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Michael Casselman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 January 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 1226
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 7:47am | IP Logged | 1
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I'm baffled by the subset of collectors/speculators that have attempted to differentiate and manipulate the pricing on the newsstand vs Direct Sales 'variants' of the 1980s. I think some of it is driven by the thought that newsstand issues in better condition are more scarce bevause how they were handled... as someone who was there way back, it's not like LCSs bagged and boarded everything right out the distributer box like they do now. Those copies weree just as likely to get dogeared on the stand/rack just like ant spinner rack at the grocery store!
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7700
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 8:26am | IP Logged | 2
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Totally agree Michael.
It seems that the younger collectors are using the most spurious of reasons
to create a collectible.
Some of the price differentials are astronomical - & really not justifiable.
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Dave Kopperman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 December 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 3225
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 9:04am | IP Logged | 3
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As an aside, seeing those Legends of the Dark Night covers for the first time in decades has for some reason depressed me.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132665
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 9:23am | IP Logged | 4
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Comic shops and the speculator mentality made it possible for the Publishers to track with great precision what the customers were buying—and to target those dollars. Stan Lee’s old admonition to “never give the readers what they THINK they want” was completely inverted when those readers started being thought of strictly as customers. “Oh, they like the X-Men? FLOOD the market with X-Men. They like Wolverine? Make sure he’s in ever title!” Not an altogether bad approach, if they were trying to reach devoted READERS. But instead, too much was focused on those who bought comics as “an investment”—and who were not very bright.
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Brandon Carter
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2338
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 9:34am | IP Logged | 5
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I remember Denny O'Neil writing something inside along the lines of "Why the different covers? Oh, it's just a bit of fun" and I recall thinking yeah, right...
Apparently, it wasn't to try and boost sales, but it did and not long after we had the McFarlane fiasco with his new Spider-Man book, and then X-Force #1 came with a mylar bag and a trading card and X-Men#1 had the various different covers... And the bubble started to expand.
********
Here's an article about the reason for those different colored Legends of the Dark Knight covers.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15881
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 10:21am | IP Logged | 6
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I did read that article -- it's where my 'apparently' came from. The key thing was that, whatever the intentions behind it were (and I'd still be a bit inclined to have a "Yeah, right" response), the outcome was a big boost in sales totally unconnected to the content within and Marvel certainly took note of what had happened. It snowballed from there.
The frustrating thing was the effectiveness. It was a bog standard tale within. The painted cover was kind of striking -- though it told you virtually nothing about the story -- but in my LCS I never even saw that cover. I saw the bright colour and the Bat symbol and the sales blurb about the first new title in decades... and shelled my readies over for it.
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Josh Goldberg
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 2067
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 10:22am | IP Logged | 7
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I bought both Man of Steel covers at the time. Years later, when I decided I didn't need two copies of the same comic, I gave away the variant cover. I wanted to keep the one that matched the design theme of the rest of the series.
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Larry Gil
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 09 November 2005
Location: Canada
Posts: 763
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | 8
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Dave......same here.....where did the time go.
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Rebecca Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 February 2018
Location: Canada
Posts: 4635
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| Posted: 04 March 2022 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | 9
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I would say it was a genuinely fun idea in the beginning, and used sparingly, but like having Wolverine appearing so often (or Ghost Rider, The Punisher... or The Beyonder) it wears out it's welcome where every other comic is 'special' or 'rare' or a 'collector's item'.
I think the ultimate 'variant', but one I liked, was four #1s for Slingers... they each had the same story in part but each also had a part of the story told from one of the four characters' point of view. If one didn't want to participate you could have only one of those and not feel as a reader part of the story was missing either (same with those #0 and prequel bonus stories like for X-Men: Hidden Years in X-Men #94, 1999 series).
I'm guilty of being one of those people who wants the newsstand editions of late '70s-early '80s comics and would pay a slight premium, but nothing to do with rarity or surviving copies; it's just that I want the one that looks like what I had (no diamond or Whitman logo either) because until roughly late 1981/early 1982 I only knew corner shop spinner racks. I thought those bags of three in supermarkets were reprints, probably because some of the Star Wars ones were. 1981-onward I'm totally fine with the direct ones and will mix up a run. Sometimes there was added art in the UPC box too so that's an extra plus for some later direct editions.
Off topic, I could care less about these inserts or cards in comics being present and correct either... I find them all a nuisance. If I can get an issue I want without and pay less that's for me. Always exceptions though, like the late '90s Avengers #4 with an Alan Davis poster!
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