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The Death of Comics Comes Wrapped in Foil

Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 10:19 am by Jamie

Foil is BOO

Just got this in the old email hopper from Marvel Comics:

Marvel is pleased to unveil the special variant covers to Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1, Ultimate Comics Avengers #1 and Ultimate Comics Armor Wars #1 utilizing the brand-new Foilogram cover treatment! Part foil, part hologram, these reflective covers will jump at you from shelves! Watch as Spider-Man’s webbing catches the light! Examine the intricate technology of Tony Stark! And, yes, that’s Captain America’s shield shining back at you!

“This is Marvel doing the nineties right,” explained David Gabriel, Marvel Comics Senior Vice President of Sales & Circulation. “We’re taking two of the most popular cover treatments of all time—foil and holograms—to create an all new kind of cover, as a ‘thank-you’ to fans who’ve been demanding this kind of variant! Retailers and fans don’t need to worry. We’re only doing this on a limited basis. You won’t see one on Ms Marvel #46 or Lockjaw and the Pet Avengers #4. We’re using them to mark very special occasions…such as the launch of Ultimate Comics line.”

As the Ultimate Comics line launches with Marvel’s top characters and top creators, you can’t miss the star-studded Ultimate Comics Avengers #1, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #1 and Ultimate Comics Armor Wars #1, now with Foilogram Variant Covers! Fans, speak to your retailers now about how to secure one of these variant covers!

That’s right, Virginia, Death comes wrapped in foil.

Who are these “fans who’ve been demanding this kind of variant” and why haven’t their taints been kicked in? Each of these fuckers will set you back $4.00. And we’re not talking about a 32 page delux comic. We’re talking a regular 22 page deal with some shiny shit all over it. Ugh.

Variant covers never used to raise the price. I mean, that was the whole fucking point! If a shiny new cover cost more money, the kids wouldn’t buy five of the same comic. All the variant covers that cluttered the market in the 90s were all regular price so it didn’t feel like we were cheating ourselves picking up three or four of the same exact issue. Jacking up the price for a new shiny foil thingy is just… well it’s just fucking mean.

It makes it really hard to support the big two when they do silly shit like this. Please, ask your retailers to stock the regular editions and leave these foil monstrosities in the warehouse.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 at 10:19 am and is filed under Comics, Dumb Ass. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “The Death of Comics Comes Wrapped in Foil”

  1. AvatarElucidarian
    Posted: Jul 9th, 2009 at 10:42 am
    1

    Seems to me that 3.95 will soon be a base price. I started collecting, damn, nearly 20 years ago when the price just went up to 1.25.

  2. AvatarJami
    Posted: Jul 9th, 2009 at 10:51 am
    2
    Author Comment

    That’s dumb. I can pay $4 for a comic that gives me maybe an eighth of a story or I can pay $10 for a couple of hundred pages and get a full manga comic? The industry is pricing floppies out of existence!

  3. AvatarMcDucky
    Posted: Jul 9th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
    3

    The problem with alternative covers in the comic industry is that they were limited in production run, so only so many were available to fans. This ridiculously inflated the price of the alternative covers, and fans began to file complaints with Marvel, DC, Vertigo, etc. about how unfair the present alternative cover runs were.

    The biggest explosion of fan outrage was the limited run of alternative covers for the Infinite Crisis comics that - if a collector wanted all of them - would have to pay up to $6k to get the last one. Micheal Turner also faced angry fans here and there when he did limited runs on certain comic covers.

    This is part reaction to that - to mass produce the alternative covers in bulk so that fans can own all the covers with no hassle. I’m not a huge collector, so it never bugged me as I saw it as a way to create value in comic books.

    Also, comics are increasing in price to $3.89 for Marvel, and $3.99 for DC/Vertigo sometime in November, I think.

  4. AvatarCharmCityShinobi
    Posted: Jul 9th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
    4

    The price for comics has been $3.99 for a while now, at least on the events and the like. When Civil War was coming out a couple years ago, each of the individual issues was $3.99, regardless of cover. Same with the currently ongoing War of Kings. Most of the regular series are still $2.99, but their annuals are priced at $3.99.

    Y’know what is even worse about the “revisiting of the 90’s”? They’ve brought back Ben Reilly back into the main Spider-man line. He’s still dead, as far as I know, but they brought him up in the annual that came out Wednesday and word on the ‘net is that they’re going to revisit the Clone Saga.

  5. AvatarKevin
    Posted: Jul 9th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
    5

    I found that the only way to really enjoy a Marvel property these days is to watch the cartoons and movies. Reading the comics is… a chore, to say the least, ever sense the political allegories became cool. No thanks, I’ll just buy my entertainment from Japan if you’re going to keep that horseshit up.

  6. AvatarTyler
    Posted: Jul 13th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
    6

    is anyone else bothered by Spideys face looking like a giant skillet?

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