Marvel LEGO Comic Variant Covers

vwong19

FBTB has been providing previews of the Marvel Lego Comic variant covers that are released next month....

http://marvel.com/news/story/20743/get_ready_for_marvel_lego_variants_in_september

I was interested in buying them until I called my comic book store today and was told they would be very limited. Has anyone else inquired with their shop about these variants. I don't collect comic books so I don't know what distribution is normally like... 2:1 (normal:variant).... The Lego variants sound more like 25:1 and for some reason they said they would be getting them in October. As much as I want to collect all these, I have a feeling these will be a challenge.

Oakenmold

I have tried to get them in the uk and they sound impossible to get hold of. I really want them

CCC

Don't you know which one you are getting when you pick up the comic? I don't see the point limiting them as people won't buy the normal ones if there is an alternate version.

drdavewatford

I'm no expert, but apparently only one of every 25 copies of a particular comic title that a store orders in will have a variant cover; stores will presumably sell these off at a premium to their most loyal and/or regular customers.

Thego

I used to collect comics. Variant covers were always pretty easy to come by.

vwong19

^ I hope so, but the following response from my local comic shop seems to suggest otherwise. Again I don't trust their release date. Perhaps distribution is better elsewhere...

"Shipping date is Oct. 02 and on through the remainder of the month. The orders for variants are based upon the quantities we order of the regular issues. Some have such small orders we will not qualify for the LEGO variants. Others will only ship in quantities of ones and twos. We will not price them until we see what the market will bear at the time of delivery. "

Southern California Comics
www.socalcomics.com

CCC

I just don't understand this 'rares' business. Make 1 in 25 rare, you won't sell that many extra if people know they are not getting a limited one. Make every one of a particular issue a Lego cover and you'll sell them to regular comic readers and super hero lego fans. They could probably do 20 issues with a lego cover and sell those extra editions to the lego fans and maybe after 20 issues they would become comic book fans too.

Thanos75

Marvel comics is not trying to get the regular reader to buy extra of a book or trying to get them to pick up a book for the first time. Thats what issue #1's are for. Marvel is trying to get dealers to order more. If you are a X-men reader then no matter what the cover is your still going to pick up your monthly book. The 1-25 is really not that rare for some of the books. My shop will order 100 -200 copies of Spider-man every month....but some of the smaller books will be harder to get a hold of. The special covers will be sold at a premium that will hopefully cover the cost of ordering 25 extra copies of a book. Trust me....the LEGO covers will be all over EBAY.

vwong19

I through out the number 1:25 as an example.... I have no clue what the ratio is also the total quantity. Should I even bother visiting the comic book shop if they are limited and at a premium or just buy them off of eBay?

Thanos75

From what I have heard some of the books will be 1:25 and some will be 1:50. There are a total of 20 covers some done by some pretty big names in comic art. I would say its going to cost $2-300 for all 20...maybe more.

chuckp

Thanos75 is right, ebay should be loaded with the Lego variants when they come out. If they are 1:25 variants even the less popular books from the list like Nova, Daredevil and Hawkeye should have close to 1,500 copies. At that rate, All New X-Men, X-Men and Superior Spider-Man will probably be over 3,000.

In addition, many of the issues coincide with the "Battle of the Atom" and "Infinity" events so the amounts could be a bit higher if shops order more books.

@vwong19 The variants stretch out over 8 weeks. It might be easier to get them off Ebay as opposed to hitting your local shop every Wednesday morning for the duration. You may want to talk to your shop to see how they handle variants and if they would pull them for you.

chuxtoybox

Thego said:

I used to collect comics. Variant covers were always pretty easy to come by.

I agree with this statement. Now I could be wrong but this doesn't seem to be a concept that is going to sell these books like hotcakes!
Sometimes a comic book store will order special books if you let them know in advance that you want them before they are released, and I can't see why these variants would cost more than the regular release. It's not like these are alternate covers being done by popular artists not usually associated with the book.
I do like the Hulk cover and the Wolverine. It helps to know the original covers to truly appreciate them in Lego form. :}

vwong19

@chuckp - I didn't know it was spread out over 8 weeks.

