Variances, Here a variant...there a variant
I picked up the following book last week as an impulse purchase (I don't know what attracted me to the cover.) What surprised me is that it is listed as Cover D. For a 15th issue in a series that, when reading the issue, didn't seem to have any large necessary impact on a killer story line (I found it better than average, but...) That's when I realized, although I am aware of just about a few issues really having a variant cover over the last couple of years (maybe five...ten), but the amount of variants is almost becoming unwieldy.
Back in the beginning days of comics, variants only happened by accident, either by a manufacturers defect (for example, double-stapled covers, missing inner pages, etc..), or a printer's error (number changes on issue, price changes.) There are very few examples of variants until just after the Second World War. At that point, Canada created true variants by limiting US cultural product importation (due to wartime import restrictions, both French and English cultural periodical publications were able to catch a captive audience, and the Canadian government of the day wanted to continue this.) Therefore, issues of comics printed at the time for the Canadian market had to be smaller than their US counterparts to be allowed in the country, such as Sensation Comics #55 (July 1946), pictured, below. Eventually, the government relented and by the time 1953 arrived, almost all issues sold in Canada were matched in size to their US counterparts.
Variants in Canada were also printed in French for the Quebec market, but not in large numbers, making any of these issues truly rare indeed. (Doug Sulipa, of Steinbach, Manitoba, is the true expert in Canadian variants, a lot of the information I use here came from reading his articles in the Overstreet guide.) For most of the late 50s and 60s, the only way to tell Canadian from American variants was there were sometimes different ads (I mean, even the Canadian books carried ads for that amusement park in Jersey...ho many of us were they expecting to go?)
Price variants began showing up in the late 1960s with Gold Key/Whitman books at first, and the variants hit both sides of the 49th. There are several Gold Key books around the time that all other companies raised their prices to 20 cents, that have both 15 cent and 20 cent price variants. For the vast majority of the 1970s, price variants were the main one, as well as Canadian variants as the Canadian cover price began to become larger as the CAD waned in value. Two price variants lead to 2 of the most expensive comic books for collectors of the 1970s, Star Wars 1 and Iron Fist 14 (both with 30 and 35 cent varieties.)
Two books pictured above are issues that price variants exist for. In both cases, I have shown the more common version of the books.
The 1980s was when the Canadian variant truly came into its own, as most newsstand editions of comic books had only the single price with "Canadian" written underneath (Canadian Direct editions ere identical to American versions by this point.) This meant that there is practically a Canadian variant of every book printed by the major publishers from about 1979 to the end of the newsstand era (even though you can still get the odd book on the stand, it's mostly Archie digests). This is, of course, either a curse or an interest, because some people love collecting variants, but it makes it harder to sell books Stateside. Legion of Super-Heroes 299 pictured below gives an example of the different price labeling:
This brings us to the dreaded speculator era, where variant covers made their presence known, It began innocently enough: (Now there may be earlier examples, but this is the earliest I found of deliberate Variants) DC's first solo Batman book since 1940: Legends of the Dark Knight #1 (1989). This book was issued with five different cover colour variants. DC was hoping to capitalize on the fact that it was a Batman book, it was a Number One, and that most collectors are obsessive completionists. Fortunately for them (perhaps unfortunately for us), it worked; the sales figures for this issue was the highest for any DC book (not including the Killing Joke) since 1974.
Naturally, what as a minor success at DC became a major success when done by Stan's boys. Spider-Man #1 (drawn by the Canadian legend Todd McFarlane) took things a step further when it was issued with variants, and each cover variants having a poly-bagged issue. All variants combined, this issue sold 2 million copies. Well, that as it, next X-Men 1 in 1991 had to have 5 cover variants, by Jim Lee yet! They sold 8 million copies (and people wonder why this issue serves for fire starter for some people...) That was it. Variant covers were here to stay. These days they have chaser variants. And some issues, like 2013's Justice League of America (v3) #1, have 52 covers (one for each state flag, Puerto Rico and the USA flag). or, like Marvel's Star Wars (2015) #1, had 68 different covers. (Below is the one I bought, the boring one...)
Anyway, I guess they are here to stay, for better or worse. I don't really have a problem with the existence of variants, but their influence has made it a little more difficult to be a completist. Some people love them, thus creating a demand for them, and that it is why they will continue for the foreseeable future. But part of me wishes that variants would go back to being the rare treasure they should be.
