In a really surprising move, Image has sent out a release stating they will not be doing store variants any more. They stated they do not make extra money off the store variants, while claiming they do nothing to help the comic industry.
Very sorry to hear this, as I purchase numerous store variants, especially for Wytches as I was going for all covers on this books.
Image’s newsletter follows:
After much internal deliberation, Image Comics will no longer be offering single issue retailer exclusive variants. While the intent of this program was to offer our retailer partners the opportunity to have exclusive content in order to build strong continued series sales at their stores, data accumulated over the last year suggests these variants only serve to further feed the speculation market, artificially inflating first issue sales, and thereby doing little to positively affect a series’ longterm health.
With those findings in mind, Image Comics will now be offering retailer exclusive covers for trade paperbacks. Requests must be submitted by the deadline of initial orders for the Previews that the trade paperback is solicited in. The minimum order threshold will be determined on a title by title basis. Retailers will also have the opportunity to place additional orders of their retailer exclusive trade paperback every time it returns to press for an additional printing.
We understand that many of you who have participated in these single issue retailer exclusive variants may be disappointed with this decision, but we must act based on what we feel is in the best interest of our creators, their series, and the growth of the marketplace.
So….
Image claims that these variants only serve the “speculation market”, sure I get that, in a way, but at the same time, I have been buying every cover of Wytches and Spread not for speculation, but for my personal collection, so yes, they do serve more than just the secondary market.
Image also states they artificially inflate the print run on first issues, but Image has also moved to print more copies of first issue books in order to keep them in stores and kill the need for reprints. So what is it Image? Is it the variants that are pumping up the print runs, or is it Image’s new practice of automatically doing an over print of new and popular titles?
But wait, Image will be doing exclusive covers for shops on Trade Paperback releases. This is confusing. Would doing exclusive covers on Trade Paperbacks really help retention of readers on books? I do not buy TPB’s so it does nothing for me. and since “Image Central gets a flat fee per comic and doesn’t directly benefit from increased sales”, as Bleeding Cool has said,would the move to print Exclusive Cover TPB’s bring more money in for Image? I think that may be the real reason. Afterall, these TPB’s can go back to press again and again. Image says this is in the best interest of the creators, but don’t the creators benefit from an increased print run of the books? Seems to me that the more copies they sell the more money they could earn, and if someone wants to do a store variant of 1,000-3,000 copies, the creators would directly benefit financially.
Sheesh, I usually do not mess with variants, but do collect exclusive covers on series I like.
They created the monster. They are trying to kill it.
Yeah I dont get it either. I also collect variants on series I like, it’s just fun to have it. What I don’t get is their concern about speculation market or why they care to police it. And why exactly are “inflated sales” a problem?
It bothers me that Image is so worried about what happens to the books after they hit the shops.
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i do understad in a way what they are saying.. it does inflate the false sales on a comic offering 1:10, 1:25 etc.. cause dealers will buy extra copies flog out the 1:1 at below retail then charge more for the 1:25 etc are those 1:1 really selling or are they just being used to get lower run comics and the dealers charge an arm and leg instead of offering them at fair prices and still charge the dealer wholesale for issue 1:25 the only person making money is the dealer not the publishing company.. so this fixes that by no longer having multiple stages vs 1 stage and more 1st prints so will a comic go into 2nd printing based on actual sales? or sales of 1000s of 1:1 just to get 250 etc of varient incentives?
But on the other hand, Image is still offering “returnable” books. Which means retailers can return copies of certain books that they don’t sell. It was to encourage retailers to order more copies in hopes of selling them artificially driving up the print runs on some books.
It’s funny that Image is picking one thing it does to drive up print runs and phasing it out because it is all speculator driven and not the 500 other things they do that drive up print runs.
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Exactly what I was thinking. There’s gonna be speculation with or without variants.
I get if they do the numbers and the special variants do nothing to increase sales on their end but them announcing to publish more books is what makes this seem asinine. Basically the way I see it is, they’re saving money by shaving off the need to print different covers for stores but make up for those print numbers by just printing more.
Really, I’m not sure who’s in charge over there but if it were me, I’d stick with the, print to order, then if more people want it after the fact, print again when the secondary orders reach a certain level… and so on with the 3rd or 4th.
Not smart to bite who feeds you.
