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

[letsgrumble]

I've had this discussion with my LCS owner over a decade ago. He didn't think it was sustainable. Today, he still can't keep up with the demand for the latest "hot" variants... and he still says they're not sustainable . IMHO this was a niche market that has grown over the last ten years. There are some serious modern variant collectors out there; and some serious pump and dumpers. It seems that the secondary market is much more volitile - filled with highs and lows - than first-hand retail.

Random comment: I've been tuning into some of these "comic haul" videos on YouTube recently (some are great; some are painful). One recent poster said he received an ASM #300 in a trade for a Superior Carnage #1 Checchetto variant. I thought WTF? That's BS! But then I checked recent eBay sales and, yes, they go for roughly the same amount. It's a strange market out there.

[ComicConnoisseur]

17 minutes ago, letsgrumble said:

I've had this discussion with my LCS owner over a decade ago. He didn't think it was sustainable. Today, he still can't keep up with the demand for the latest "hot" variants... and he still says they're not sustainable . IMHO this was a niche market that has grown over the last ten years. There are some serious modern variant collectors out there; and some serious pump and dumpers. It seems that the secondary market is much more volitile - filled with highs and lows - than first-hand retail.

Random comment: I've been tuning into some of these "comic haul" videos on YouTube recently (some are great; some are painful). One recent poster said he received an ASM #300 in a trade for a Superior Carnage #1 Checchetto variant. I thought WTF? That's BS! But then I checked recent eBay sales and, yes, they go for roughly the same amount. It's a strange market out there.

I was just thinking about this and I came to the realization there is more interest in modern variants than modern comics. Think about other than a few Walking Deads most of the action in the modern era is in the modern variant.  Like for every one hot modern normal comic there are nine modern hot variant comics it seems like.

The question is this a good thing or bad thing?

 If they stopped printing variants tomorrow than wouldn`'t that kill a lot of the interest in speculation and investing in the modern market?

Seems like the modern variants are keeping much of the interest in modern comics alive for a collectible factor.

Most of us can read all the normal modern comics on an iPad or Kindle now,so maybe it's these modern variants that are keeping interest alive in speculating? 

 

[Ken Aldred]

45 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

Honestly, once it's slabbed what's the difference?

A lot of Marvel's variants have garbage art, IMO. There are about 5-10 good / hot artists and the rest just fill the holes.

I've thought this about most variants I've seen, regardless of publisher, that the artwork wasn't good enough to entice me to pay multiples of cover price.  The only one I've been really happy to obtain, and for £2 / $2-99 cover price, is the Supergirl 23 Adam Hughes variant; my all-time favourite. Now that is superb artwork.

[SquareChaos]

26 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

I was just thinking about this and I came to the realization there is more interest in modern variants than modern comics. Think about other than a few Walking Deads most of the action in the modern era is in the modern variant.  Like for every one hot modern normal comic there are nine modern hot variant comics it seems like.

The question is this a good thing or bad thing?

 If they stopped printing variants tomorrow than wouldn`'t that kill a lot of the interest in speculation and investing in the modern market?

Seems like the modern variants are keeping much of the interest in modern comics alive for a collectible factor.

Most of us can read all the normal modern comics on an iPad or Kindle now,so maybe it's these modern variants that are keeping interest alive in speculating? 

 

Pretty soon someone will think it's a good idea to cut out the middle men (writers, editors), and start publishing monthly posters - order 1000 of the regular poster (no one wants that garbage, use it to line the your guinea pig's cage or to keep the hobos warm via fuel for their dumpster fire) and get the super rare awesome ratio variant!

Some variant covers are impressive - there are some really talented artists out there - but to me they're just momentarily interesting (especially when you see the crazy asking price if it happens to be a high ratio variant) unless I have some interest in what is going on between the pages. So more to your point, I think it is certain that there is a collecting niche out there that is primarily interested in the covers... or, to be more honest about how I feel about it, more interested in owning 'rare' books, because in my mind, that is what the entire market turns on, otherwise it is difficult to explain why the same damn image slightly digitally modified goes for 2x more than the lower ratio variant.

