 from early 2016, which was going to feature at long last the new Neil Gaiman/Buckingham chapters of the story they’d started way back when at Eclipse Comics. Well, apparently at the end of the year we’re finally getting those long-promised stories, no, honest, we mean it this time. Back in 2016, one of the covers promised for that #3 was a “Hip Hop variant,” which alas had no art available with the solicit, but there was this Skottie Young cover that I hope gets offered again:
Once Gaiman/Buckingam finish their run, give Young the book. Or if the Miracleman story has come to its conclusion, have Young redraw the entire series. I’d read it, though the redone childbirth issue would be something else.
So for whatever reason I was chatting with pal Matt at the shop about John Byrne, wondering what his last published job in comics was (it was Matt who noted those weird Star Trek fumetti books may have been it). Anyway, this necessitated bringing up the ol’ Wikipedia entry on Byrne (which he would have wholeheartedly disapproved of me doing) which included the following tidbit:
“Byrne also facilitated the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise, the first issue of which featured comics’ first variant cover.”
Well well well, the eleven people out there who still read this site, and especially are reading the variant cover-age posts, know this isn’t necessarily the case. And I’m not even talking about the whole Whitman thing, or the Lone Ranger recoloring which may or may not exist. Or any of the other minor differences that were more publishing/distribution things than deliberate marketing gimmicks (like changing cover prices, or distributor marks, across print runs).
I’m talking about straight-up simultaneously publishing different covers on the same comic book to either 1) make the consumer choose which cover s/he wanted, or 2) tempt the consumer into buy each version. Byrne’s Man of Steel #1 (discussed here) is certainly the comic that introduced the idea to comic publishers “hold on, we can do that?” But I still contend MAD Magazine #123 from 1968 (with its four different covers) is the first “variant cover” comic book in the sense we mean it today: a single issue specifically published and marketed with alternate covers.
I did argue in that post that the publisher likely didn’t expect anyone to really buy multiple copies, though almost certainly somebody did. The express purpose of the varying serial numbers was to get a laugh from anyone perusing copies on the stands, before even (hopefully) buying the mag. Or from friends comparing copies, maybe. But still, those are variant covers, and a cover blurb does command you to “COLLECT THEM ALL” (technically a joke based on the idea of buying millions of these), so, you know, close enough for horseshoes.
The out, I suppose, is whether or not you consider MAD Magazine a “comic book.” And there are plenty of other workarounds/explanations/excuses, I’m sure…”oh it doesn’t count because that was just a joke, and Man of Steel is SERIOUS BIZ-NESS,” like that. But I guess calling Man of Steel #1 “the first standard-sized comic book to be purposefully published and marketed with more than one cover in order to get you rubes to buy multiple copies” is bit of a mouthful, despite being more accurate a description.
Man, I haven’t yet even touched on some of those Dell Comics from the 1950s/60s that had variant back covers on some of their releases. Again, more to do with distribution/other vagaries of publishing than anything else, but still, them’s is variants!
Okay, I know this post is mostly rehashing older posts in the variant cover-age series. Sorry about that. New content in this line of postings will happen again shortly. Thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you Wednesday.