I personally think all variants should be gone. I think it is way cooler to own Walking Dead #1 or Action Comics #1. You know that is the only issue for #1. Instead of owning 10-15 #1’s of a popular comic. Look at Extinction parade, when that came out issue #1 I think there were over 15 different covers. I just think it is such an awesome feeling to only have 1 comic for a first issue so when you own it you know that is the only one. Just imagine if Action Comics #1 had 12 different covers – That comic would in no way would be as cool as it is today.
Avatar is notoriously bad about their # of covers. They come out with special edition issues months after they’re released. I avoid getting suckered by these guys.. but then again, there’s only been a few series I started and completed, most of the rest I’ve not been that interested.
?This!
I agree 100%. A more recent example is E oS #2. I sucks that the readily available cover is so much less desirable.
If the writing is good – the creator will have a good ongoing story. If it is bad – sales will die. It’s creator owned – let them decide. As for speculators – if they buy a book and it does not sell on the secondary market – then they have a book that they would not otherwise have bought – which means more money for them.
Walking dead 1 is a bad and good example. Twd was a low print run book in black and white with a odd cover in my opinion with a great story – thus it grew – and I would say the issue 100 variants have done well for sales – the question is – who’s decision is it to release all the different covers and who bears the cost?
If they want people to continue to read the stories then they need to promote the books better and support their talent and if its creator owned – let them have the final say. If third eye wants to pay for a variant for example – then third eye will promote that persons book. Is that a bad thing?
In the end it is the stores, like third eye, that are fronting the cost of the books. If they sell, great. If not, then the store is stuck with them and Image has already made their money.
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This isn’t necessarily a terrible thing. Yes, I love the variants too, but think about the future of these. Given the short period of time they were out, these could continue to climb in value in later years. Ten years from now, people that missed out on this could be scrounging for them.
I think that might be a very sound prospect…. Variants may ultimately be diluting main cover sales….
What’s bad for a series’ long-term health is constant delays and limbo. Has anyone seen Bedlam or Todd The Ugliest Kid On Earth lately? This decision smells like the stench of Eric Stephenson who bit the speculator hand which fed him so well.
In the end, I’m fine with it, less variants I have to chase and mailorder, less money I’ll be spending on the regurgitated premise crap that Image has been flooding the market with the last year
Bedlam I thought ended long ago. I never read Todd….
But yeah, I hate the abrupt stopping of a series. If sales suck, at least try to close it out by giving the writer a chance to end it more properly, I’m sure the few thousand people reading it would be grateful instead of just never seeing the next issue being released. I mean, at least Marvel and DC end comics with an actual ending.
Or the LONG AWAITED Sabrina #2
My understanding was that this was a returnable book program meant to alleviate the risk to retailers of ordering new Image titles. It’s in both Image’s and the shops’ interest to build reader bases but if the shops never order the first few issues they don’t generate long term serial readers for that title. Encouraging larger or broader orders by reducing the risk seems like a reasonable strategy and if the shop sells x number of #1’s then they have some data to go on for ordering #2 & #3 and so on. Unfortunately, and fairly predictably, creating a variant logo for this program thwarts its aims by confusing the data. A shop has to consider whether the enthusiasm for an issue is based on the material or just the logo and that makes deciding how many of the next (logoless) issue to order harder. If they get burned by this on a couple of titles they back off, Image gets a bunch of returns, and the program falls apart. Quietly offering the program to shops without a special logo would have been the way to go. Using the variant logo and returnable book program for trades, in which several issue are collected at one time, makes more sense if you want to attract serial readers for an ongoing title without skewing the sales data. It wasn’t like that logo was new or creative optional content anyway – just a tiny, inconsequential, and completely contrived different mark.
I think it’s a smart move.
Image offered retailer variants to entice the stores to keep promoting and selling a certain series. But that wasn’t happening. The retailer variants were selling and then interest would dry up.
Why would image produce a unique cover and unique print run for each retailer so they could sell just 1 issue? Basically, it was a promotion they probably didn’t make money on and it didn’t drive long term revenue. The variants brought in money for the retailers and in the secondary market, which didn’t benefit image or its creators. When you run a promotion and get no growth, you stop running the promotion.