I absolutely do not think, if they stopped printing variants tomorrow, that it would kill modern print comics or even impact it in a massive way... unless the Big Two keep putting out their current level of effort, which is relatively poor and derivative and not worth today's higher cover prices. I still buy a decent number of books, but they're all from other publishers. I keep a subscription to Marvel Unlimited and check in every now and then to see if Spider-man is still awful (check), Hulk is still broken (check), and if Thor still has beautiful, long-flowing locks (check).

[ComicConnoisseur]

1 hour ago, SquareChaos said:

Pretty soon someone will think it's a good idea to cut out the middle men (writers, editors), and start publishing monthly posters - order 1000 of the regular poster (no one wants that garbage, use it to line the your guinea pig's cage or to keep the hobos warm via fuel for their dumpster fire) and get the super rare awesome ratio variant!

Some variant covers are impressive - there are some really talented artists out there - but to me they're just momentarily interesting (especially when you see the crazy asking price if it happens to be a high ratio variant) unless I have some interest in what is going on between the pages. So more to your point, I think it is certain that there is a collecting niche out there that is primarily interested in the covers... or, to be more honest about how I feel about it, more interested in owning 'rare' books, because in my mind, that is what the entire market turns on, otherwise it is difficult to explain why the same damn image slightly digitally modified goes for 2x more than the lower ratio variant.

I absolutely do not think, if they stopped printing variants tomorrow, that it would kill modern print comics or even impact it in a massive way... unless the Big Two keep putting out their current level of effort, which is relatively poor and derivative and not worth today's higher cover prices. I still buy a decent number of books, but they're all from other publishers. I keep a subscription to Marvel Unlimited and check in every now and then to see if Spider-man is still awful (check), Hulk is still broken (check), and if Thor still has beautiful, long-flowing locks (check).

I just think comics are like most hobbies markets now with variants just like

sportscards have refractors.

http://www.cardboardconnection.com/refractor-guide

hotwheels has TREASURE HUNTS.

http://www.hwtreasure.com/frequently-asked-questions/

Action figures chase

http://www.sportsactionfigure.com/resources/articles/what-is-a-chase-sports-figure.asp

records

http://coloredvinylrecords.com/new-releases

All the above have had variants much longer than comics. So good or bad I would expect variants to stay in comics.

We know they have short term value.

The question will be then will these variants have long-term value?

 

[aerischan]

7 minutes ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

I just think comics are like most hobbies markets now with variants

All the above have had variants much longer than comics. So good or bad I would expect variants to stay in comics.

We know they have short term value.

The question will be then will these variants have long-term value?

 

I expect the answer will be the same as comics in general. Some will. Most won't.

[SquareChaos]

1 hour ago, aerischan said:

I expect the answer will be the same as comics in general. Some will. Most won't.

It will likely be more extreme - in other words, fewer winners, but those winners will likely be big winners, and way more losers... and of course proportionately the losers will also be big losers due to the cost of entry.

I'm of course speaking about all of the crazy outliers - the 1:2, 1:3, 1:5, 1:10 ratios don't really deviate far enough from the norm to qualify for more than a blip of the radar. They're practically speaking the same animal from a market perspective as your regular issue, there typically isn't a huge bump.

[Martin Sinescu]

There is a huge difference between the discussion on the CGC Boards and the Comic Book Resources boards. Go to CBR and hang out in the DC and Marvel sections for a bit and you will see a lively community of people who actually read between the covers. You rarely see mention of variants, it's mostly about plots and characters and the discussion certainly gets heated because the members there genuinely care about the stories. The nature of these boards is most certainly going to attract more "collectors" and flippers, but its disingenuous to paint the entire comics community with such a broad brush using the Modern section as your sample.

[SquareChaos]

1 hour ago, Martin Sinescu said:

There is a huge difference between the discussion on the CGC Boards and the Comic Book Resources boards. Go to CBR and hang out in the DC and Marvel sections for a bit and you will see a lively community of people who actually read between the covers. You rarely see mention of variants, it's mostly about plots and characters and the discussion certainly gets heated because the members there genuinely care about the stories. The nature of these boards is most certainly going to attract more "collectors" and flippers, but its disingenuous to paint the entire comics community with such a broad brush using the Modern section as your sample.