Has all the covers been previewed... I hope they do Avengers #4, FF Annual #3, or Giant Size X-Men.

pharmjod

I just had a friend tell me that the local comic book store usually prices the variants at $1 for every issue he has to order to get one, so 1:50 would be $50, 1:25 would be $25... etc. I said screw that. The store is ordering the comics 50 or more at a time typically regardless. Maybe not for the very obscure ones, but I'm not paying $25-$50 a book for these things. Most I would do is $10, maybe $15 for a cool one. Guess I likely wont' be getting any of them if they truly go that high.

Renegade007cjh

My usual comics supplier (here in the UK) was doing these variants on pre-order at about £15 GBP each... if there are 20 issues / covers, I can think of much more deserving ways to spend £300 on Lego goodies...

DanGP

As has been mentioned previously variant covers are used by the publishers to get stores to order more books thereby pushing up their market share. The stores know they can sell the books at a premium and it helps pay for all the extra stock they had to buy, much of which will end up in the dollar bins. Prices will vary depending on the book but these won't be cheap. They look great though. I'd love to see some as posters.

P.S. I'm British but for some reason I still find myself saying dollar bins for some reason. Pound bin just doesn't sound right.

khmellymel

^ It's been awhile since I collected comics (it's on hold while I live in the UK, after exchange they are outrageously expensive), but that seems REALLY steep to me. I don't think I've ever seen variants priced that way; that is, until they get a bit older.

Thego

According to this Diamond Previews list there are not only the "LEGO variants", but also "sketch LEGO variants" (whatever they entail?):

http://acecomics.co.uk/files/prev298.txt

dannyrww

My local comic book store ups the price on the variant covers :( The only title I buy anyways is Thor which is 3.99...I'll pass on paying ten just for a variant cover...but they probably would sell more to casual shoppers (especially kids) if the lego cover was the more common one.

CCC

Thanos75 said:

Marvel comics is not trying to get the regular reader to buy extra of a book or trying to get them to pick up a book for the first time. Thats what issue #1's are for. Marvel is trying to get dealers to order more. If you are a X-men reader then no matter what the cover is your still going to pick up your monthly book.

That's what I find strange. If they were all special edition covers, then the store could easily sell them to regular fans and lego SH fans too. They could order in more that way, knowing that they would sell well to two groups. Whereas this way, they order in many more, knowing that some of them will sell to comic fans as usual one in however many will sell at a premium, and the rest will not sell, and have to be discounted to get rid of them.

If they were regular priced ones, I'd buy half a dozen or so, to use as backdrops for displaying minifigs. As they won't be, I won't bother looking for them. I'll probably just find a nice high res scan of the covers online and print those instead.

Beav

I've managed to order a few of these, but they've been hard to Preorder for me. I'll spend the next year tracking them all down though, as they look fantastic.

magri

Thego said:

According to this Diamond Previews list there are not only the "LEGO variants", but also "sketch LEGO variants" (whatever they entail?):

http://acecomics.co.uk/files/prev298.txt

Sketch variants are normally just the pencilled/outlined covers, no colouring. These usually command a higher price too, though i've never really seen the appeal.

atkinsar

I went into my local comic book store a month or so ago and asked the guy about them. It's a small shop and he said he only be getting 1 or 2 variant copies max and only for about half of the comics. He said some of the comics were a little obscure and he'd never sell enough to justify the minimum order of 25 copies to get 1 variant. Apparently I was the first person in his store to ask about them so he's going to give me first refusal on each one he gets. Price-wise he didn't know but he said to expect between £7 and £12 each, he said he'd be pricing them based on average ebay prices so I'll just have to wait and see.

