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RE: Michael's Long Box: The History of Variant Covers, Part One
Man, what a well researched and written article on a great topic for us geeks! And thanks so much for the shout out, I really appreciate your appreciation!
One of the earliest, and possibly laziest variant covers I remember was the release of Legends of the Dark Knight #1 in 1989. DC didn't even bother commissioning variant artwork. Those books actually had a double cover where they simply wrapped the different colored second covers around the first!
I have the hot pink one... bought fresh off the spinner rack at Waldenbooks as a kid...
Holy cow, I don't think I've ever seen these. I had no idea they existed! And I'd be hard-pressed to argue anything lazier, at least to my knowledge. Those are worse than the limited variant runs London Night did on Sheena #0, which look like wallpaper patterns of zebra, crocodile, and leopard skin respectively. You can see them here (though they'll make an appearance in part 2 of this article):
http://comicbookdb.com/title.php?ID=12714
Wow, those are pretty bad too. I'll be anxiously awaiting part 2!
On a side not, I shared this video, I think on one of @cryplectibles posts a while back and absolutely love it. Looking back for it now I realize that the Most Variant Comic of All Time arrived in shops today! This video is nostalgia gold for 90's comic fans.
Oh my god, this is GOLD! I can't stop laughing!! :D
It's funny, I grew to hate the gimmicks... but when I watch this I do realize that enough time has passed and I'm now old enough that they've moved into the realm of nostalgia. I'm ready to go out and start adding a special 90's novelty cover segment to my collection!
Not sure if you seen these bad ass covers https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/09/07/marvel-legacy-lenticular-variant-covers/
Not sure if you heard about geeks revolting about it lol https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/comic-store-owners-announce-they-wont-offer-marvel-legacy-issues-1032851
Those ordering requirements are crap. If Marvel really wants to celebrate the issues, publish only the lenticular with the increased cover price I say.
My LCS did carry them, and though I haven’t picked any up I was tempted by some of the homages to classic comics of my youth!
They are super tempting. I still haven't grabbed any, but will probably get Moon Knight for myself (got a box of just Sienkiewicz that it needs to be in). Good point about just printing only those special covers. Or if anything, just the regular and the lenticular. Because at the moment they are doing the lenticulars, plus they have these Mike McKone variants going on right now too, https://www.newsarama.com/36222-first-look-27-marvel-legacy-mike-mckone-headshot-variants.html which as a sucker I dig because they remind me of those old Marvel 25th Anniversary covers that I loved
Which to bring it all back around, no way in hell Marvel would do these 25th Anniversary covers again like they did where it was everybody gets them, nope, they would no doubt just be variant covers.
The only Marvel book I own from that anniversary period was Transformers #22.
For years, I had no idea they used the same border/close-up piece for every book released at that time. :)