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Andrew W. Farago
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
Posts: 4068
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | 1
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If I had $400 guilt-free sitting in my pocket to spend on comics, I'd go for Giant-Size X-Men #1, Hulk #181, the most beat-up early issue of Spider-Man or Fantastic Four I could get, or a complete run of something like Tomb of Dracula or Master of Kung-Fu...any number of things I'd pick up before a slightly different Star Wars comic than the one sitting next to it on the new releases rack.
Ah, well. Whatever floats your boat. If you've got too much money and you want to keep your local comic shop in business, who am I to judge? As long as the shop owners aren't building their entire business model on the notion that those guys will always be around, it all works out.
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Robert Shepherd
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Joined: 30 March 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 1268
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | 2
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I did, just now, take a look at all the posted variants, and while there are a couple that I think are actually good, I am even more surprised at how many are what I consider below pro level work.
Seriously, most look like amateur fan art, and the ones that try to be "smart" with their "designs" - well the homages, the toy packages, the pop art, the cartoons, all take me out of the story before ever opening the book.
Honestly, I wasn't going to buy the book anyway, since I'm not interested in Star Wars, but now I find I'm actually put off by all the crap art.
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Jesus Garcia
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Joined: 10 April 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 2414
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | 3
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My girls are HUGE Disney fans and Marvel is completely off their radar.
And I'm pretty damn sure that it it were up to Disney executives, there wouldn't be any porny Marvel property depictions.
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Stephen Churay
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Joined: 25 March 2009
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | 4
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Andrew Fargo: Any guesses on how much of the print run
you'd have to subtract from Star Wars to get an accurate
gauge on the demand? Maybe one-third of the print run?
One-half?
============
Oh, I'd guess easily less than half. To get these variants,
you have to order large quantities that retailers probably
wouldn't order, except to get the covers.
Is Star Wars a hot property right now? Sure. Is Marvel
getting the property a big deal? Sure. I think the two
would be enough to generate 100,000 to 200,000 copies. But
the was a company making really good Star Wars comics just
a few months ago. Those books weren't close to breaking
100,000 copies were they?
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Matt Hawes
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16432
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | 5
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Rick Whiting wrote:
| ...The allure of charging (and in some cases, getting idiots to pay for it) an over inflated price for those worthless variants is to great to resist for a number of retailers... |
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Yep, and the retailers play into it big-time.
I've never fell prey to that way of thinking in all my years of running my shop. I wasn't going to get suckered into a fool's game, and I didn't like the idea of pricing so much for variant covers.
That noted, I do find it interesting that people complain about a retailer charging so much, as if anybody is going to charge $3.99 on a comic with a variant cover that they had to order over 100 issues of the regular cover to get just one of those variants. What do people think is going to happen?
They are called "incentive covers" by the publishers. The language may not be clear to the average person, but that "incentive" is a "perk" that the publisher offers the retailer, NOT the retailer's customers, in order to get the retailer to order whatever arbitrary amount of comics the publisher is seeking to sell. "Incentive" means it's an incentive for retailers to order MORE.
And why would a retailer care about ordering a gazillion regular covers to get one "special" variant cover? Because the retailer can sometimes ask and even get a price for that "special" cover to make it worth ordering more copies of the comic than he or she might have ordered otherwise.
And why do the customers of the retailers want the variant covers so bad? Well, as Rick said, you have completists who want everything, and those speculators, along with people who just like the art on the variant cover better.
But make no mistake, if there weren't customers wanting those variants, there would be no demand for the variants. If there were no demand for the variants, retailers wouldn't worry about ordering so many comics just to get a variant. And, if retailers weren't ordering so many comics to get those variants, publishers wouldn't be offering retailers an "incentive" cover anymore.
There are definitely greedy retailers, and there are certainly greedy publishers, and they are selling to some greedy customers hoping to resell overpriced "special" covers for a profit, after buying from a retailer who sold the comic for a profit from a publisher who made a profit selling to that retailer.
Publishers and retailers are supposed to make a profit, they just need to be decent in doing so. The customers back in the day bought comics to READ them, and enjoy them because of the artwork and the story. The reader of years gone by didn't buy comics to become rich because there wasn't an aftermarket for comics.
They bought them because they actually cared about reading comics. And, honestly, it's because so many readers did care about the comics that there were people willing to pay more than cover price to get a comic they missed. When fandom organized, and transactions where fans traded and sold comics amongst themselves got documented and eventually put into price guides, that is when speculators entered the scene.
There will ALWAYS be speculators in any market where there is money to be made in an aftermarket. With the internet, and eBay, and other sites, it has made it easier than ever for a speculator to sell his stuff.
Should retailers stop selling to speculators? No, if a retailer wants to eat regularly and pay bills he or she has to sell to everyone and anyone they can. They KEY is NOT catering to JUST speculators. To remember that the TRUE customer is that guy or gal who really enjoys that comic book for what it is: entertainment, and maybe even art.
Publishers sell to retailers. The fans are not, strictly-speaking, as much a customer of Marvel or DC, but of that retailer. So, since the publisher actually makes money selling to the retailers, who in turn sells to the fans, the publisher looks for ways to get the retailer to order more and MORE. AND, the publishers are quite aware of those speculators, and know that those speculators will want the variants, and that the retailers will order more to try and meet the demand from those speculators (and other customers).
Again, the problem isn't a publisher or a retailer trying to make a profit, it's that they try to do so by catering to a shaky, unsustainable demand by some customers who only look at buying comics as buying commodities they can resell in turn.
A true comic book fan is who we should be catering to. They are the people that will actually stick with us if they are treated well. And again, retailers should try to sell to everyone, but the emphasis should be on keeping those happy that actually care about the product we sell. Those fans are the lifeblood of the industry.