I know lots still read comics - I'm one of them even if I don't read the Big Two - but I think it's natural to point at the local phenomenon. I do strongly believe, as I said, if they stopped printing variants tomorrow it isn't like the print market would collapse. They just need to write better stories and stop with the constant changes of direction and reboots every few years.

[aerischan]

2 hours ago, Martin Sinescu said:

There is a huge difference between the discussion on the CGC Boards and the Comic Book Resources boards. Go to CBR and hang out in the DC and Marvel sections for a bit and you will see a lively community of people who actually read between the covers. You rarely see mention of variants, it's mostly about plots and characters and the discussion certainly gets heated because the members there genuinely care about the stories. The nature of these boards is most certainly going to attract more "collectors" and flippers, but its disingenuous to paint the entire comics community with such a broad brush using the Modern section as your sample.

I dunno. I think Marvel's been suffering an over-reliance on variants and events to boost Diamond single issue unit sales. That said, I think their efforts at expansion away from the direct market is commendable.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to Marvel's marketshare if they stop printing all these variants and doing stuff like 50-100% free overship on select titles or 10% free overship linewide. Although I personally think a temporary moratorium on events would do Marvel some good.

 

USAvengers #1 - 110,729 (50 state variants, Jan 10% linewide free overship)

USAvengers #2 - 29,523  (Jan 10% linewide free overship)

 

Champions #1 - 334,937 (Scholastic deal, variants - 1:1000, retailer exclusives, etc)

Champions #2 - 49,733

Champions #3 - 47,481 (est. 7K free overship based on $ rank)

Champions #4 - 34,969 (Jan 10% linewide free overship)

Champions #5 - 31,344

 

And Champions happens to be one of Marvel's higher selling titles that's not an event or a #1.

[rjrjr]

On 3/17/2017 at 9:04 AM, aerischan said:

I dunno. I think Marvel's been suffering an over-reliance on variants and events to boost Diamond single issue unit sales. That said, I think their efforts at expansion away from the direct market is commendable.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to Marvel's marketshare if they stop printing all these variants and doing stuff like 50-100% free overship on select titles or 10% free overship linewide. Although I personally think a temporary moratorium on events would do Marvel some good.

 

USAvengers #1 - 110,729 (50 state variants, Jan 10% linewide free overship)

USAvengers #2 - 29,523  (Jan 10% linewide free overship)

 

Champions #1 - 334,937 (Scholastic deal, variants - 1:1000, retailer exclusives, etc)

Champions #2 - 49,733

Champions #3 - 47,481 (est. 7K free overship based on $ rank)

Champions #4 - 34,969 (Jan 10% linewide free overship)

Champions #5 - 31,344

 

And Champions happens to be one of Marvel's higher selling titles that's not an event or a #1.

This post illustrated the problem I've been seeing with Marvel's Star Wars line.  The variants (along with #1s) are most definitely having a huge impact on how many units of an issue are ordered.  I'm doubtful there are more readers of Marvel's Star Wars line today than there were of Dark Horse's line towards the end, the difference being the variants sold to the same individual collectors.

In either case, I think this have been some good discussion with some good arguments on either side.

I know others have been prophesying doom and gloom.  While I'm optimistic about the end result, it really does feel like this trend is accelerating towards some conclusion in the next year or so.  DC has scaled back on variants tremendously and Marvel has to be thinking what they need to do to recapture the sales they once had without having to constantly over-ship to maintain dominance on the charts.  (It looks like over-shipping is their plan in April again.)  Several small retailers are following (or rather initiated) the path that DC comics is taking.  Clearly, someone is paying attention and realizing the path the industry has been taking is not healthy and needs to be corrected.

[aerischan]

5 hours ago, rjrjr said:

This post illustrated the problem I've been seeing with Marvel's Star Wars line.  The variants (along with #1s) are most definitely having a huge impact on how many units of an issue are ordered.  I'm doubtful there are more readers of Marvel's Star Wars line today than there were of Dark Horse's line towards the end, the difference being the variants sold to the same individual collectors.

