Blog @ Canadian Geek

Variants.

Man, do people hate variants.  They cry foul and scream money grab and are shocked and astounded when they prices on these books with covers different than the ones they already own shoot up in value.

And the ratios.  There’s the 50/50, the 1-in-10, the 1-in-25 or the ever popular non-conventional Marvel Comics 1-in-18.  That really gets Joe Q. Comic Public worked up.

People order them in advance, collect them, trade them, sell them on Ebay, frame them, pass them on to their children, flaunt them off at dinner parties; all the usual stuff.  They are items of pride and joy, of personal worship and of great controversy.

And in the end, you know what; it’s just another piece of art.  Yep, a piece of art.  And you know what else; we all buy them from time to time.  Something that just looks cool, that catches our eye or something that touches a special spot in our souls.  It could be the pose, the colouring or just something as simple as replacing an American flag with a Canadian one.

It’s not a big deal, really.  The point of cover art in the first place is to entice the reader the check the book out.  That’s why so often the art has little to do with the story inside or, often, is not by the same artist who drew the rest of the book.  It’s to grab your attention to check the book out.

I used to hate variants.  I still do personally on some deep seeded level but I am beginning to understand their appeal so much so that I have picked up a few myself lately.  And it’s not always because of the artist either.  In the case with the relaunched Justice League comic, I bought them for two reasons; one, to ‘complete’ my JLA collection and two, because issue two featured Red Tornado (one of my favourite characters).  In the case of the 50/50 split covers with “Infinite Crisis”, I purchased all of the George Perez covers but bought a couple of the Jim Lee covers that I thought were pretty cool.

And for a couple of bucks, I have something I like.

People buy art all the time but for some reason spending a few million on a piece of art of a sunflower is no big deal but drop $20 on a 1-in-10 Gen 13 cover and you’re a nut job.  I’m starting to come around.

I do not question variant purchasers any longer and I do my best to get the variants to those who really want them.  And I try to make them affordable.  Sometimes, that’s not possible if I have to order dozens of extra copies of a book I wouldn’t normally get.  However, if the customer is willing to cover the cost, I’ll get that book.  I understand now.  All my past Rants on my hate for variants are officially retconned.  My apologies to anyone keeping score.

The Shepherd