Forgive the long-winded post on this matter, but I have seen and heard too many people who seem to think that retailers charge so much for variants just because they do. No, like any capitalistic market, they charge what they believe based on supply and demand. It's just that the "demand" created by speculators is not solid, and it's hollow and soulless. It's the pursuit of making money for its' own sake, and not born out of love for anything but making money.
A common mantra of mine is that business these days is all about short-term profits. We always need to consider the future. The future is with REAL fans, not speculators.
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Andrew W. Farago
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Joined: 19 July 2005
Location: United States
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | 6
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Is Star Wars a hot property right now? Sure. Is Marvel
getting the property a big deal? Sure. I think the two
would be enough to generate 100,000 to 200,000 copies. But
the was a company making really good Star Wars comics just
a few months ago. Those books weren't close to breaking
100,000 copies were they?
You've got a certain number of comic buyers who'll only buy Marvel, a certain number of Star Wars fans who only care about the original trilogy, Dark Horse not always putting A-list/hot talent on their Star Wars books… I think the adaptation of George Lucas's original script sold really well, though, but a lot of Dark Horse's output didn't necessarily appeal to the casual Star Wars fan (and there are probably a billion casual Star Wars fans in the world).
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Rick Whiting
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Joined: 22 April 2004
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 10:14pm | IP Logged | 7
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Matt Hawes necessary long post hit the nail right on the head and should be quoted for the truth across the net.
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Rick Whiting
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| Posted: 19 December 2014 at 10:33pm | IP Logged | 8
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You've got a certain number of comic buyers who'll only buy Marvel, a certain number of Star Wars fans who only care about the original trilogy, Dark Horse not always putting A-list/hot talent on their Star Wars books… I think the adaptation of George Lucas's original script sold really well, though, but a lot of Dark Horse's output didn't necessarily appeal to the casual Star Wars fan (and there are probably a billion casual Star Wars fans in the world).
____________________________
I could be wrong, but I think that on average, the Dark Horse Star Wars comics sold better then the latter issues of Marvel's original Star Wars comic.
And again, putting A-list/hot talent on a book is not a guarantee that book will sell well (or even be any good). For example, Marvel put the "A-list/hot" talent creative team of Mark Millar and Bryon Hitch on the FF book several years ago and with the exception of their first issue, their run didn't sell all that well. The same goes for the other "A-list/hot" talent that was put on the book under the Quesada regime. In fact, the last time the FF book sold consistently well (at least in regards to pre-order sales) was the Claremont/Laroca run on the book from 15 years ago (it was a consistent top 15 seller on the Diamond charts), and they weren't considered "A-list/hot" talent back then.
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Andrew W. Farago
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Joined: 19 July 2005
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| Posted: 20 December 2014 at 2:24pm | IP Logged | 9
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The last few years of Marvel's original Star Wars book were done with no new Star Wars films on the horizon, and fans had a hard time getting excited about a series that was populated by any number of characters from outside the films. That the series did as well as it did for as long as it did with all of the restrictions placed on it was pretty impressive.
And sure, making a hit book isn't as easy as putting top talent on top characters. I'm not a big fan of Millar and Hitch, but in their defense, it's been ages since anyone's been able to make Fantastic Four a top seller at Marvel. Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr. aren't tearing up the sales charts on Superman the way I'd have guessed, either. It's hard to predict what kind of impact a creative team will have on any given property.
That being said, John Cassaday's been a big name, bankable artist at least since his Astonishing X-Men run with Joss Whedon, and Jason Aaron's built a pretty big following at Marvel over the past few years. If the two of them teamed up for an X-Men book or an Avengers series, it would probably sell 100,000 copies right out of the gate if Marvel really pushed it. Putting that creative team on something that people are viewing as the first "real" Star Wars comic in a generation, that's something that's going to be huge whether it's got one variant cover or a thousand of them.
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Rick Whiting
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| Posted: 20 December 2014 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | 10
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Here's the 62nd cover.
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/12/20/greg-horns-star-wars- 1-gamestop-cover-selling-for-75-or-8000-points/
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Rick Whiting
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| Posted: 20 December 2014 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | 11
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That being said, John Cassaday's been a big name, bankable artist at least since his Astonishing X-Men run with Joss Whedon, and Jason Aaron's built a pretty big following at Marvel over the past few years. If the two of them teamed up for an X-Men book or an Avengers series, it would probably sell 100,000 copies right out of the gate if Marvel really pushed it. Putting that creative team on something that people are viewing as the first "real" Star Wars comic in a generation, that's something that's going to be huge whether it's got one variant cover or a thousand of them.
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Cassaday can't even hit hit his deadlines on time. As for Aaron, with the exception of writing "gimmick" books (like mega company wide crossover event mini series and the female All New Thor book), most of his books sell in the mid to lower range on the sales chart.
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Stephen Churay
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 March 2009
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| Posted: 20 December 2014 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | 12
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Andrew, you asked:
Are comic shops actually going to buy a
thousand unsellable copies so that they
can get a few Alex Ross variant covers
that they'll be able to sell for ten bucks
each?"
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The answer is yes.
They will look at how many they buy and
guess at how many they THINK they will
sell. Then, the variants will be priced to
make up the difference. Whatever is left
will hit the 50 cent bin as gravy money.
At least that's how I'm seeing shops
around here operate. This works for them
until collectors and speculators quit
buying. Hopefully it won't be a book where
this many copies have been ordered or
smaller shops will have slit there own
throat. Smaller shops run lean but on
occasion will gamble for a big payday. It
works until it doesn't.
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Topic Closed)
