So I was complaining just yesterday about how all these different variant covers and ratios and hoops I have to jump through to get said variants was beginning to really drag me down, maaaaan, and subsequently proved myself a hypocrite by acknowledging my desire for the Swamp Thing variant covers.
Well, I’m gonna double-down on my hypocrisy since I fully intend on getting the “first appearance” variants for the Boom! Studios Peanuts series:
That’s the “How I Hate Him” variant (note: not actual name for the variant, but it should be) for the first issue, and following issues will feature Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy, and good golly I want ’em all. Basically, I guess this means I’m against comic book variant covers except for the ones I’m personally interested in. That seems fair.
• • •
If you don’t mind, I’m going to respond to a couple of comments from yesterday’s post…and even if you
do mind, I’m going to do it anyway since it’s my site:
- My ol’ internet pal Roger Green sez
“It was the variant covers of Spider-Man #1 and those Valiant(?) #0s that made me crazy back in the 1990s.”
Yeah, it was Valiant with the #0s…and Malibu/Ultraverse, and DC Comics, and probably plenty more. (It was all Robert Crumb’s fault.) But those didn’t bother us nearly as much as the Spider-Man #1 variants…specifically, the prebagged editions (which you can see at the bottom of this page).
Seriously, Marvel charged you an extra quarter so you could get a copy of the comic sealed in a polybag specifically as a collectible. The pages inside might as well have been blank. Hell, they could have been blank…did anyone buy one and open it? Anyway, I haven’t seen one of these prebagged editions in a long time…after 21 years, that polybag is probably slowly turning back into oil and becoming one with the comic at this point.
- Alex asks
“Speaking of upcoming books… how do you feel about the upcoming Dardevil crossover with the Amazing Spider-Man book? You still get Mark Waid writing for both, with the main artist on the Daredevil portion (I believe), and what looks like a fun little plot, buuuuutttttt…
This does sort of run against the ‘self-contained’ vibe that book really should keep, right? Do you think these sorts of things can be pretty good and turn out alright when you get the right guy steering the ship?”
I’m not totally against crossovers. Keeping it simple with just Spider-Man and Daredevil, and, like you say, having Waid writing both titles…that sounds like a good time. And it’s very Silver Age-y Marvel, with a nice, simple crossover between a couple of characters. No cosmos-spanning, every-Marvel-title-spanning menace needed.
My main objection with crossovers is more with the company-wide event-type things that force folks to push aside their own storylines to make space for the Beyonder or for Atlantis Attacking or whatever. And even then, depending on how the creative teams handle it, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing. (The Crisis on Infinite Earths tie-ins in Green Lantern at the time are a good example of using crossover-event shenanigans for a book’s own benefit.) But for readers who aren’t following every event that comes down the pike, having yet another tie-in to a separate series they’re not interested in, yet another “INFINITE FEAR COUNTDOWN INVASION” branding above the comic’s regular logo, can be bit of a turn-off.
I wonder how the creative teams of these books feel when it’s time for the thrice-yearly event tie-in? Is it “oh boy, a challenge!” at fitting the editorially-mandated event into their plotlines, or “ah, crud, there go my plans for the book over the next month or two,” or a mixture of both?
I’m probably oversimplifying things a bit, but I picture the editor, puffing on his giant stogie, picking up the phone to call his writer to say “Look, there’s this event we’re having, see? And it’s gotta go in all the books, see? And we want you to play along, see?” And the writer, knees shaking, stammers out in reply “y-y-y-yes sir, Mr. Big, sir,” and immediately hunches back over his typewriter, sparing only a brief, sad glance out the window at yet another sunset he will again only experience from his under-lit office.
Anyway, Alex, I hope that answers your question. And probably created some new questions in the process.
