Green Lantern Sales Numbers

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

41 actually.

Ha! I was joking!!

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

41 actually.

I don't mind the occasional variant cover, but I can't imagine trying to track down all of those. I wouldn't even go after that many cover variations of Kyle or Venom.

[Star-Lantern Weaponer of Qward Find all posts View Profile Close Star-Lantern]

41 actually.

Utterly absurd. This industry...I swear...

Marvel is out of its mind. I guess the plan is to do as much shameless strip mining as possible before the industry inevitably goes out with a whimper. It will probably only be 5 months before Marvel launches a new Black Cat#1, this time with 67 variant covers.

[Michael Heide Heide Finition Find all posts View Profile Close Michael Heide]

I'm guessing most of these are store variants. Where a retailer has to buy idiotic amounts of an issue to get an exclusive variant cover by a hot artist of their choosing. Marvel does those a lot, but they usually don't push a book to #1 unless the hype had been gigantic from the start.

[Hypo Lil' Leaguer Find all posts View Profile Close Hypo]

I'm guessing most of these are store variants. Where a retailer has to buy idiotic amounts of an issue to get an exclusive variant cover by a hot artist of their choosing. Marvel does those a lot, but they usually don't push a book to #1 unless the hype had been gigantic from the start.

Yep, 29 of them were store/creator variants.

[Big Daddy Dave Skywalker Moisture Farmer Find all posts View Profile Close Big Daddy Dave Skywalker]

That kind of predatory publishing is one of the signs of the end times for the industry. Sheer self preservation on Marvel's part.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

On one hand, if people are stupid enough to buy them, then it's hard for me to object to the companies selling them.

But on the other had, this stuff is attracting the wrong people to the industry. Do the comics companies really want these to be the people who will dictate the content of their products? I don't foresee good outcomes from that.

[Michael Heide Heide Finition Find all posts View Profile Close Michael Heide]

It's the stores that buy them. We have no guarantee that they then sell all their copies through to their customers.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

That kind of predatory publishing is one of the signs of the end times for the industry. Sheer self preservation on Marvel's part.

On one hand, if people are stupid enough to buy them, then it's hard for me to object to the companies selling them.

But on the other had, this stuff is attracting the wrong people to the industry. Do the comics companies really want these to be the people who will dictate the content of their products? I don't foresee good outcomes from that.

It's the stores that buy them. We have no guarantee that they then sell all their copies through to their customers.

It's another aspect of comic book publishing that keeps the industry afloat. Variant cover collectors look at them as a particular form of art, much in the same way that card collectors might buy a dozen or more variants of a Pokémon/Sports/Garbage Pail Kids card. To those of us who put storytelling first, that might seem a little weird, but I don't want VCCs to go away.

[Star-Lantern Weaponer of Qward Find all posts View Profile Close Star-Lantern]

It's another aspect of comic book publishing that keeps the industry afloat. Variant cover collectors look at them as a particular form of art, much in the same way that card collectors might buy a dozen or more variants of a Pokémon/Sports/Garbage Pail Kids card. To those of us who put storytelling first, that might seem a little weird, but I don't want VCCs to go away.

The entire premise behind them is very strange to me. It seems like it causes stores to buy a bunch of stuff they probably can't sell. The publishers are essentially dumping a lot of crap on them. Nobody should buy stuff that they cannot sell or cannot use in some fashion. At least they certainly shouldn't feel like they have to. Retailers buying loads and loads of stuff that cannot reasonably be sold...I see a lot of flaws in such a system.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

The entire premise behind them is very strange to me. It seems like it causes stores to buy a bunch of stuff they probably can't sell. The publishers are essentially dumping a lot of crap on them. Nobody should buy stuff that they cannot sell or cannot use in some fashion. At least they certainly shouldn't feel like they have to. Retailers buying loads and loads of stuff that cannot reasonably be sold...I see a lot of flaws in such a system.

They wouldn't exist if there were no market for them. From all the articles that I've read, and the excitement that I see over variant covers at Cons, it seems like variant covers have gotten more popular in recent years. When I hear about convention-exclusive variants and shop-exclusive variants, that's a sign that the phenomenon of VCC is recognized as a force within the hobby. I've also noticed that more covers are cross-pollinating with other non-comic properties ( ala the awful DC-Hanna Barbara crossover) and that certainly appeals to a certain segment of collectors.

[Star-Lantern Weaponer of Qward Find all posts View Profile Close Star-Lantern]

They wouldn't exist if there were no market for them. From all the articles that I've read, and the excitement that I see over variant covers at Cons, it seems like variant covers have gotten more popular in recent years. When I hear about convention-exclusive variants and shop-exclusive variants, that's a sign that the phenomenon of VCC is recognized as a force within the hobby. I've also noticed that more covers are cross-pollinating with other non-comic properties ( ala the awful DC-Hanna Barbara crossover) and that certainly appeals to a certain segment of collectors.

There may be a market for them, but shops shouldn't be forced to buy a bunch of junk to get them. That's just a clear ploy to artificially boost the publishers' sales. And to what end? Those extra copies likely aren't going into the hands of readers. The publishers are just pushing junk on the stores.

[Big Blue Lantern Corps Honor Guard Find all posts View Profile Close Big Blue Lantern]

There may be a market for them, but shops shouldn't be forced to buy a bunch of junk to get them. That's just a clear ploy to artificially boost the publishers' sales. And to what end? Those extra copies likely aren't going into the hands of readers. The publishers are just pushing junk on the stores.

I'll agree there, and I hope shops aren't getting caught with extra merch just for the sake of VCs. Most of the shops that I frequent are smaller ones that only get a small amount of VCs, which are snatched up ravenously by various hardcore collectors. I don't know if shops in big cities are having problems with the way these books are distributed or not.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

The usual suspects are causing this -- that is, the speculators. They're pretty much in charge of the comics industry, and have been for a while.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

Well, to a certain extent its what the fans will bear. I know I look through available covers and often pick the B.