For collectors, I don’t think its as big a deal as people make it out to be. Think about your favorite key comic like Hulk 181 or New Mutants 98. How many of them are variants? Even great new series like Saga have very few variants and it doesn’t hurt interest or resale.
Image made a set fee regardless of how many shop variants they produced. Sounds like Image wants a bigger cut on this, even though this is Image’s business practice that they put into effect. Exclusive covers on TPB will not work. Retailers order less TPB than regular issues. Unless image is going to set the minimum order of the TPB they will lose money on this endeavor. The printing costs seem like they would be too high.
I agree that my favorite key comic wouldn’t need a variant, in my case Comico Primer with the first appearance of Grendel. However, there are a ton of key books that do have variants that are sought after (I know the argument is different because they are not store exclusives).
The point is, I have collected every cover of Wytches, Spread, and several other books. These include store exclusives. This was not done to flip or make money but for a collection stand point.
Thanks for your reply. I agree the TPB thing will not work. They just aren’t collectible in the same way as comics. It sounds like one of those false compromises, like when your employer says we are taking away health insurance but providing free gym memberships.
I think you and the commenter below voice the most common argument against this decision, which is essentially “I like this comic and these variants give me a way to buy more of it”. To me, there is nothing wrong with that argument, I just think Image is probably looking for a different and more profitable way to fit that need.
I see it this way, having multiple artist interpret and vary a theme or story is artistic expression at its core. I think Wytches is a great example, I bought multiple covers because I liked the art too…. It seems odd this decision….
It will interesting to see if there’s a reaction from other publishers…
I doubt other publishers care. Most print to order and aren’t opposed to printings beyond the first. I just can’t fathom what the people over at Image are thinking.. if they truly are caring too much about the secondary market, well, I think they’re worrying about the wrong things.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a lot of Image titles but I still have many complaints. My top two complaints are probably: 1. They’re release dates are always off or wrong or they have some serious delays (now, I know most of these are creator owned who lead busy lives outside comics but Image could change how they release issues even or work better with the creators if they start seeing lots of delays) and 2. They abruptly end series.
The best model approach where both publisher and retailer win is simply, print to order. If you have to go to 2nd, 3rd or 4th printings.. so be it, at least you know those are being ordered in good faith that there is a demand for them and they actually sell. The whole approach of.. let’s just print more and let them sit so people can’t speculate or make money after the fact is just absurd. Image should not care since they’ll sell these at a base retail price. If they wanted to speculate or make secondary market money on their comics, they should open up a comic book store to sell their comics.
It’s a pretty common misconception that dealers make money on variants. The reality is that the “arm and a leg” you’re talking about being charged really just goes to cover the wholesale cost of all those extra books we had to order in order to ensure that you got your 1:X variant. The margins in comics aren’t great, with image we make slightly under double what the book cover. The ideal is ordering the exact number that you can sell, which is pulls plus however many shelf copies you conservatively estimate being able to move. All variants do is force retailers to over order so that they can appease their local speculator who expects to have the option of numerous variants at their LCS. The only person that benefits from the variant system is the local speculeech. Joe retailer doesn’t love having to order 10 more copies of something to qualify for a variant he has to price in order to compete with the internet. It’s fine to disagree with the move, but lets not argue variants help retailers. Remeber when people were discussing 1:25 variant prices for Batman 40? It was a lot of talk about shopping around for the best price because people want to flip. That’s always been the reality for these variants too, it hasn’t at all been a boon for retailers. Far from it, it’s been something to possibly attract an element that compared to your average fan, who buys out of love rather than an eye towards profit, functions the opposite way. If it works it doesn’t increase readership for a title. Instead it just helps sell a variants of a single issue. That doesn’t help retailers at all in the long run. Best case scenario you get to sell your variants and then interest drops off with the next issue. I’m glad they’re making the change. For retailers the profit is in long-term readership not variants.
Slightly under double the books cover price.
Sell a variant of a
Sorry, my phone has the least intuitive touchpad on the planet.
I’m not arguing, I can totally see the side of the actual retailer. Some retailers can likely move these while others struggle so it’s not worth it to them. My only issue I have with this move is first they claimed they want to do away with 2nd, 3rd and beyond printings by printing more up front. Then they claim they’re doing away with in store variants cause it doesn’t make them any extra money.
