Because they want some of the spec money, they certainly have no problem screwing with the 2ndary market. They won’t stop until the market crashes, again
1 Like
Oh, more 1:25 2nd print ratios to ruin first print spec…Lots of them too. Awesome, Marvel…just awesome.
I blame Marvel for being greedy for short-term gains that ultimately damage the market. I also agree retailers and consumers shouldn’t chase. But, I think we’ve already trended in that direction. It’s why you see Marvel cancel so many of the second printing garbage that goes to FOC. Lots are being cancelled even with 1:25 stretches.
On Marvel’s end, it’s essentially asking lots of shops to buy the ratio direct on FOC. Why do I say that? Most don’t get orders for nothing-of-note second prints so they’re saying “reach and sell the ratio.” But, collectors realize that the open orders are garbage now because the market gets flooded with these unclaimed open order second prints.
I’ll gladly buy Image later prints though because they don’t have these ratios that lead to the open orders being flooded. You just end up having modest collector/spec along with organic readership reorders.
2 Likes
It pointless for them to do it when there isn’t even enough interest in the 1st print. I get it with books like the doom one shot
If stores arent ordering the 2nd print 1:25 variants. how is this seller able to get SOOOOOOOOOO many ???
Is Marvel having fire sales ???
1 Like
He’s a Diamond backdoor account.
1 Like
Yeah, most of these 1:25 second print ratios are not a “rare” as some dealers want you to think.
1 Like
They would be rare if not for Diamond posting them for sale.
2 Likes
Is it greed though or just trying to run a business with profits? I would say it’s greed if they started selling “ratios” incentives that retailers and consumers chase at a premium. We have to remember, they’re just trying to sell as many $4 or $5 books that they can to make revenue and ultimately profit… We’re talking probably less than 50 cents profit for each book when all said and done…
Marvel’s market is to just sell books while we the consumers created this entirely different market where we cry foul in cases like this when ultimately it’s our own faults for creating such beasts…
3 Likes
I once read that Disney execs wanted to scrap the Marvel comic division when they bought Marvel but were convinced they needed it even if it barely made a profit as it created the movie ideas. I’m not sure how true that is or if it is just some random internet rumor, but it sounds plausible enough.
1 Like
Oh I’m willing to bet the comics makes Marvel almost zero extra money… it’s why I don’t cry “greed” since even the ratio chaser variants they sell for pennies to the distributor.
1 Like
I believe publishers should be making decisions that benefit the medium in the future. To make decisions on a corporation’s quarterly model, will self-cannibalize the industry.
You see a lot of decisions being made that push out the brick and mortar and small retailers. The fewer stores that exist, the less relevant and accessible the medium becomes.
Things like exclusives, ratio backdoors, jacking up cover prices, terrible print quality, etc. all harm your traditional LCS.
The supplier of a product in a medium has a duty to be a good steward of the industry. If not, they’ll guide it to failure and obsolescence.
2 Likes
All good points but we need the retailers onboard too… one of the many problems I see in this industry is the retailers themselves, they’re acting like consumers when they should be the business of moving product rather than playing the secondary market game, etc.
I think the problems start with the consumers, the publishers are just selling to what the consumers are demanding in a sense and when I say consumers, most retailers are also consumers when they start buying stock they can’t necessarily sell because they chase the ratio variant to sell at a premium while all the extra overstock just to acquire such variant sit for weeks, months or even years.
The retailers need to push back on the publishers… as do the consumers. Yet when we got tweedle dee and tweedle dum chasing ratio variants because they’re “rarer”… then the problems start there. There’s no simple fix but it all starts with the consumers, if we stop buying into the publishers games then the publishers will stop… Occam’s Razor.
2 Likes
I think a lot of it is desperation from retailers. The margins are so slim and the dollar these days doesn’t go very far. It’s nearly impossible to just sell NCBD releases and say you can pay the bills.
I’m not saying retailers aren’t to blame. I think exclusives are bad for the industry and there’s entire “comic book shops” that base their whole business on them. Also, you’ve got the large online behemoths offering 30-40% discounts which chokes out all the other shops. It’s partially due to better volume discount rates and also flexing their positions to stifle competition.
It’s tough to afford a physical shop unless you can really diversify
I don’t know too many comic shops that just do comics. They also do board games, toys, Funko Pops, tabletop games, video-games, and so forth. Just doing comics has to be a razor-thin margin.
Yeah and even if you make it work, it’s the old collections bought for cheap that would be bringing in the actual money.
2 Likes
ULTIMATES #3 DIKE RUAN 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
ULTIMATES #3 INHYUK LEE VIRGIN 2ND PRINTING 1:25 VARIANT
X-MEN #2 RYAN STEGMAN 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
X-FACTOR #1 BOB QUINN 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
X-FACTOR #1 EMA LUPACCHINO VIRGIN 2ND PRINTING 1:25 VARIANT
AVENGERS #17 JOSHUA CASSARA 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #7 MARCO CHECCHETTO 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
SPIDER-GWEN: THE GHOST-SPIDER #3 MARK BROOKS 2ND PRINTING VARIANT
1 Like
