When you work at a comic book store long enough you start hearing the same questions on repeat: Who would win in a fight? What’s a good place to start reading? Where’s Sheldon and Leonard? For the record, there’s a special place in comic book retail hell for people who ask that last question. But in contention for one of the most asked questions I hear every day: which cover is cover A and which is cover B? We live in the age of variant covers and they can overwhelm even the most experienced Wednesday Warrior.
For the newcomers, a variant cover is one that differs from the standard cover, which is usually referred to as cover A or main cover. Variant covers haven’t been around for all that long in the entirety of comic book history. The very first variant cover was Man of Steel #1 back in 1986 (trust me, I did the research for my graduate thesis). They utilized a differing cover to publish through a direct market, primarily comic book stores, and an indirect market that still sold comic books through newsstands. The idea behind the two covers was to entice the reader to go searching for both variant covers to complete their collections. Completionists abound in comic book fandom and are largely the motivation for publishers to utilize variant covers.
There are two factors that decide whether a book will receive a variant cover, the popularity of the book and the size of the publisher. Minor publishers may not garner enough purchases to warrant the cost of printing a higher amount of copies. Small publishers may also be unable to afford multiple artists drawing multiple covers. The big publishers—Marvel, DC, IDW, and Image—have their own process of determining how many covers are attached to a certain issue.
DC within the last year relaunched all their titles under the new Rebirth event which limited the amount of incentive variants (we will get to them later) and mandated two shelf variants for each issue of every title. A shelf variant is fairly straight forward, it is a variant found on the shelf with the main cover and almost always equally priced. Image is a creator-owned company, so most creators decide how many covers a book will get, but the creators pay the expenses for any variant cover artists. Some exceptions are made for their best sellers like Walking Dead or The Wicked+ The Divine. IDW primarily sticks to two shelf variants and one incentive variant (later, I promise!) for all titles publisher-wide with some very few exceptions, like a first issue.
Marvel is another beast entirely when it comes to variant covers. Many comic book fans have coined a new term due to Marvel’s critically commented overuse of alternate covers: variant fatigue. Along with a standard B cover on major titles, Marvel utilizes a common practice of themed variants, connecting variants for cross-overs and events, and a large number of gimmicked variants. More than often, Marvel’s theme variants are based on characters—as I write this article this month Marvel is printing Thor variants to mark the end of Mighty Thor and New Mutant variants to kick-off the start of a new New Mutants run. Connecting covers are fairly simple; a large image is drawn which is broke up across different issues either within one title or multiple titles in a cross-over series. When these covers are placed next to each other, they connect to complete the full image. Gimmick variants can include the three-year running action figure covers which began when Marvel started publishing Star Wars back in January 2015.
Now when we look at a shelf full of multiple covers it can be a huge pain to figure out which is the main cover and which is the variant cover. There’s one tried-and-true method to determine covers, but surprisingly in the last year many publishers are helping out their customers. IDW in particular is great when it comes to variants, almost every issue they publish tells the customer next to the issue number whether it is cover A or cover B. Image and Archie are catching up, with a few exceptions, all of their issues will say cover A, B, C, D, etc., usually on the back by the issue’s barcode. DC sticking to the two shelf covers has begun placing an indicator that says “Variant Cover” by the barcode of their cover B. Take a look at the Super Sons #11 and #12 and see the difference at the barcode that indicates which is a main cover from Francis Manapul and which is a variant cover by Dustin Nguyen. Marvel (who arguably should lead the way here) is the last hold out for easily indicating to their customers. SOMETIMES they indicate if a cover is a variant, but with their multitude of shelf covers a variant label doesn’t tell you if it’s cover b or cover c.
Don’t fret, though, reader! As I said there’s a nearly universal, industry standard in comic books to utilize a number code within their barcodes. Let’s go once again back to our issues of Super Sons #11 and #12 and their barcodes I've zoomed in on. There is a five-digit code at the end of every barcode: the first three digits indicate the issue number (#11 is 011 and #12 is 012), the fourth digit indicates the cover (#11 is 1 for cover A, #12 is 2 for cover B), and the final digit indicates the printing, which really isn’t important for this article. If you want to know if you hold cover A, B, C, D, E, …you get the picture…look at the second to last number in the issue’s barcode.
The final piece to the puzzle of understanding variant covers. Incentives! You’ve been begging, and I have the answers. Incentive covers are variant covers that are usually a higher price than the main cover. They get their name not because there’s necessarily an incentive to the customer, but because they are an incentive to comic book stores to order more main covers. Take for instance Mighty Thor #705 out tomorrow, March 21. It will have five total covers with two incentive covers. Cover D drawn by Jee Hyung costs $50 and cover E drawn by Stanely “Artgerm” Lau costs $150. These prices are subjective per store, but the majority of store owners stick to a similar price.
Despite being incredible art and totally worth the money if you are a fan of Thor with a little cash to burn, there’s a reason they are so expensive. The usual metric is fairly simple, for every 50 copies printed of cover A any comic book store can order one cover D. Similarly, for every 150 copies printed of cover A any comic book store can order one cover E. Hence the incentive to order more to have more of a supply for the lower printed covers. This essentially means they are harder to acquire for smaller stores that can’t afford to order more than one cover E. Many small stores won’t even be able to meet the quota to acquire one cover E. If a store owner wants a copy for the store, it is meant to INCENTIVIZE him/her to sell more customers on picking up Mighty Thor #705 and warrant the large purchase order.
Variant covers give the customer options. Whether you follow a particular artist, love the option to pick out that month’s best cover, get suckered in for that gimmicky stylized cover, or want to pick up every possible cover to complete your collection. Whichever cover you pick up on Wednesday, now you will know how to distinguish your selection.
Let me know below any questions or comments if this was helpful. If it wasn’t, yell at me and tell me how I could have been clearer! Also, what do you want to learn next? What should my next 101 topic cover?