In either case, I think this have been some good discussion with some good arguments on either side.

I know others have been prophesying doom and gloom.  While I'm optimistic about the end result, it really does feel like this trend is accelerating towards some conclusion in the next year or so.  DC has scaled back on variants tremendously and Marvel has to be thinking what they need to do to recapture the sales they once had without having to constantly over-ship to maintain dominance on the charts.  (It looks like over-shipping is their plan in April again.)  Several small retailers are following (or rather initiated) the path that DC comics is taking.  Clearly, someone is paying attention and realizing the path the industry has been taking is not healthy and needs to be corrected.

You know, I do wonder if Marvel's overproduction of variants is creating negative public perception of titles before they're even released. I know whenever I see a new Marvel #1 with 5+ variants particularly high ratio incentives, my thought process goes "Is the title so bad that the only way Marvel thinks the series will sell is through 1:1000 variants?" 

After Black Widow ends, I'm pretty much done buying Marvel single issues for reading. I would've sampled more Marvel  but priority goes to NM Skottie Young Baby variants and they seem to have ramped up production on those from 1-2 to seemingly 5+ every month. 

[ygogolak]

4 hours ago, aerischan said:

You know, I do wonder if Marvel's overproduction of variants is creating negative public perception of titles before they're even released. I know whenever I see a new Marvel #1 with 5+ variants particularly high ratio incentives, my thought process goes "Is the title so bad that the only way Marvel thinks the series will sell is through 1:1000 variants?" 

After Black Widow ends, I'm pretty much done buying Marvel single issues for reading. I would've sampled more Marvel  but priority goes to NM Skottie Young Baby variants and they seem to have ramped up production on those from 1-2 to seemingly 5+ every month. 

Marvel makes their money from the retailers, not the consumers. Star Wars #1 was the largest selling direct market comic book in 20 years.

 

[aerischan]

1 hour ago, ygogolak said:

Marvel makes their money from the retailers, not the consumers. Star Wars #1 was the largest selling direct market comic book in 20 years.

 

Yes, publishers make their money from retailers. Still, if the title has poor sell through and consumers don't buy the comics, then retailers are gonna start reducing their orders. Star Wars is Marvel's bestselling property but sales of Marvel Universe titles have been less than stellar. Sales on some of their titles are at DC levels from a year ago.

While Marvel's higher price tag has kept their dollar share higher than DC's, their single issue unit sales have been dropping. Moreso if you look purely at Marvel Universe titles and don't include Star Wars. There are actually Marvel Universe titles selling less than 10K and plenty more selling less than 20K.

December 2016, based on Comichron dollar rank, I estimate Marvel gave away ~400K+ free overship of select issues (IVX #1, Star Wars #26, Hulk #1, Invincible Iron Man #2, Avengers #2, Gamora #1, Hawkeye #1, Champions #3, GotG #15, etc). January 2017, with 10% linewide overship, estimated ~200K+ free overship. With no free overship in February 2017, Marvel's single issue sales are neck and neck with DC's. Mind, ~140K of their sales were from $1 True Believers reprints and ~260K from Star Wars.

Star Wars, events/crossovers and variants seem to be propping up Marvel unit sales at the moment. Still, gotta wonder, if variants are doing a good enough job of boosting sales, why would Marvel need to resort to giving hundreds of thousands of comics away for free?

Mind, I'm not preaching doom and gloom, and neither do I expect variants to go away. I just think we might see some eventual toning down on new variant releases.

Edited March 22, 2017 by aerischan

[ygogolak]

I think the variant craze of Star Wars was ridiculous. But what was more ridiculous was how many retailers ordered.

So, my point is, it doesn't matter what the perception is on here or anywhere else. A good businessman will only order what they know they can / will sell. The ones that order all the extra copies to get a variant will put themselves out of business eventually.

