Welcome to Variant Watch where each week I’ll be discussing the new hot variant covers of the week.  As all comic collector’s know, each week on Wednesday Comic book Santa Claus flies around to every comic shop in the world delivering that week’s new comics and there is much celebration.

Now the avid collectors also know that with each shipment of new comics comes a select few variant covers of regular issues.  Why are they special you ask?  No, not because they cost two-to-fifty times that of the regular issues.  Variants are rare and “rare” is a word that comic collectors both love and hate.  When you have a “rare” book you love it.  When you are looking at “rare” books on Ebay and questioning your station in life because you can’t even picture a time when you’ll be able to drop $500.00 on a comic book, “rare” can be an awful term.

Click through the jump to see my picks for Variant Watch!


Approximately 30 years ago Marvel Comics gave collector’s the first variant comics that anyone cared about by having different prices on the same book.  Collectors went insane and stormed shops looking for these variants and today comics like Star Wars, Marvel Comics 1977, with a .35-cent price tag sells for up to $2000.00 in Near Mint condition whereas the .30-cent version sells for $85.00.  Take that regular cover!

What have we learned from this history lesson?  Variant covers are awesome, always go up in value and give the collector a general sense of well being and superiority unachievable in other aspects of their life.  Right?  Wrong.  Some variant covers are stinkers that end up sitting in back issue bins forever priced just slightly higher than the regular editions and patiently waiting, like ugly dogs at the pound, for a kindly collector that will take them home during a 50%-off sale.

Now you’re confused I’m sure but that’s why Variant Watch is here.  Each week I’ll discuss the variant comics hitting the stands that Wednesday in order to help you, the loyal reader, make an informed variant comic book purchase that will make you the envy all the neighborhood nerds.

This Wednesday’s Variant of the Week:

The Walking Dead #50 Variant

Walking Dead #50, variant cover by Erik Larsen and Ryan Otley.

Originally this was going to be 1-in-100 variant but the good people at Image comics were feeling merciful and changed the ratio to a more affordable 1-in-25.  Unless your comic shop is run by a criminal these variants should sell in the $10-$14 range and will probably disappear very quickly.  The cover looks great and is a great way for Erik Larsen to announce his return to comics after stepping down as Image Editor-in-Chief this past weekend at Wizard-World Chicago.  Welcome back Erik.  Personally I’ve never been a big fan of Larsen’s but this really is a great cover.

This Wednesday’s Stinker Variant of the Week:

Batman #678 Variant

Batman #678, variant cover by Tony Daniel.

Ok, whose great idea was making the regular series artist’s cover for Batman #678 the variant cover opposite of Alex Friggin Ross.  Really DC?  REALLY?  Is anyone going to look at the Amazing  painted Ross cover for $2.95 and then opt for the Tony Daniel cover that looks like any other Batman cover and pay upwards of $5.00 for it?  No offense Tony, I like your stuff.  But you’re no Alex Ross.  Was this a DiDio idea?  For those of you who don’t know Dan DiDio is the Editor-in-Chief at DC comics and the man I blame for everything I don’t like about DC comics.  Where was I?  Oh yeah… This is like choosing between a  Big Mac for $20.00 or a Full Rack of St Louis-style barbecued ribs for $5.00.  Anyone who says they’d prefer the Big Mac is an idiot.  Again no offense Tony.

So what do you think?  This is a new column/blog and I want your opinions.  Let me know if this is helpful info, just fun to read or completely moronic and borderline unintelligible.

Give me your feedback and together we’ll make Variant Watch THE GREATEST VARIANT COMIC BOOK BLOG OF ALL TIME.  See you next week nerds.