Judge a Comic by its Cover!
When it comes to comic books the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" simply dose not apply. Comic collectors are notorious for being extremely opinionated about all aspects of comics, and covers have a particular importance because they're the initial selling point for entire issues. With this basic understanding of the comic cover's significance, I think the Comics Pro's argument about variant covers makes perfect sense. Retailers need to be able to purchase covers to adequately meet customer's buying preferences. When the major distributors force retailers to buy a 50/50 split of variant covers, retailers are inevitably buying above their true cost, resulting in excess unwanted inventory and a loss of basic operating cash. If its the retailer's responsibility to meet customer demand, and the distributor's responsibility to meet the retailers needs, then having this 50/50 split policy clearly exemplifies there is something wrong with the way distributors operate within this business model. An industry can't work against itself if it wants to maintain a healthy existence.
So to ease the mood, here are a few good websites that focus specifically on the lighter side of comic covers. The image above is from a website called Superdickery. It focuses on the humor of silver age DC covers, specifically ones where Superman is acting like a jerk. Thanks to Star Clipper's own Nick Kuntz for showing me this link. Also, check out the Grand Comic Book Database, a site that has indexed over 70,000 comic book covers. Finally, check out a site claiming to be the best page in the universe for some of the best unintentional sexual comic book covers ever, including this one:
That should just about "cover" everything.
-Jon
posted by Star Clipper at Tuesday, July 24, 2007
2 Comments:
Hi, Jon... You should note that the Grand Comic Book Database is not just for covers. They've also been identifying artists and writers for each of the growing number of books in their database.
Their identification has helped publishers like DC get the proper royalties payments out to surviving creators.
It's a great source of all-around comic book scholarship, but yes, those covers are pretty neat, too...
Take care out there!
--Garrie
I completly agree with you Garrie. I often use the Grand Comic Book Database as a resourse to help customers.
It is also awesome that you can look at a comic like Action Comics/Superman that has 852 issues, and look at all the covers in chronological order.
It can actually be quite addictive once you get started!
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