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Moderns that are heating up on ebay!
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63,730 posts in this topic

17 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

"Huge" is a qualitative term that doesn't have much meaning. What do you consider "huge"? Bleeding Cool says "a bunch." Both terms have no practical meaning. There were thousands of copies available, and, if you'll notice...they encompassed 1-10, meaning Marvel held onto all of them, at least for a while.

And publishers *could* print to give away at summits. The point is that you don't know. No one does. 

Again, those are your terms. What does "over-published" and "flooded" mean? These are variants that are printed in the range of 1,000-5,000 or so, and they have little effect on the number of regular copies printed, distributed, and sold, other than encouraging some retailers to order more than they can sell, in the hopes of hitting the incentive variant lottery. Frankly, you should be more concerned with THOSE numbers...copies printed solely because a retailer hopes to make a little more money on the incentive, and for which (the additional regular copies, that is) there is precisely zero demand...than the comparatively tiny numbers of "over-published" incentive variants.

In other words: a "flood" of a few hundred to a few thousand copies of incentive variants, worldwide...books regular readers don't bother with in the first place...is not going to have a "negative effect on sales"...other than, perhaps, those variants themselves. 

Let's go with an older example...you're aware that the official numbers from Valiant were that they printed 5,000 of the "gold" variants in the early 90s, correct? And how did Valiant distribute those books? They gave them away, one by one, to those...stores, fans, whomever...who promoted Valiant in some special way.

They held on to those books for years. When Valiant was sold to Acclaim in 1996, there were people...Joe Petrilak among them...who were allowed to raid the Valiant offices and take whatever they wanted. What they found was nearly the entire print runs of some of those variants, like Psi-Lords #1 gold and Ninjak #1 gold. 

Why did Valiant "over-publish" those variants? They obviously didn't use them, or even most of them, the way they were intended. And what happened with them? They were stored, some for years, until they were carted off by collectors and dealers to be quietly hoarded for the next 20+ years. I had a full case...150 copies...of Ninjak #1 gold. A full case. I gave a lot of them away. I sold a lot of them. I still have perhaps 20 or so. I have 300 copies of Psi-Lords #1 gold. I have 150 copies of Hard Corps #1 gold. 

Yes, those weren't INCENTIVE variants, but they were certainly the pre-cursors of such, and were treated AS incentives...just not necessarily ordering incentives.

Your hypothesis would be sound if we were talking about overprinting regular books, in the tens and hundreds of thousands, like Valiant and others did in the 90s.

But we're not.

And any of what you just wrote would be relevant if @GeeksAreMyPeeps or anyone else was talking about over printed Valiant or "the '90's".

But we're not.

I also can't help but notice how you've inartfully dodged the direct question you've been asked by Geeks at least twice now. 

-J.

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28 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

"Huge" is a qualitative term that doesn't have much meaning. What do you consider "huge"? Bleeding Cool says "a bunch." Both terms have no practical meaning. There were thousands of copies available, and, if you'll notice...they encompassed 1-10, meaning Marvel held onto all of them, at least for a while.

Marvel didn't hold them. Diamond did. That's why they dump the extras for pennies. To make room for more drek.

 

51 minutes ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Nothing in the Bleeding Cool link suggests a huge volume available.

And yes, publishers *could* print some to sell at a later date, but just Diamond wants to keep retailers in business, publishers want to keep customers buying comics, so if they regularly over-published and flooded the market with variants, that would eventually have a negative effect on sales, so I'm skeptical that that happens.

Yea, I don't see any numbers in that article either.

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31 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

There were thousands of copies available, and, if you'll notice...they encompassed 1-10, meaning Marvel held onto all of them, at least for a while.

Where's your support for that figure? The range encompasses less that a year's worth of books; note that I mentioned earlier that if I'm looking to roughly determine the number of copies that might be available out there, I'd allow for some time to pass to see if there's any news of them becoming available through other means.