I will be skipping Ottawa News and notes this time, as we all know what is coming this weekend.My next article will be a Random Book my Son Picks (from the goodies I will get), followed by stories from the Ottawa Comiccon.
Enjoy!
Back in the beginning days of comics, variants only happened by accident, either by a manufacturers defect (for example, double-stapled covers, missing inner pages, etc..), or a printer's error (number changes on issue, price changes.) There are very few examples of variants until just after the Second World War. At that point, Canada created true variants by limiting US cultural product importation (due to wartime import restrictions, both French and English cultural periodical publications were able to catch a captive audience, and the Canadian government of the day wanted to continue this.) Therefore, issues of comics printed at the time for the Canadian market had to be smaller than their US counterparts to be allowed in the country, such as Sensation Comics #55 (July 1946), pictured, below. Eventually, the government relented and by the time 1953 arrived, almost all issues sold in Canada were matched in size to their US counterparts.
Variants in Canada were also printed in French for the Quebec market, but not in large numbers, making any of these issues truly rare indeed. (Doug Sulipa, of Steinbach, Manitoba, is the true expert in Canadian variants, a lot of the information I use here came from reading his articles in the Overstreet guide.) For most of the late 50s and 60s, the only way to tell Canadian from American variants was there were sometimes different ads (I mean, even the Canadian books carried ads for that amusement park in Jersey...ho many of us were they expecting to go?)
Price variants began showing up in the late 1960s with Gold Key/Whitman books at first, and the variants hit both sides of the 49th. There are several Gold Key books around the time that all other companies raised their prices to 20 cents, that have both 15 cent and 20 cent price variants. For the vast majority of the 1970s, price variants were the main one, as well as Canadian variants as the Canadian cover price began to become larger as the CAD waned in value. Two price variants lead to 2 of the most expensive comic books for collectors of the 1970s, Star Wars 1 and Iron Fist 14 (both with 30 and 35 cent varieties.)
Two books pictured above are issues that price variants exist for. In both cases, I have shown the more common version of the books.
The 1980s was when the Canadian variant truly came into its own, as most newsstand editions of comic books had only the single price with "Canadian" written underneath (Canadian Direct editions ere identical to American versions by this point.) This meant that there is practically a Canadian variant of every book printed by the major publishers from about 1979 to the end of the newsstand era (even though you can still get the odd book on the stand, it's mostly Archie digests). This is, of course, either a curse or an interest, because some people love collecting variants, but it makes it harder to sell books Stateside. Legion of Super-Heroes 299 pictured below gives an example of the different price labeling:
This brings us to the dreaded speculator era, where variant covers made their presence known, It began innocently enough: (Now there may be earlier examples, but this is the earliest I found of deliberate Variants) DC's first solo Batman book since 1940: Legends of the Dark Knight #1 (1989). This book was issued with five different cover colour variants. DC was hoping to capitalize on the fact that it was a Batman book, it was a Number One, and that most collectors are obsessive completionists. Fortunately for them (perhaps unfortunately for us), it worked; the sales figures for this issue was the highest for any DC book (not including the Killing Joke) since 1974.
Naturally, what as a minor success at DC became a major success when done by Stan's boys. Spider-Man #1 (drawn by the Canadian legend Todd McFarlane) took things a step further when it was issued with variants, and each cover variants having a poly-bagged issue. All variants combined, this issue sold 2 million copies. Well, that as it, next X-Men 1 in 1991 had to have 5 cover variants, by Jim Lee yet! They sold 8 million copies (and people wonder why this issue serves for fire starter for some people...) That was it. Variant covers were here to stay. These days they have chaser variants. And some issues, like 2013's Justice League of America (v3) #1, have 52 covers (one for each state flag, Puerto Rico and the USA flag). or, like Marvel's Star Wars (2015) #1, had 68 different covers. (Below is the one I bought, the boring one...)
Anyway, I guess they are here to stay, for better or worse. I don't really have a problem with the existence of variants, but their influence has made it a little more difficult to be a completist. Some people love them, thus creating a demand for them, and that it is why they will continue for the foreseeable future. But part of me wishes that variants would go back to being the rare treasure they should be.
I will be skipping Ottawa News and notes this time, as we all know what is coming this weekend.My next article will be a Random Book my Son Picks (from the goodies I will get), followed by stories from the Ottawa Comiccon.
Enjoy!
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