NYCC 2023 changed how I feel about variant covers for good

I was at New York Comic Con last year and spent like 40 minutes at the Marvel booth digging through bins of variants. I grabbed a David Nakayama cover for like 60 bucks, felt great about it. Then I got home and saw the regular cover was the exact same story inside. I realized I had 200 dollars worth of variants in my closet that I barely even look at. The artists are talented, sure, but I was paying for a pretty picture while ignoring the actual comics. Now I just grab the cheapest cover and spend my money on trades instead. Anyone else stopped caring about variants after a similar moment at a con?

3 comments

3 Comments

calebc402d ago

Did you sell off your variants or are they just collecting dust now?

lewis.mila2d agoProlific Poster

Honestly the ones I held onto turned into a weird kind of time capsule. Got an old Spider-Man #1 variant from 1990 that was worth maybe $5 back in the day and now it's probably still worth $5 but I keep it because the cover has that silly hologram that doesn't even work right anymore. Sold a bunch during the COVID boom when everyone was panic buying anything with a 1:100 ratio on it. Made some cash but honestly the market feels like a casino now with all these ratio variants and exclusive covers nobody asked for. Only ones I regret selling are the random indie books that popped off years later, like that first print of something nobody cared about until it got optioned for TV.

lunah122d ago

Woah, wait, hold on - you actually unloaded books during that COVID boom? I thought everybody was just talking about it online, nobody I know actually pulled the trigger on selling their collections. Man, I bet you made out like a bandit if you had the right stuff though.