31 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

These are variants that are printed in the range of 1,000-5,000 or so, and they have little effect on the number of regular copies printed, distributed, and sold, other than encouraging some retailers to order more than they can sell, in the hopes of hitting the incentive variant lottery. Frankly, you should be more concerned with THOSE numbers...copies printed solely because a retailer hopes to make a little more money on the incentive, for which there is precisely zero demand...than the comparatively tiny numbers of "over-published" incentive variants.

I thought estimating print runs was verboten. (shrug)

Where's your support that the variants have little effect on the number of regular copies? What do you suppose is being incentivized by the availability of incentive variants? If demand for those goes down, then there's less incentive to order the regular edition to qualify for them.

31 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Let's go with an older example...you're aware that the official numbers from Valiant were that they printed 5,000 of the "gold" variants in the early 90s, correct? And how did Valiant distribute those books? They gave them away, one by one, to those...stores, fans, whomever...who promoted Valiant in some special way.

They held on to those books for years. When Valiant was sold to Acclaim in 1996, there were people...Joe Petrilak among them...who were allowed to raid the Valiant offices and take whatever they wanted. What they found was nearly the entire print runs of some of those variants, like Psi-Lords #1 gold and Ninjak #1 gold. 

Why did Valiant "over-publish" those variants? They obviously didn't use them, or even most of them, the way they were intended. And what happened with them? They were stored, some for years, until they were carted off by collectors and dealers to be quietly hoarded for the next 20+ years. I had a full case...150 copies...of Ninjak #1 gold. A full case. I gave a lot of them away. I sold a lot of them. I still have perhaps 20 or so. I have 300 copies of Psi-Lords #1 gold. I have 150 copies of Hard Corps #1 gold. 

Yes, those weren't INCENTIVE variants, but they were certainly the pre-cursors of such, and were treated AS incentives...just not necessarily ordering incentives.

Apples and oranges. As you note, those weren't incentives for a single month's sales. Those were rewards, to be given out over time, for support. It's possible they vastly overestimated the number that would be needed.

Edited by GeeksAreMyPeeps
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2 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

Marvel didn't hold them. Diamond did. That's why they dump the extras for pennies. To make room for more drek.

What is the title of the Bleeding Cool article....?

2 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

Yea, I don't see any numbers in that article either.

That's right. You don't. 

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2 minutes ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

I thought estimating print runs was verboten. (shrug)

Do you want to have a discussion, or a passive/aggressive argument? You've mischaracterized multiple statements in the brief conversation just this morning, and made specious statements like the above. No one said anything remotely like that. The problem comes from estimating print runs using Comichron's numbers.

Are you doing this on purpose, or are you not aware you're doing it?

3 minutes ago, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

Apples and oranges. As you note, those weren't incentives for a single month's sales. Those were rewards, to be given out over time, for support. It's possible they vastly overestimated the number that would be needed.

Did you read what I wrote? Valiant held on to those books until Valiant was no more. So, the idea of holding on to variants until some later time...for whatever purpose...is pretty common in the comics industry.

And, by the way, Marvel held on to thousands...about 3,000....Spiderman #1 platinums for over 15 years, until they were liquidated to New Dimension in about 2007.

 

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4 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

Good point. Bleeding Cool is very accurate and the do in-depth investigative reporting.

Not relevant. Whether Marvel held them or Diamond did is also not relevant. The point is, someone held them.

Edited by RockMyAmadeus
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Just now, RockMyAmadeus said:

Not relevant. Whether Marvel held them or Diamond did is also not relevant. The point is, someone held them.

How are you going to make comments on distribution when you don't even know who the distributor is or how the process works?

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1 minute ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Do you want to have a discussion, or a passive/aggressive argument? You've mischaracterized multiple statements in the brief conversation just this morning, and made specious statements like the above. No one said anything remotely like that. The problem comes from estimating print runs using Comichron's numbers.

