My buddy the comic shop owner told me to stop buying variant covers, he was right.

Back in March I walked into his shop and dropped $60 on three different variant covers for the same issue of Spider-Man. He just shook his head and told me I was throwing money away on gimmicks. I got defensive at first, but after 6 months those books are all worth maybe $5 each on eBay. Now I only buy the regular cover and spend that extra cash on actual story arcs or trade paperbacks. Has anyone else had a shop owner give them advice that actually saved them money?

2 comments

2 Comments

grant.richard16d ago

...and honestly the real test is if you'd still want that variant if nobody else knew you owned it. That's when you know if you actually like the art or just the hype around it. But I gotta say, your buddy was right but for the wrong reason. $60 on three variants is steep but not the worst thing in the world. The bigger trap is when people buy variants thinking they're investments. Comics have pretty much never been a reliable retirement plan. You're better off just buying what you actually want to read and hang on the wall.

emery96516d ago

The flip side nobody talks about is that variants actually mess with the storytelling sometimes... I've got a few where the variant art completely changes the vibe of a key scene, like the mood is different from what the writer intended. Definitely makes you question if you're collecting the issue or just the cover. Another thing is how variants affect the original artist's paycheck, since they're mostly paid by the page and not the cover revenue... not that most of us think about that when we're dropping cash.