[anstettoman]

how about an issue like walking dead #163 how many of these books at .25 were distributed?? 1:250, 1:500, 1:1000 variants really but at .25 per book and easier book to overbuy i'm sure

[aerischan]

1 hour ago, anstettoman said:

how about an issue like walking dead #163 how many of these books at .25 were distributed?? 1:250, 1:500, 1:1000 variants really but at .25 per book and easier book to overbuy i'm sure

I think 730K preordered has been mentioned. The thing is Image and Kirkman were probably losing money for each copy sold. 

Walking Dead #163 has 1:200 and 1:500 variants. There was an ebay seller who had those up for pre-orders up until FOC for $40 and $100 respectively, iirc. Honestly, this plus the $0.25 1:100 Red Sonja #0 and Vampirella #0 JSC variants are just blimps on the radar. These are fairly inexpensive to acquire and the $0.25 price point really encourages reader sampling. I've started adding Red Sonja and Vampirella to my pull list because of the teaser issues (I didn't get the 1:100 variants though, just the regular cover at $0.25). Besides, acquisition costs for these are probably similar to FCBD comics so retailers aren't losing $2 or so for each unsold copy.

 

2 hours ago, ygogolak said:

I think the variant craze of Star Wars was ridiculous. But what was more ridiculous was how many retailers ordered.

So, my point is, it doesn't matter what the perception is on here or anywhere else. A good businessman will only order what they know they can / will sell. The ones that order all the extra copies to get a variant will put themselves out of business eventually.

And therein lies the question of sustainability. It's not so much the variants themselves, rather it's the sheer volume being released every week that make people question the sustainability. For every hot variant fetching a nice premium, how many more are sitting unsold in dollar bins?

I think a bunch of brick and mortar shops have gotten burned and reached the point where if a regular customer isn't preordering incentive/ratio variants and paying at least cost for the extra copies needed of the regular cover, they just won't buy the variants anymore.

[ygogolak]

30 minutes ago, aerischan said:

And therein lies the question of sustainability. It's not so much the variants themselves, rather it's the sheer volume being released every week that make people question the sustainability. For every hot variant fetching a nice premium, how many more are sitting unsold in dollar bins?

I think a bunch of brick and mortar shops have gotten burned and reached the point where if a regular customer isn't preordering incentive/ratio variants and paying at least cost for the extra copies needed of the regular cover, they just won't buy the variants anymore.

Not many at all. It's not the hot variants that are the problem. It's the Venomized, Deadpool, and Mary Jane months that are.

So you're saying the market will correct itself. Which I agree for the most part with. That's why the desirable ones go up in value when retailers decided to stop ordering to reach those incentives.

 

Also, 755k for TWD #163.

[aerischan]

6 hours ago, ygogolak said:

Not many at all. It's not the hot variants that are the problem. It's the Venomized, Deadpool, and Mary Jane months that are.

So you're saying the market will correct itself. Which I agree for the most part with. That's why the desirable ones go up in value when retailers decided to stop ordering to reach those incentives.

 

Also, 755k for TWD #163.

I actually like some of Marvel's themed variants, the Young baby variants being a particular favorite.

The main gripe I have with Marvel's themed variants is the threshold in order to qualify. For example, for the Secret Empire #1 Skottie Young variant, "Meet or exceed 200% of orders for Civil War II #8 with orders for Secret Empire #1 regular cover, and this variant is order all you want". Easily reachable if the store ordered only one copy of CW2 #8. Maybe not so much if they ordered 100. I preorder from my LCS two months in advance but because of the gating on themed variants (more often, the LCS doesn't qualify for all the ones I like), I just order those from Midtown.

But yes, the themed variants could do with some trimming down, too.

[darkstar]

On 3/16/2017 at 9:22 AM, letsgrumble said:

Random comment: I've been tuning into some of these "comic haul" videos on YouTube recently (some are great; some are painful). One recent poster said he received an ASM #300 in a trade for a Superior Carnage #1 Checchetto variant. I thought WTF? That's BS! But then I checked recent eBay sales and, yes, they go for roughly the same amount. It's a strange market out there.

And now ASM 300 is $2000 in 9.8 and Superior Carnage #1 Checchetto is $200 in 9.8.

But I'm sure the return on that "rare" Checchetto variant is just around the corner.