Is The Comic Industry's Reliance on Variant Covers Sustainable? 0

[aerischan]

47 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

I've not been to an actual LCS is quite awhile so I assumed they went back wall for the higher price variants.  Regardless, the bag and board with a price sticker gives the variant an air of superiority compared to the regular issues.  And I can't imagine some store owners are not further hyping their big money makers.

Interestingly enough, to me the bag and board just signifies I probably won't be interested in the price tag. I'll stick to the lowly plebeian regular covers and open to order variants at normal cover price.  

The store clerks are busy talking Magic or whatever TCG is en vogue with store regulars so no upsell here. Actually, it's hard to get a clerk to pay attention to you at the payment counter if you're not a regular.  

Got to say, having multiple covers for all issues of DC Rebirth and some Image titles can be confusing when buying back issues (I got into Rebirth kinda late). I would constantly need to look at the issue numbers to make sure I'm not getting multiples of the same issue.

[ygogolak]

2 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

Again, rarity in and of itself does not drive desirability in a general market. It amazes me that people make statements like this. If I can buy a Hulk 181 every day of any given week, fine... If I can only buy NFL Super Pro every other day, I guess that means I should jump on it? 

You're the only one that mentioned rarity. Rarity means nothing. I have a 1 of a kind booger cover that nobody will buy. Why? Because there is no demand. This is not special to comics, it's simple economics.

[ygogolak]

2 hours ago, 1Cool said:

There will always be people debating if this or that modern variant book is $1,500 but those books are a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.  The avalanche of 1:5, 1:10, 1:20 etc variants are what worry more.  Each of these was produced as an incentive that theorically were initially sold to someone at a premium due to it being a limited edition of the book and now almost all are $1 bin material.  Most of the regular issues are also $1 bin books but people probably bought those for a lesser price and the expectation was different.  It all just feel like those infomercials where the guy screamed about limited edition gem mint cards that all turned out to be garbage.

Yup, how bout 'dem Venomized Variants....ugh

[SquareChaos]

1 minute ago, ygogolak said:

You're the only one that mentioned rarity. Rarity means nothing. I have a 1 of a kind booger cover that nobody will buy. Why? Because there is no demand. This is not special to comics, it's simple economics.

 

3 hours ago, ygogolak said:

You're dealing in unknows however. What is known is that at one time a book like Ms. Marvel #2 was probably sold for $100 max. out of the gate. Just like Incredible Hulk 181 was $0.25. Who is buying either for thousands and what is the future? Unknown. Is Wolverine a better bet, sure. But you can't buy a Hulk 180, 181 for $2k in 9.8. You can also buy a Hulk 181 any day of the week. Not so for a variant.

 

[darkstar]

1 hour ago, 1Cool said:

I've not been to an actual LCS is quite awhile so I assumed they went back wall for the higher price variants.  Regardless, the bag and board with a price sticker gives the variant an air of superiority compared to the regular issues.  And I can't imagine some store owners are not further hyping their big money makers.

Traditional brick and mortar store owners are usually pretty fair with variant pricing. A lot still just charge cover price. Others have flat pricing that does not fluctuate regardless of the demand, so they'll always charge $6 for a 1:10 or $12 for a 1:25 as an example. A good amount of them are gobbled up by store subscribers before ever hitting the shelf anyway.

Stores that account for the pre-release demand of incentive variants and increase their prices on them on a case by case basis is a minority set. Those are stores that either exist entirely online (or have a heavy presence there), monitor the secondary market, or price their books at the counter using eBay when a customer attempts to checkout.

Store owners are due very little blame in regards to what variants have become. The premium placed on graded books and the proliferation of carnival barking and the manipulation of the print numbers are the reason why we have kamala khan books selling for 2k. 

Variants from several years ago were being produced in numbers that had some sort of correlation to the actual reader-base. When people outside the regular reader-base of the title started buying them on the secondary market, the prices went up since the supply was already fixed as the books had already been printed. But once the prices on a bunch of these variants went crazy, buyers started targeting variants on books that had not even released yet, looking for characters and artists who already had in demand variants, hoping for lightning to strike twice. But those market conditions don't exist any more.

You are already seeing a large pushback from the market in regards to incentive variants. The hot ones pretty much peak the day of release and then see a steady decline. These books are no longer going overlooked and taking people by surprise. Once in awhile it happens, largely because the artist and publisher don't release the final artwork until after the foc has passed and buyers hesitate buying into what they cannot see.

