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Stephen Churay Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2009 Location: United States Posts: 8369
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Posted: 17 December 2014 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | 1
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It seems Marvel's marketing machine has been working overtime on this. Variant covers never really went away totally. Recently, they've taken an upswing in quantity. DC I think have been the biggest proponents of there use. Until now.
Marvel's STAR WARS number one has, as of now, 59 SEPARATE COVERS!
Link
It seems to have worked. Sales of the issue are looking at around 1,000,000 copies.
I don't buy variants unless it's the last copy in the shop and the owner is willing to sell at cover. So, I have to ask, is this a good thing?
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Matt Hawes Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004 Location: United States Posts: 16497
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Posted: 17 December 2014 at 9:16pm | IP Logged | 2
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Stephen Churay wrote:
...It seems to have worked. Sales of the issue are looking at around 1,000,000 copies... |
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Sure, it worked for a short spell in the 1990s', too. Difference is, we have that past to look at and see how bad things got as a result of speculating and publishers catering to that market. I somehow don't think the publishers have learned from the past mistakes and what caused them, though.
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Stephen Churay Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2009 Location: United States Posts: 8369
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 12:26am | IP Logged | 3
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Agreed Matt. Issue one might sell a million copies, but what about the second issue or the twelfth.
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Robert Shepherd Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 30 March 2014 Location: United States Posts: 1268
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 12:46am | IP Logged | 4
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Sigh.....I always hated variant covers. I want one cover and one cover only.
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Joe Hollon Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 May 2004 Location: United States Posts: 13697
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 4:08am | IP Logged | 5
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Hm...all the variants depict characters and scenes from the original trilogy. What's this series about? Do these covers have anything to do with the content and characters of the comics? Is this series just a new adaptation of those movies? And my questions sort of sum up what I don't like about variants. I want my cover to tell me something about the comic story I'm considering purchasing and preferably by the same artist who worked on the interiors.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133257
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 7:48am | IP Logged | 6
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It seems to have worked. Sales of the issue are looking at around 1,000,000 copies. •• 1,000,000 divided by 59. And, really, all this shows is that even the speculators have mostly left. Remember the Unadjectived SPIDER-MAN? It did these kinds of numbers, and better* with (by the time the speculators were done inventing variants) six covers! MAN OF STEEL did it with two. And ALPHA FLIGHT did half as many with one. _______ * Wasn't it three million by the time the dust settled? I seem to recall it working out at half a million per cover (real and imaginary), just like MoS and AF.
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Stephen Churay Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2009 Location: United States Posts: 8369
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 9:34am | IP Logged | 7
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I want my cover to tell me something about the comic story I'm considering purchasing and preferably by the same artist who worked on the interiors. ========= Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha ! Stop it. It hurts too much to laugh this hard.
Seriously though, so do I. There are so few good covers today. Most try to do an iconic cover and skip the story cover all together. Then there are a few who restore my faith. Guys like Alan Davis, John Romita Jr. and Greg Capullo can make a cover that's both.
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Bob Harvey Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 November 2014 Location: United States Posts: 226
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 9:57am | IP Logged | 8
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There aren't very many attractive covers in there. Even the ones by artists I like are barely recognizable as their work. Something in the processing, maybe.
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Don Zomberg Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 23 November 2005 Posts: 2355
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 9:58am | IP Logged | 9
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Alpha Flight did half as many with one
A classmate of mine bought three copies of that sucker.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005 Posts: 133257
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 10:23am | IP Logged | 10
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Alpha Flight did half as many with one+++ A classmate of mine bought three copies of that sucker. •• We were entering the speculator phase big time, by then. First issues, even fake ones, were guaranteed big numbers. Because speculators were/are just that stupid.
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Rick Whiting Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 22 April 2004 Posts: 2210
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 10:45am | IP Logged | 11
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Something else that needs to be stressed is that those million copies are pre order sales to retailers and not to actual walk in store customers. It's more then likely that most of those million copies of SW #1 will either sit on the shelf collecting dust or be cluttering up the quarter bin.
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Shaun Barry Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 08 December 2008 Location: United States Posts: 6896
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Posted: 18 December 2014 at 10:58am | IP Logged | 12
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I mean this in all seriousness:
STAR WARS returning to the Marvel fold is really THAT big of a deal?
Were people honestly having such a hard time finding STAR WARS comics between 1986 and 2014?
Edited by Shaun Barry on 18 December 2014 at 10:59am
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