aerischan

They said no mega events planned thus far after Secret Empire. Of course, that doesn't stop crossovers and events during Secret Empire.

Any Super Sons yet? Unfortunately, my local Walmart does not seem to carry comics.

This is true for me. Not quite retailer exclusives but the last few months, Marvel has been releasing ~3+ Skottie Young variants per month so I've been sacrifice getting ~4-6 regular books in favor of the Young variants. The retailer exclusive variants usually takes funds from my collected editions budget but I rarely ever buy any. Getting the Natali Sanders GotG, though.

I expect aside from maximizing profit, the pricing is designed to greatly reduce risk/sell through required for break even and go into profit territory. Like you mentioned, 200-250 copies of just the 3-set at $75 would be break even and anything sold above that is pure profit. The CGC 9.8 guaranteed reduces required units for break even, even more. Assuming a 50% discount on cover, selling out on the complete sets nets a very tidy profit. I reckon it's probably harder to break even on the single cover 3K than on the sets. Lower profit margin means you need higher sell through. That said, wow JSC must be making bank. He probably earns multiples of what artists actually doing interiors make with much less effort.

Probably depends on the artist fee. Dell'Otto is likely very expensive so higher overhead hence risk-reward ratio if doing just 1 cover isn't worth it. I posted a quote earlier from Hall of Comics, a retailer who has released some retailer exclusive variants and I think it might have been deleted (might have missed deleting a Voldie reference). That one mentioned $12-15K ballpark for a set. They had a Super Sons #1 3-cover set (Frank Quitely) that was $59, iirc.

Lol. I'm reading. Only way to get my Black Widow fix. Art is different for the last part so maybe it's head-scape?

She's also got a teeny tiny Spider-Man belt buckle.

Order minimums: Cover A: 3000 Cover B: 1500 Cover C: 1000 Cover D: 1000 I think discount over cover is still ~50% so $2 per $3.99 book. Plus fee for the artist. Guessing the set pays for the artist and subsidizes unsold copies of the higher print run covers.

Only if you already know about Valiant and preorder. I reckon there are many comic shops who don't stock shelf copies of Valiant books and I reckon there are plenty of DC/Marvel readers who have never even heard of the company.

Not retailer exclusive but Astonishing X-Men #1 will have a 1:1000 variant by Artgerm. I love it (Romy) but no way I'm spending that much.

Iirc, #1 was also returnable so that probably had some retailers ordering a lot. I wonder how they're counting the X-O Manowar #1-3 Preorder Bundle. I preordered the bundle so even if I'm getting #2, I didn't order/pay for it in April. That said, it's hard for non-established properties to sell. Heck, plenty of DC and Marvel B/C/D-List doing poorly. Rocket Raccoon has a movie that's coming out and its last issue only sold 13K. High quality and critical acclaim is well and good but it's mass appeal that gets the sales.

They still are. I doubt that the sales of 6-10 million pamphlets per month is fueled by collectors/speculators alone. Granted, the mega events and xovers from the Big Two are probably driving away some readers who only want maybe a book or two a month. I read in various formats - pamphlets, collections and digital. Just depends which one is more convenient and/or economical. That said, you can pretty much figure the number of readers versus collectors/speculators from the drop off between issues #1 (variants galore) and #5. Event comics? There's variants galore for every single issue. I reckon Marvel's probably seeing some diminishing returns on their incentivized variants, too.

I was on a CBR thread that discussed floppies, cancellations and trade sales. As a result of the discussion, I ended up researching sales data for Saga trades. Apparently, from 2012-2016, Saga Vol. 1 has sold at least 350,000 copies in both direct and book market (not counting sales to libraries, school book fairs, etc). Total combined sales for volumes 1-6 is sitting at ~1.2 million copies per Comichron and BookScan. Guessing sales are even higher once you add other channels. Doesn't include digital sales, either. Totally wasn't expecting that.

Same here.

Holding steady around 18K. Volume 1 trades sold ~26K via direct market and another ~24K via book market (made quite a few appearances in the BookScan Monthly Top 20 lists). I think it was the top selling Image trade in BookScan 2016 that is not titled The Walking Dead or not written by Brian K. Vaughan. That said, only reason I would choose Monstress is because it's something I'm willing to keep forever. 'Sides, CGC 9.8 is only what, $100?

In fairness, the first TPB seems to be doing fairly well in the book market.

Lol, I have all three #1 prints in CGC 9.8 (for my PC). I kinda love Monstress. I also got a CGC 9.6 first print for $60 shipped (thanks ebay coupon) just for the sake of comparison. I honestly can't tell the difference between the 9.8 and the 9.6. And yeah, I think the first print cover looks nicer. Art is more detailed.

Out of curiosity, was the 2nd print of this featured in one of the speculator sites or something? I always see it listed higher than 1st print. I know there are less copies and it features new art but even then, 2nd print fetching higher prices still doesn't appear to be the norm.

Iirc, retailers needed to order Secret Empire at 175% the qty of CW II #8 in order to qualify for the launch party promo items. Stores that qualified got 2 free bundles of the lenticular board. If they want more, they need to pay $12 per bundle of either 10 or 12. Given the profit margins on comics, pretty expensive for a free giveaway.

Thanks for the link. Getting this.

Marvel marketing. Honestly, I find it largely pointless and makes following books harder in terms of back issues. On the Brubaker Cap America run, I was looking for issue #51 but no, apparently it jumps to #600.

Seems like it's following the Saga schedule. story arc - hiatus and trade release - new story arc #5: 04/26/17 #6: 05/17/17 #7: 06/14/17 #8: 07/19/17

Upcoming Astonishing X-Men written by Charles Soule, rotating artists.

Was Panini the one who did foils on other DC Rebirth titles? I seem to recall seeing DC Rebirth international foil variants. Do licensees even have access to artwork for retailer exclusive variants? I'm sure allowing the artwork to be reused will anger retailers so I would think licensees would be forbidden from using those. The international variants I've seen thus far were either ratio or RRP.

Doubtful. The Joker classroom Kirkham variant was a Salt Lake Comic Con exclusive (iirc, 1K print run). https://unknowncomicbooks.com/products/super-sons-1-detention-unknown-comic-books-con-exclusive-joker-only More likely, the Walmart variant will just use the Jorge Jimenez cover with Batman trade dress.