Generally I agree with those saying that these will be difficult to get hold of, but I will say that I'm no comic book expert.

princedraven

magri said:

Thego said:

According to this Diamond Previews list there are not only the "LEGO variants", but also "sketch LEGO variants" (whatever they entail?):

http://acecomics.co.uk/files/prev298.txt

Sketch variants are normally just the pencilled/outlined covers, no colouring. These usually command a higher price too, though i've never really seen the appeal.

If you are not keen on the Sketch variants, you are going to hate the 'Blank Sketch Variant's!" :-)

Beav

Yeah, £8.55 is what I've paid so far to pre-order them, so I'd say they'd be around that. £15 is pretty steep considering on the grand scheme of things, they aren't that rare and the standard comic costs £2.70.

Might see if my local comic shop is getting any in.

jimmyp1982

I use Disposable Heroes for my comics and they seem to be selling the LEGO variants for £8.55 (example below) which is around 3 times more than a regular issue. More reasonable than the supplier mentioned above but still too rich for me!
http://www.disposableheroes.co.uk/preorders/september-2013/preorders-for-11/09/13/marvel/x-men-5-lego-castellani-1-25-variant/prod_12966.html

magri

@princedraven Don't get me started. Why would you want to buy a comic with a bit of cardboard wrapped around it?

Renegade007cjh

Aren't "blank sketch variants" the covers which are completely empty - just the title and issue no. of the comic? I think the idea is to get the artist to sketch on them personally for you (which is great if you meet them at a convention, but useless for everyone else)!!

They look like this:

http://forbiddenplanet.com/101480-walking-dead-109-blank-sketch-variant/

On the subject of pricing for the Lego variants, I've double-checked my suppliers' pre-order lists and the standard 1-25 variants were between £9.99 - £14.99 whilst the 1-100 Sketch Variants were £29.99 - £39.99...

Beav

£40!? Sweet Jesus, that's a bit steep.

Oakenmold

Just spoke toy comic shop. The 1:25 is 9.99 and the 1:100 are 29.99. I think I'm getting a few

vwong19

http://variantcomics.com/About-variant-covers

Some information summarizing what others have said on this thread. I wonder if the interest for these variants will be higher or lower than the other variants they have issued in the past. I don't know how large of an impact the Lego Super Heroes fan base is, but if the prices of SDCC Lego minifig are any indication then yikes...

chuxtoybox

Well times have certainly changed. In my day if you wanted a variant cover it didn't cost extra, you just had to show up at the comic store before they sold out. :}
I don't see the appeal of just having the pencils of these covers. The artists have to stick with the way the characters look in minifigure form and copy the original covers, so it's not like there's going to be a lot of individual style.
I wonder if they will release a book with all of the covers together. Or posters. Calendars? T-shirts? (walks off mumbling different merchandise possibilities to himself) magnets, place-mats, beach towels....

chuxtoybox

Just looking at the Lego Frank Miller Wolverine cover gave me a thought. Does this mean they're going to release a Wolverine with orange and brown togs? I hope so!

khmellymel

Renegade007cjh said:

Aren't "blank sketch variants" the covers which are completely empty - just the title and issue no. of the comic? I think the idea is to get the artist to sketch on them personally for you (which is great if you meet them at a convention, but useless for everyone else)!!

They look like this:

http://forbiddenplanet.com/101480-walking-dead-109-blank-sketch-variant/

In my experience you're right, the blank variants are usually for people to take when they see a artist (usually at a con). Can't think of another reason for them really! Depending on how busy the artist is, they may charge you for a commission. I usually take sketch variants instead if I want it signed in a pen other than black, and only take blank variants if I know I want to drop money on a custom.

I have seen people take sketch variants to artists at cons to get, for example, a certain character coloured or enhanced, depending on what's on the cover. I don't really think it's very common though, I've seen more blanks.

chuxtoybox said:

Well times have certainly changed. In my day if you wanted a variant cover it didn't cost extra, you just had to show up at the comic store before they sold out.

