Hey, are any of you people the people who buy the comic books with the variant covers that cost like thirty dollars because the comic store has to order twenty of the standard cover to get one copy of the fancy cover?
And do you pay for those special comic books in retard dollars?
Hey, what else can you buy with retard dollars? “Gourmet-quality” dog food? A block of wood to make your music sound better? The chance to tell the whole world that you play World of Warcraft? I need to get my learn on!
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Why are you such a god damn hater? This is why we can’t have nice things anymore.
Retard Dollars are Legal Tender for internet pornogtaphy
I spend my retard dollars on nachos, and then complain about not losing weight.
I spend my Tard-Tender on gift cards for friends so that they get to do their own shopping but only at the store that I want them to go to.
Or do gift cards actually count as their own denomination of Re-bucks?
I don’t even know why variant covers exist any more. Shouldn’t they have died off with Liefeld’s popularity.
I don’t even know why variant covers exist any more. Shouldn’t they have died off with Liefeld’s popularity.
Q1) Go look at the Diamond numbers over at The Beat sometime. The month to month comparisons with variant covers versus non-variant covers will answer your first question. (The only thing left unanswered is if it’s stupid fans or stupid retailers generating those numbers, but I suspect the retailers would stop if the fans weren’t so stupid.)
Q2) Youngblood: The Movie.
I think retard dollars describes US currency pretty well these days.
That duck entree looks pretty good, especially on a plate with garnish like that. I might eat that even knowing it was dog food. Maybe.
Most dogs I know eat whatever’s cheapest at the store plus whatever they can catch running around in the yard. And poop.
Because some people are stuck in time just before the 90s and still think money can be made from this sort of thing.
I love that they offer the WoW shirt in 4XL.
I hate to admit I looked at that shredded duck entree and thought it looked rather appetizing. For me, though.
I recently bought a pair of high-ish end headphones, but the actual components are where I think I draw the line. I can see purchasing an amp, or something, and the headphones sound awesome, but wood? For what now? Even I’m not that stupid, and I’m often a dude of little brain.
I buy them, actually, but I work in a comic book store and get them for cover price, SO THERE!!!!
A spot as a contributor to this blog?
Flapjacks reads Boing Boing?
I have to admit getting the Giffen, Grell and Lightle variant covers for the “Superman and the Legion” Action Comics storyline. But I also got them for cover price, thanks to a retailer who understands crazy Legion fans.
It’s not just wood, it’s wood with some little blue dots on it. You guys don’t know from audio, obviously.
It is stupid to pay extra for the same thing with a different cover. The fact is that comic companies do this because it works, and there is a secondary market for it because you’ll see those are the only recent comics to go up in value in the price guide. Essentially, they are valuable because of retards,
“Essentially, they are valuable because of retards.”
If by retard you mean fans who like spending their money on something that they enjoy collecting, then sure. It’s the same retards that spend money on DVD sets of cartoons or TV shows they used to watch when they were kids/younger. The same retards that spend hundreds of tard-tender on BluRay discs of movies that they’ve already bought on DVD at least once. Those very same retards that spend an extra $10 or more on the “Limited” or “Collectors” editions of video games or DVDs, or maybe the ones that shell out the extra money for hardback novels of their favorite writer/series instead of waiting a few months for the paperbacks. Basically, just about everyone who visits this site, myself included. Maybe instead of Rex the Wonder Dog our mascot should be a short bus that transforms into a robot wearing a football helmet.
Are you trying to tell me that my kids university fund (100 copies of each version of X-Men #1 (200 of the gatefold cover) isn’t going to cut it? I even have the ultra-rare adamantium-embossed version. It is also indestructible as all get out.
I was buying one title’s variant covers not with retard dollars but with ‘I will not support asshole homophobe’ dollars. I refuse to spend good money on something with an Alex Ross cover so I was buying the Eaglesham versions…
And I was thinking Flock was homophobic for not recognizing homophobe but it was just the singular it had trouble with. Now I think Flock is just cynical about it ever being just a single homophobe…
It costs comic book companies relatively little to do the variant covers, compared to the increase in purchases by stores it’ll get them.
It costs comic book stores relatively little to do the variant covers, compared to the profit they’ll make on the marked-up variant issue they’ll get someone to buy.
There only has to be *one* person with more disposable income than sense who’s interested in the variant cover comic. And considering there are people who buy those $300 character busts, finding someone to pay $70 for what’s essentially a cool-looking 6×10 print isn’t that outrageous.
