Are Variant covers harmful to the industry?

>>81495655
Probably

No. In fact I'd say it's helpful. the artist who made the variant cover? Gets more money for doing it

The biggest series of Variants being "DK III: The Master Race" with an astonishing 52 covers!

They're harmful in as much as they promote the collector's market which is what made it all collapse in the first place and it's foolish of the people who still engage in it to have any belief that any of this stuff is going to be worth any money a few decades from now

But they're not actively harmful

Sometimes.

>Are Variant covers harmful to the industry?
No.
>Are incentivized Variant covers harmful to the industry?
Yes.

>>81495720
I think that's mostly a testament to how many Artists are Miller fans.

>>81495993
>>Are incentivized Variant covers harmful to the industry?
>Yes.

This.

Hell, even minimal incentivized Variants aren't too bad. But when you're saying something like "Buy 25 regular covers of this to get ONE special variant...!" or "Buy 100 copies of this low-selling comic to get this ONE variant!", it's obvious something wrong is happening.

>>81495655
Incredibly.

They artificially inflate sales to retailers, leading to too much back stock, which hurts retailer profit margins (which were already crap).

The worse comic book stores do, the less comics can be sold. Every variant cover is a bite out of the means of distribution that comics rely on.

>>81496151
>"Buy 25 regular covers of this to get ONE special variant...!" or "Buy 100 copies of this low-selling comic to get this ONE variant!", it's obvious something wrong is happening.
Does this happen?

>>81496836
but, why not just cut your normal numbe of stock in half, and use the other half on the variant cover

>>81497018

Yes

my LCS has them sometimes and theyre pre bagged with a price tag on them much higher than regular price

incentivized variants are cancer, a comic having a neat variant every so often so you have a choice of cover is nice, though not necessary obviously.

>>81497105

Because if you need to order 25 issues of something to get a couple variants worth 50 bucks (theoretically) you might have to order 10 issues more than you regularly sell, but the loss is covered by the sale price of the variants if they sell..... but you still have 10 issues of a book none of your customers want.

it leads to bigger retail numbers that both companies wave around like a big swinging dick as if it means anything, it hurts small retailers and its just fucking retarded

>>81497382
Doesn't virtually every regular customer of a comic shop use a pull list anyway?

Yeah maybe it's worth ordering a few extra for the odd person that wanders in off the street but for the most part you know in advance approximately how many copies you're gonna sell this month because they're effectively pre-ordered.

>>81497484
"Pull List Only" is a awesome way to never get new customers.

>>81497484

depends on the shop and the customer base, at the LCS i frequent i dont have a pull box even though I'm there every week simply because what i pick up changes fairly often and im not a richfuck who could afford just having 10 books pulled a week regardless of what i knew of them, I'd also have to call the store to change my pulls constantly

>>81495720
No, that has to be Star Wars #1 at 68