My (used to be) regular comic store charges maybe a couple dollars more sometimes, sometimes it's the same, but I haven't been there in just over a year, so I guess the times, they are a-changing!

Beav

chuxtoybox said:

Just looking at the Lego Frank Miller Wolverine cover gave me a thought. Does this mean they're going to release a Wolverine with orange and brown togs? I hope so!

It would instantly become one of my favourite figures if they made that version. Looks brilliant.

danstraindepot

I was just quoted $1700.00 + Freight for 22 Lego Variants including 5 Sketch Variations (here in the US). So if anyone has found anywhere we can reasonably reserve an entire set I would be very interested! I have tried the big places like Mile High & Midtown Comics, and they will not pre-sell these.

vwong19

^ Interesting... that's about the same price you can get the set of 4 x 2013 SDCC Lego minifigures. For me, the minifigures are worth it, but not the books at that price.

BrickDancer

^Same here, waiting here on a quote for the lot of them also. Based on above, not looking forward to it either. And if in the same neighborhood, I'll pass and save the bucks.

pharmjod

I can certainly think of better LEGO related purchases to make with $1,700. It is disappointing though if that is what the market will bear on these covers. I may have to just check again in a few years and see if the prices have come down at all. :) I would honestly be content with high res vector images of all the covers for my computer / mobile devices.

BrickDancer

^i have 12 of them already. But blank on titling.

icey117

If anyone would like to post images the covers here it would be much appreciated :-)

danstraindepot

So I called a local comic shop and the owner was not excited by these variants. He did not order special for them. He thinks they will show up on eBay at reasonable prices. So the whole question is will the Lego Collectors, combined with the Comic Shop Owners seeming disinterest, create a serious collectible here? I think the $1700.00 is way too much, but I guess the preorder vs. wait & see what happens is really a gamble.

Beav

Think it might, for the 1:100 variants, but they keep their value anyway. I cant see them being more valuable than any of the Batman, Superman, X-Men etc variants.

Saying that, popped into Forbidden Planet earlier and asked if they could pre-order some for me, left them my details and a list, hopefully they will be having some of them in.

$1700 works out at an average of what, $85 a comic? Thats way more than theyre worth, even the rarest Batman/Spider-Man/Superman variants from the latest runs go for less than that.

I'll get what I can, then be hunting eBay constantly for the rest. American based members will have better luck through the sheer volume of comic shops/buyers/sellers over the pond.

graphite

$1700 is basically ordering the 25 copies of each to get the alt cover and then keeping the regulars to sell. I'm sure a comic store would love that but it is definitely overpriced.

danstraindepot

I agree completely with what both of you are saying, and yes I think that is exactly what the shops pre-selling these are doing, trying to pay for all the comics they order with the variant sale. I think I will take my chances as well. I probably would have been willing to pay about 1/2 that amount to lock them in though.....

chuckp

Just a quick reminder to everyone, the first 2 Marvel Lego variant comics are available this Wednesday. The issues are Mighty Avengers 1 and X-Men 5. For those who aren't comic regulars, this is what you are looking for:

AdeelZubair

Does anyone know the cost and where in London I could get these covers?

princedraven

@Adzbadboy it appears that the pricing is likely to be ad-hoc and pretty much whatever the shop thinks they can get away with...

I originally planned to look at Forbidden Planet, but after going in a few times they have told me they dont know if they will get any as they do not deal in variant covers, if they did they dont know how expensive or when they would have them, so I am looking into an alternative shop outside London now.

There was a place called Gosh, but not sure it's still there, and if it is they are likely to be very expensive there I would guess.

kyrotek

@Adzbadbay @princedraven Don't forget Orbital as well as Gosh, both will likely have the variants but pricing will depend on demand

princedraven

@kyrotek I am told that Orbital will be £30 each!! Clearly that is not happening!!

kyrotek

Ouch! That's one hot tamale, too hot...