Trying to understand on a business perspective, it doesn’t make sense. So if the stores aren’t buying them all up front, that means they’ll have extra copies sitting at Diamond or back at Image (or some warehouse after they’re printed). So what they’re saying is if I’m understanding their motives correctly, if a comic heats up with demand, instead of going back to 2nd print, they’ll just readily have them sitting in a warehouse for distribution..
So what happens when it’s an issue that no one ends up buying and all the stores didn’t gobble up? Which quite frankly, could be a lot of issues. I know I pick up a bunch of #1’s to check out and if it’s not for me, I stop buying. Image is probably the biggest publisher where I have more of #1 issues with no others from the series than any other publisher. Don’t get me wrong, I have probably more pulls each month of the ones I do read but man, you can’t tell me with a straight face you’re gonna stop a service cause it’s not making you any more money but yet you then tell me you’re gonna print more so you can avoid 2nd or 3rd prints? That’s like saying you’re gonna stop eating BBQ chips each day for lunch cause they’re making you fatter but instead eat the Sour Cream and Onion chips..
Sure, but the move towards larger 1st print runs is a move in support of retailers as well. Customers are often times far less interested in second prints. They want whatever it was that blew up, and they want it as soon as possible. They don’t want a different cover that comes out in a few more weeks. If they’re going to buy it’s usually as part of the craze, or as is often the case for Image Comics, in trade. I can understand bemoaning their willingness to sit on extra copies of a book, but it doesn’t hurt the consumer market. Readers have access to exactly what they want without waiting for a second third or fourth print run to roll out. The only losers are Image, willing to risk losing money on an anti-speculation platform, and the speculators. Values definitely drop when a print run is wide open and ready to meet demand. That’s great for readers, terrible for speculation. People are welcome to pull #1s if they want, Image just wants you to buy because you’re reading and not because you think it could “be something”. It might be a baby step, but at least it’s a step towards them trying to create a more stable market for retailers. I know it’s bad for those of us that like to collect value, for whatever reason, but that doesn’t make their move a bad one, or even inconsistent with their rhetoric.
Well, sure, I can see this benefiting the retailers no doubt but I can see it hurting Image more than anyone to be honest.
That’s what I was trying to get at. Why print more than originally ordered? Image is always going to have more duds than hits so why take the chance on printing more only to sit and wait? They contradict their recent announcements and moves. You can’t throw out double standards like they just did in a sense. First you announce your printing more up front. Then you announce a month later you’re no longer going to print retailer exclusive variants cause your not making any extra money from them.
I mean, really think about their recent changes they’ve announced.. they make absolutely no sense on why they say their doing it on a business side of things. We can only speculate on their other motives behind such changes.
Imagine Apple selling iPhones as an example. First they announce they’re gonna start making more even though the demand isn’t there, previously they’re making them to order each month cause they don’t want a warehouse full of unsold phones. Then they announce they’re gonna stop allowing cell phone carriers to order iPhones with their own logo on them cause they’re not making extra money.
To me, it’s just excuses on their actual motives. It would be pretty sad if they’re actually doing this because it bothers them that people are buying their product and then reselling them at a higher premium. If I published comics, the last thing I’d worry about is if people are selling them on the secondary market for more than retail prices. My only worry would be creating a product more and more people want while minimizing loss. I would print to order. When demand goes up, I print more (2nd print).. when the people want even more, I print more to sell (3rd print).. and so on. That model is the best anyone could come up with. Your maximizing your profits.
Some people might not want 2nd prints but I see 2nd prints selling out all the time.. hence the reason we see 3rd, 4th.. 5th prints.. etc. How many prints did EOSV #2 get to? One can’t say no one wants 2nd or 3rd prints. Someone wants them if they got to the point they needed to print more.
What Image should do away with is allowing returns. Which brings up the point, if shops are returning comics, why would Image print more than originally ordered?
Honestly though, I’m just fascinated by the.. let’s print more.. let’s print less.. that’s basically all they’ve told us by these two announcements, in that order. It simply doesn’t make sense on the reasons they are telling us. Unless they start throwing out some actual numbers and data we might not know about.. we can only guess it’s really for the other reasons.