People tried to replicate those prime market conditions with those boutique store variants and the market for those has all but collapsed. But you knew it was a total house of cards when the artificially low print runs were the topic of endless debate. There is a very large difference between a book with 1000 copies being released 6 years ago, with no secondary market interest attached, and a book with 1000 copies being released today, with the secondary market interest being the reason for its existence and source of funding. Those older incentive variants had the opportunity to languish in back issue bins, to be bought and sold, and incur damage. Now you have store variants getting released on Wednesday and being graded on Monday. These books are not scarce, they are not rare, and the market for them is a lot smaller than many believe it is, especially as the prices move from the low two figures into the three and four figures.

 

 

 

Edited March 14, 2017 by darkstar

[NoMan]

2 hours ago, darkstar said:

For every fifty copies of a book a shop orders they receive one copy of the 1:50 incentive cover. As rare as it sounds is a sticky wicket since:

a) nobody knows the print runs of variant covers or the process by which that number is calculated by DC/Marvel.

b) it is very easy for someone to rationalize that not many shops were ordering blank # of copies of blank title to qualify for the incentive variant based on their own anecdotal evidence which is usually limited to what their lcs does.

c) spec sites estimating print runs (down to the exact number even!) for the incentive copies. These numbers are then diarrhead across the internet and even make it into the titles of eBay listings!

 

 

 

[Buy now!]

2 hours ago, NoMan said:

   5 hours ago, darkstar said:

For every fifty copies of a book a shop orders they receive one copy of the 1:50 incentive cover. As rare as it sounds is a sticky wicket since:

a) nobody knows the print runs of variant covers or the process by which that number is calculated by DC/Marvel.

b) it is very easy for someone to rationalize that not many shops were ordering blank # of copies of blank title to qualify for the incentive variant based on their own anecdotal evidence which is usually limited to what their lcs does.

c) spec sites estimating print runs (down to the exact number even!) for the incentive copies. These numbers are then diarrhead across the internet and even make it into the titles of eBay listings!

 

Nowhere is this more evident then the CBCS board. They're like the Special Ed class of the comic hobby.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Buy now!

[mrwoogieman]

5 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Thanks for clarifying this for me. I heard this is the big issue with variants and that nobody knows the exact runs, maybe they are not as rare as they might be.

This happened with baseball cards back in the late 80s and early 90s. A couple of companies not named Topps would  print more than they were letting on or go back and print the so called rare cards of that era without telling people it was a second print.

 

Now don't go giving Topps a free pass on the shenanigans. There was a lawsuit by a hockey card collector after he set out to corner the market on a special Jaromir Jagr holofoil card of some sort that was supposed to be limited to 250 copies. He sued Topps for fraud after he had acquired about 260 of them!

 

 

 

[Lucky Baru]

8 minutes ago, mrwoogieman said:

Now don't go giving Topps a free pass on the shenanigans. There was a lawsuit by a hockey card collector after he set out to corner the market on a special Jaromir Jagr holofoil card of some sort that was supposed to be limited to 250 copies. He sued Topps for fraud after he had acquired about 260 of them!

 

 

 

How did the case turn out?

[mrwoogieman]

14 minutes ago, Lucky Baru said:

How did the case turn out?

I was going from memory, but I found an article on it pretty quickly, see below. It was two collectors and two different cards, both supposed to be limited to 150 copies, and each collector amassed more than that number themselves. The linked story says that the Jagr collector was awarded $177,000.

http://www.espn.com/sportsbusiness/s/2003/0714/1580511.html

 

 

[crassus]

5 minutes ago, mrwoogieman said:

21 minutes ago, Lucky Baru said:

How did the case turn out?

I was going from memory, but I found an article on it pretty quickly, see below. It was two collectors and two different cards, both supposed to be limited to 150 copies, and each collector amassed more than that number themselves. The linked story says that the Jagr collector was awarded $177,000.

http://www.espn.com/sportsbusiness/s/2003/0714/1580511.html

So there is a future in variants after all?

[crassus]

Great quote from the article:

"Topps is the Enron of baseball cards, because they obviously can't count," Englert said. "They lied about their numbers, they were probably doing it for years and they finally got caught. Because of the Internet, the guy in Spokane was buying from the guy in Dallas, and a little guy like me in Missouri all of a sudden had access to everyone."

Well, at least the comic variants will be free from this danger, since as I understand it nobody really knows how much of any variant is produced, one can never be pinned down by any specific number.

[1950's war comics]

it's bad enough that some poor smucks are paying the big premiums for variant covers but then they compound their error by getting them slabbed!

[ComicConnoisseur]

I guess comics and sportscards are not the only hobbies that have limited edition variants.

Looks like the record/vinyl industry has been doing it first.