Are you doing this on purpose, or are you not aware you're doing it?

Did you read what I wrote? Valiant held on to those books until Valiant was no more. So, the idea of holding on to variants until some later time...for whatever purpose...is pretty common in the comics industry.

And, by the way, Marvel held on to thousands...about 3,000....Spiderman #1 platinums for over 15 years, until they were liquidated to New Dimension in about 2007.

 

Are "you" aware that all you (and Gower) are doing is "conflation"?

Conflating a handful of books being given away at a gathering of certain retailers, with occasional Diamond warehouse sales of limited quantities of remaindered case packs.

Conflating the mass over printed books from "the '90's" with the orchestrated and coordinated micro print runs of today.

Conflating Marvel with DC.

Conflating extraordinarily infrequent anecdotes with an industry wide epidemic.

Conflating your isolated storytelling with Marvel's official release on the very subject.  

I could go on, but, I'm good.

-J.

 

 

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1 minute ago, ygogolak said:

How are you going to make comments on distribution when you don't even know who the distributor is or how the process works?

:eyeroll:

You're not interested in a serious discussion. You're only interested in scoring points, by asking nonsense questions like this. As I have stated, multiple times before, I have been to many Diamond Retailer Summits over the past several years, and am quite familiar with both who the distributor is, and how the process works.

When you're interested in having a real discussion, I'll be here.

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3 minutes ago, Jaydogrules said:

Are "you" aware that all you (and Gower) are doing is "conflation"?

Conflating a handful of books being given away at a gathering of certain retailers, with occasional Diamond warehouse sales of limited quantities of remaindered case packs.

Conflating the mass over printed books from "the '90's" with the orchestrated and coordinated micro print runs of today.

Conflating Marvel with DC.

Conflating extraordinarily infrequent anecdotes with an industry wide epidemic.

Conflating your isolated storytelling with Marvel's official release on the very subject.  

I could go on, but, I'm good.

-J.

 

 

Chuck has disproven your contentions, countless times.

Other people have disproven your contentions, countless times.

On the issue of retailer incentives, you, Jaydogrules, have absolutely no credibility of any sort whatsoever. None. Sad to say that, but that's the way it is. You're not interested in the truth. You're only interested in your narrative.

I hope you're good this time. You've made that statement before, and yet...here we are.

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26 minutes ago, Jaydogrules said:

I also can't help but notice how you've inartfully dodged the direct question you've been asked by Geeks at least twice now. 

-J.

That's because the question has already been answered, over and over again. If the answer doesn't change, there's no point in continuing to answer it.

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19 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Do you want to have a discussion, or a passive/aggressive argument? You've mischaracterized multiple statements in the brief conversation just this morning, and made specious statements like the above. No one said anything remotely like that. The problem comes from estimating print runs using Comichron's numbers.

It's called a joke.

Please point out where you believe I've mischaracterized statements.

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12 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

:eyeroll:

You're not interested in a serious discussion. You're only interested in scoring points, by asking nonsense questions like this. As I have stated, multiple times before, I have been to many Diamond Retailer Summits over the past several years, and am quite familiar with both who the distributor is, and how the process works.

When you're interested in having a real discussion, I'll be here.

Stetting up the basis for a logical conversation and the first test cannot even be passed. ???

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26 minutes ago, RockMyAmadeus said:

Do you want to have a discussion, or a passive/aggressive argument? You've mischaracterized multiple statements in the brief conversation just this morning, and made specious statements like the above. No one said anything remotely like that. The problem comes from estimating print runs using Comichron's numbers.

I'll note again that I'm looking for a way to best determine the number of copies that might be out there based on the information available. I think the Comichron numbers are a good starting point, and since you have already acknowledged that you don't have a better way to determine that, I consider that question answered. But I'd still like to know why you're claiming there were "thousands" of Miracleman variants available. Where's your support for that claim?

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