Does anyone besides me collect variant comics?

[Adam West]

I do. Amazing Spider-man and Walking Dead in the few occasions that there are any in Walking Dead, but I swear there are about 5 or 6 variations of most Spider-Man comics these days. I personally love the variety of cover art and since I only collect those along with Oblivion Song can afford the $40 or so I spend every month on 3 comics. My local comic book shop owner tells me every month how much he hates “variants” while ringing up 5 variants of Amazing Spider-man for me every month. I get it. He is a purist and am sure has people coming in looking for the 1:200 virgin variants all the time. He is pretty nice but seems burned out on the whole industry. He does have a great selection and does try to carry as much as he can. Just curious about your experiences.

[Nostalgiabuff]

I stopped collecting 25 years ago but I remember even then, the comic shop I bought from and had bought from for years, hated the variants and gimmick covers. he swore it would kill the industry and it sure did put a hurtin on it

[Blue Meanie]

Marvel is strictly a money grab with the variants. Literally 5 - 10 variants per popular book EVERY MONTH. It is done to offset their printing costs so the books cost Marvel nothing and get max money out of the orders through and in conjunction with Diamond Distribution (Variant covers program where they charge about 10 - 12K for store exclusives) Strictly a cash grab...especially when they do variants that have absolutely nothing to do with the books the cover is on. They just did a whole month of Spidey Villains variants. All that being said...I will pick up a variant by George Perez or Jim Starlin. The Thor Perez Variant on War Of The Realms was STUNNING and I was lucky that it wasn't one that my LCS charged above cover price for.

[Fuzzysnail]

I like seeing the variants, and simply pick the cover I like best. Sometimes I grab the variant with a favorite artist. I rarely pick up more than one cover. Its cool seeing the different cover art, and artists are getting paid. I get frustrated sometimes when a cover for an important book shows a weak cover, this way I dont have to grab it. That being said, Detective comics 1000 has jumped the freakin shark. geeze.

[Blue Meanie]

That being said, Detective comics 1000 has jumped the freakin shark. geeze.

Yeah...that was overkill to the umpteenth degree. I think there were something like 80+ covers. Only, he says laughingly, 12 covers made it to the LCS's around the country.