Good article here about variant records.

http://www.rarerecords.net/record-info/colored-vinyl-records/

Seeing an opportunity to make some money from record collectors by selling them the same titles a second time, record companies began pressing colored vinyl records as limited edition collectibles in the late 1970s. Albums by bands such as the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Rush, Elton John, AC/DC, and the Eagles were pressed on various colors of vinyl for a short time.

 

Limited edition colored vinyl pressings continue to this day, particularly among companies that specialize in reissuing older titles. The original pressing of a Bob Dylan album from the 1960s might have been on black vinyl, but you can buy a red vinyl pressing today!

Many titles released in the past five years have been issued as colored vinyl records, sometimes for the entire run and sometimes as a limited edition item.

About five years ago, Warner Brothers Records began reissuing the entire Metallica catalog as high quality pressings, some were mastered at 45 RPM for better sound quality. All of these titles were briefly available as colored vinyl records, though several of the titles were limited to 100 colored vinyl copies. Later pressings in the series were manufactured in larger quantities to help satisfy collector demand.

Edited March 15, 2017 by ComicConnoisseur

[Mercury Man]

For every one person trumpeting the greatness of their $2K variant, you have 10 people that couldn't give a care.   Most of us would rather spend that $2K on a Gold/Silver/Bronze book.   

[Broke as a Joke]

One thing is for sure; it is a lot easier to sell a Hulk 181 or any heavyweight key book than it would be for one of these rare variant books.  In fact, when they do come up for sale the final price is rarely chronicled and usually the transaction takes place in some back alleyway with details being rather sketchy.  There is a market for these books, but I really believe you are talking maybe 100 people (probably an overestimate)  that really want and compete for these ultra rare manufactured collectibles. 

 

I do hope the actual quality of what the Big 2 is putting out improves, because that will be what makes people care about content and not covers. 

[Buzzetta]

2 hours ago, 1950's war comics said:

it's bad enough that some poor smucks are paying the big premiums for variant covers but then they compound their error by getting them slabbed!

Disagree.  If a comic is worth a premium raw then it is worth getting slabbed as there is a big difference between the going rate on a 9.2 vs a 9.8.  If I am dropping $2000 on a book no matter what year it was printed in, I want to know what the condition is rated as.  Your $2000 9.8 could very easily be only worth $1000 in a 9.4. 

[Lazyboy]

2 hours ago, crassus said:

Great quote from the article:

"Topps is the Enron of baseball cards, because they obviously can't count," Englert said. "They lied about their numbers, they were probably doing it for years and they finally got caught. Because of the Internet, the guy in Spokane was buying from the guy in Dallas, and a little guy like me in Missouri all of a sudden had access to everyone."

Well, at least the comic variants will be free from this danger, since as I understand it nobody really knows how much of any variant is produced, one can never be pinned down by any specific number.

Yes, comic publishers (generally) don't make any claims about the numbers, so they're in no danger of facing that kind of lawsuit.

[aerischan]

10 minutes ago, Lazyboy said:

Yes, comic publishers (generally) don't make any claims about the numbers, so they're in no danger of facing that kind of lawsuit.

Publishers, no. Retailer exclusives, yes.

 

50 minutes ago, Broke as a Joke said:

I do hope the actual quality of what the Big 2 is putting out improves, because that will be what makes people care about content and not covers. 

Yup, quality of stories, not just pretty covers.

In fairness, I'm really enjoying DC Rebirth at the moment particularly the Superman titles. Meanwhile, Marvel's top talent all seem to have fled to Image. Honestly, there are very few Marvel titles that I feel are worth $3 (my discounted cost) for 20 pages of story. I think it's kinda sad that majority of my new Marvel preorders are solely for the Skottie Young baby variants.

[ygogolak]

17 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

17 hours ago, ygogolak said:

You're the only one that mentioned rarity. Rarity means nothing. I have a 1 of a kind booger cover that nobody will buy. Why? Because there is no demand. This is not special to comics, it's simple economics.

 

20 hours ago, ygogolak said:

You're dealing in unknows however. What is known is that at one time a book like Ms. Marvel #2 was probably sold for $100 max. out of the gate. Just like Incredible Hulk 181 was $0.25. Who is buying either for thousands and what is the future? Unknown. Is Wolverine a better bet, sure. But you can't buy a Hulk 180, 181 for $2k in 9.8. You can also buy a Hulk 181 any day of the week. Not so for a variant.

 

 

Yes? Again was rarity mentioned?

1. Rarity is a relative term.

2. I was referring to supply and demand. There were just two of the Ms. Marvel variant sold recently. Does that make it rare? IDK, I guess compared to Hulk. 2 is more than zero.

As I will reiterate, "rarity" or perceived rarity does not generate value. Supply outweighing demand is what generates value.