Still such a small sampling…
Not really… still costs them to print and they’re selling to the distributors for a fraction of the cover retail price…
And I’m still sure the majority of the buyers are speculators, flippers and or collectors, buying more than a single copy each.
Every issue of new material is something Marvel has to pay to print and then sell wholesale.
I don’t know what Marvel residuals are like, but we know a reprint means they’re not paying for a new script or new art.
I also don’t know what numbers the first AF15 facsimile sold, but with them now doing facsimile variants and foils, I don’t think it’d be a big surprise to rival or surpass sales on a title like Captain Marvel.
I don’t know why Marvel and DC don’t start from the beginning of their top tier long established characters and reprint the whole damn thing as facsimiles. There are spider-man books I will probably never own, and fantastic four and avengers books I just don’t care enough to spend a ton of money on. But if they printed facsimiles I would grab them.
It’s the lowest of low hanging fruit for them. I absolutely don’t get it, either.
And, on top of that, they could probably do ASM 1-50 facsimiles, and have them sell better than some of the choices they are currently making. ![]()
How do reprints/facsimiles affect the value of the originals? Does it hurt them because you can get the art/story for cheap?
What are your thoughts on facsimiles of old books with new covers?
Not at all. For me they are placeholders until I can get them or in case I can’t get them. Plus they are fun reads. Doesn’t compete with buyers looking for the real thing.
i would buy the entire marvel silver age in facsimile if they would make it. I have the masterworks but I would love to have these. Instead they do facsimiles of $10 books.
I don’t think it hurts Golden Age, Silver Age, or big '70s Bronze keys. Once you cross into books published after the creation of the direct market, and how much more available those original keys are, it’s a little more interesting.
Multiple times, I’ve seen some desirable books show up for sale at local comic shops just ahead of, or right after, a facsimile release. It doesn’t seem to make much of a long-term dent in prices for the originals, though.
I wonder how difficult is it to reproduce these. There may be some unseen costs, and Marvel is entirely averse to that. The printing process is so vastly different now from the 60s, that maybe the original physical printing plates are toast or need massive retouching. They are 60 years old, and digital files don’t exist.
Most if not all Marvel books have been digitized already so they might be using those but yeah, the pages with ads would need to be digitized if not already done…
Honestly I think they should make these facsimiles using newsprint. That would lower their costs and really bring back the nostalgia for most, along with the roller holes too… if you gonna make a replica, might as well make it even closer to the original. Just add a water mark on the pages to prevent people from swapping out original covers for the insides… ![]()
DC is already doing this with high quality newsprints for their facsimiles and they look and feel great, like you’re reading an original copy fresh off the shelf. That’s another area where DC is kicking marvel’s ass.
Oh nice. I’m not a DC guy mostly and haven’t bought any of their facsimiles.
I wonder if they are paying the original artists & writers or their estates? My guess is no…
Marvel make some really odd decisions.
In 2024 they released monthly facsimiles for Amazing Spider-Man #252 to 263. 12 different issues. Only one of which makes any sense.
It seems unlikely to me that lots of people were wanting a facsimile version of 262 (the weird photo cover)
I finally found mine to list. Thought I’d bought two at the time but only the 1 but whatever… can’t pass up this new value to let it go.
Here is a bit of an oddity. The 2020 facsimile of x-men 266 sells anywhere between $15-$25. You can tell the difference from the 2024 version from the price ($3.99 vs $4.99), but it’s probably more recognizable by how the bar code covers half of the area where the original UPC was (and part of the artist’s signature)…so there’s this odd rectangular black box remaining…