At my shop, we use them as incentives for our pull subscriber customers and randomly pull them for those people who have that particular title on their list. We sell the books at cover price to repay those that put their faith in us to be their comic shop of choice.
I’ll never understand shops that don’t use these books the way I’ve always seen them, as a tool to promote your subscription service and reward your customers for their patronage.
“At my shop, we use them as incentives for our pull subscriber customers and randomly pull them for those people who have that particular title on their list. We sell the books at cover price to repay those that put their faith in us to be their comic shop of choice.”
That’s a great idea; and I agree, especially with the way things are now, all shops should be doing something similar.
I dunno. I bought variant covers when I bought Dreamwave stuff because the Autobot and Decepticon covers were both on the racks and I liked the choice. Sometimes I’d buy Autobot because I liked the characters better or I’d buy Decepticon because that’s the one I wanted. I never bought two or more copies (because they had a couple like that where the covers made a bigger image). Similar thing with Damnation Crusade. There were just variants on the rack and I liked some covers better than others.
Sometimes I buy variant covers because I didn’t have the money when the first printing was out and by the time I got around to buying they’d changed covers.
Sorry for being a ‘tard, guys.
I think there’s a difference between comics with different covers for the same price, even if one is TECHNICALLY the variant, and buying one of the massively marked up 1:100 covers. If it doesn’t cost you anything, you might as well get the artwork you prefer.
“If by retard you mean fans who like spending their money on something that they enjoy collecting, then sure. It’s the same retards that spend money on DVD sets of cartoons or TV shows they used to watch when they were kids/younger, etc., etc.”
Not really, because in all those examples you’re getting something extra out of it. If a DVD set cost an extra £20 for a different cover, I’d get the regular cover.
I don’t know what these fruity retard dollars are. I pay for everything with ,a href=http://danarchy.youfailit.net/Spiderman/spidey14.jpg>rape dollars.
I quite often find my comic shop owner giving me the variant cover of a comic I’ve got in my pull list as standard.
Not all comic retailers are stuck in the 90s.
Randy B- I pay money for CONTENT. If a DVD set has a lot of extra features I really want, then I am cool paying extra for it. If it has a different DVD cover but no different CONTENT, then I am not paying any extra for it. A cartoon show from when I was younger I might get, but I am paying for the entertainment value within, not the image on the front.
Ken & Bring the Noise,
People who pay extra money for variant covers do so for the same reasons. To them the different cover is the extra content and is worth the additional buy and/or cost. They’re collectors. That’s their thing. I’m not one of those people, but more power to them. The point I was trying to make is all of us, as fans of one type or another, spend additional money on stuff we enjoy even if the value of the additional content we’re spending money on is debatable to others. Some people think it’s nuts to buy a DVD (or set) a second time because the new set has a bunch of extra features. The argument being “It’s the same movie.” Just trying to put things into perspective a bit.
All the perspective in the world won’t change the fact that collecting things for its own sake is a waste of money. I can understand collecting comic books, because they’re comics. You can read them.
But collecting the same comic with a different cover? Retarded.
“All the perspective in the world won’t change the fact that collecting things for its own sake is a waste of money.”
Not to the people that enjoy it. And it’s their money to “waste” as they see fit. Besides, given the limited number of variant covers they are considered collectible. I’m not arguing value here, as it’s more than likely they’d never make money off of it, but value is in the eye of the beholder. Besides, I know a lot of people who thought buying and collecting the old school Star Wars action figures was retarded and a waste of money, but now they go for $200 or more a piece. I’m sure there are things that you enjoy and spend money on that other people would think was a “waste” and “retarded” but if you get enjoyment out of it I’m sure you don’t give a shit.
I have gotten some variant covered books in the past, but always at a discount price, not the inflated one. For example, I got the negative incentive version of Black Terror #2 for a dollar recently.
Also, it was crazy when the Obama variant Amazing Spider-Man book was coming out. The comic shop where I go to must have got a call every 5 minutes from someone to get the book, and they were only getting three in.
I buy variant covers if I like the character and/or the artist. Let’s use Hulk as an example. $30 Michael Turner cover where Hulk looks like a shot boy in a gay bar? No, I’m set with that. $20 Sal Buscema variant where Hulk looks all old-school savage and badass? Yes please, I’ll take two (well…actually just one).
For the record, I like to save my retard dollars for CMGs and fast food.