Thursday, December 3, 2009

Cover Me

You know what I don't get? Variant covers, that's what I don't get.

Looking at a story on the Santa Claus variant covers for the Fall Of The Hulks books, I started thinking--who actually buys these things? At least the "rare" higher-priced ones?

Maybe it's just me, but there's pretty much no way I would pay extra--especially several bucks extra--for a variant cover. Jack Kirby could come back from the grave and draw a zombie-monkey-robot-Twilight 3-D cover for Fantastic Four #600, and I'm still not gonna pay $8.99 for a comic I can get with a boring old normal cover for $3.99.

Granted, I'm not a mint-condition-must-have-everything type of collector; I buy my books to read 'em, not as an investment. For me the cover is just 1/23ish of the package, and damn few variants covers--if any--are going to substantially improve my reading experience enough to justify extra bucks.

So, unless you're a deep-pocketed ultra-completist, the main reason to buy these alternate covers is as an investment. But are they really that much of an investment? Again, just my anecdotal experience, but I see those things sitting around my Local Comics Shoppe, but never actually selling, and never seeming to appreciate in value from their original marked-up sticker price.

I guess from the comic companies' point of view, it makes great sense--even if the existence of a variant cover only bumps sales up a few thousand, that's a pretty significant percentage increase in the sales of most books these days. And some comic shoppes must be selling these, right? And it means a few extra bucks for the store if they can sell 'em, which is a good thing. But I just wonder who's buying these critters.

None of this is meant to give offense to any of you out there who do buy these variant covers...I just don't get it...

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