So true Agent Poyo!! If they don’t like that people make a lousy dollar more then they did, then they should open there ebay account and comic shop and sell there books at the price they want. They will surely go out of business fast. Comics are for both the collector and the secondary market in my opinion. And in the secondary market you will never know if you hit the jackpot with a book or just another cool book for the PC. It’s insane how they are thinking of doing business. I personally didn’t collect the logo variants cuz I just saw it as the same book with a different logo. Just hope they don’t boost up there prints like Marvel does.
Sort of sounds like the same attitude that the Human’s creators (ironically now at Image)took when they bashed the collector/flippers for making money on their book. I guess that business practice and lack of respect for the secondary market backfired. Humans is dying a slow death.
I don’t think Humans is dying because of that but it does seem to be on a slow release date. I think they originally meant it to be a 6 issue a year type comic though.
I actually enjoy the comic, I think it’s a great story and the art is cool. I can side with what the writer was saying though, it’s not his job to make people money, he’s just trying to be a writer and artist, a story teller. The only thing I’d say is, if I was creating comics, I just simply wouldn’t care if people were making money on the side either, all power to them if they are.
The job of the comic book creator is to sell their story in a comic, not make us speculators rich or more money! I think that’s what the writer was trying to emphasize, I think he chose a poor way of saying it after the fiasco of them printing more after the first were sold and collectors got all bent out of shape because they didn’t declare it a 2nd printing for the second batch but really, being self published with two guys pretty much doing it all from beginning to end with no backed big publisher.. they can call it as they want, since it was entirely theirs until Image took over the publishing rights starting with issue #1.
“Comics are for both the collector and the secondary market in my opinion.”
True but one must realize the sole purpose of the people behind writing and drawing comics is to tell a story. It’s not meant to be a collector and secondary market, the buyers just turned it that way.
Actually the way I see it is, comics are almost becoming like the sports trading cards which was ruined by all the special chase cards and incentive cards. When one tried to just finish a complete set turned into several sets of special “rarer” cards. It turned from a kids hobby to collect and trade their favorite players to grown men collecting and speculating, to sell and make money. I remember when packs would cost me 50 cents.. quickly that turned into $2 packs and half the amount of cards in the pack. Then came the 5 cards for $4 and so on.. I was quickly out of that game in the early 90s. It turned from collector hobby to business only and that ruined it for me.
As for comics though, it’s not just a collector and secondary spec market, remember, there are also readers out there who simply just want to read for entertainment. I actually am a reader come first, then collector second… then I sell occasionally. I would be fine just reading comics to be honest. Even if I was just a reader, I take care of my stuff so the collector comes natural to me. I could actually do away with spec’ing and selling (actually, I never intended to sell until I found this site, realized I could sell to buy more comics).
I like variants but I also could do away with them entirely. I only buy variants under the following conditions:
a) It has cool art and I must have in personal collection, willing to spend more than cover but not break the bank, preferably I find them at cover.
b) I can flip it at a nice profit and if it’s at cover price or a price I can still profit from.
I know that some shops do over order to get the hose exclusive variants but a lot if not the majority of shops triple the value of the variant book. Where sometimes depending on the book series they have cover there prices on all the regular books they order plus made profit on the books. Or how else would shop keep themselves in business if they didn’t over price the variants and plus they get the wholesale price on the books. So shops make money and the companies make there money so I don’t understand why they bitch and complain about the secondary market. Everyone wins lol.
I like this move and hope other publishers do the same. I say this from a long term perspective on the hobby’s health; not from a short term speculation point of view. Variantpalooza and similar practices (among other things like bad storytelling) nearly destroyed the industry in the 1990s. It wasn’t only that print runs were huge, don’t kid yourselves.
It is unfortunate when the industry makes covers that aren’t readily available super desirable to the detriment of most collectors and subscribers. Another reason I like Image. After my 1990’s experience I can’t believe I am saying that.
They still are not doing away with variants or incentives just store exclusives.
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One step in the right direction is better than no steps.?
Easy to agree with Agentpoyo that no incentive or reprint variants would be controversial from business point of view because variants help increase sales for publishers. If stores overorder excess inventory, that is their fault and not publishers.
Yeah.. it’s kind of like.. Image prints 30k of a particular issue. A store wants to do a special variant of 2k copies outside of the total 30k print run. Image’s reply is.. “Meh, no thanks, we’re not making any money by printing 2k more for you to order.. ”
But they think people are gonna want store variant TPB though.. sigh!