You gotta wonder if these shops really know they’re competing with 100 other shops with exclusives…and maybe issue #1 is not the best book to dump money into an exclusive for their store…
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And worse have crappy art with the exclusives. I am looking at TFAW, but there are others. Maybe they get a good deal, and it helps with the ratios.
I talked to a shop recently that told me it would be $12k or so to do an exclusive for Mando #1 and that includes the art. I may be off by a few thousand (the conversation was a month or so ago) but it was in that range. Let’s say it’s $15k just in case.
If you split up the exclusives like Mayhew, Eastside, KRS Comics, 7ate9Comics, Comic Mint and Mutant Beaver are doing then it’s ~$2,500 per shop. All you gotta do at that point is sell 50 virgin/trade sets at $50 and you’ve essentially broken even.
Then your profit comes from the other 50-100 sets, couple hundred trade dress copies, and the ratios you get. I know there are other costs involved but using simple math its not that difficult to imagine it being worth the effort. Especially when you consider the amount of new people who will be coming to your shop to get one who don’t normally shop there.
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there is a reason why so many stores have a new variant every week,
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Seems like there’s better money in selling store exclusives than regular comics!
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regular comic you can only sell for cover price, but a store incentive you can sell for 20-50 dollars, but both cost the store practically the same amount of money
listing there own book, shameless
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While usually I too look down on these types of practices…but in this case, the book in question really has been on fire. Every stream and sale someone asks for it, and either way conversation always starts up about the cover and potential of the characters. They dont need to pump up this particular book…the market is doing it for them
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really besides this chat i haven’t really seen anyone mention it. that being said they will keep putting it on the lists and having their youtube/instagram friends pump it, so they can sell the remaining copies at ebay prices.
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It is shameless, but if buyers keep eating this nonsense up, sellers aren’t the only ones to be pointing fingers at.
The comments on that list are brutal.
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I understand it may meet their formula for what to report in any given week…sales are sales, and these are facts.
However, they could (maybe should) just add it to the honorable mentions and fully disclose that they are just reporting the news…
I assume they are not selling any more copies from their website at the moment if it’s that hot and commanding that amount. If they were, then that may be more suspect…
A couple more exclusives. The Lashley for Stadium just went on sale. The Maleev for Golden Apple opens up pre-orders at 11am PST I believe. Not 100% sure on time.
Still holding out hope for the Aja cover…but none of these stand out to me.
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I agree. However I do love the Mayhew one. Mainly because I love that scene from the show. Art is fine but nothing crazy.
Are any of the Star Wars spec crew buying 10+ Books of cover A like we were doing for HR? I do think this book will have long, long term appeal and will probably be worth a bit of scratch down the road. Thoughts?
I am keeping 10 of cover A. They will print a ton and I don’t see it being worth much out of the gate but it’s still The first time we get mando and grogu in a traditional comic.
Even if the print run is crazy high those characters are some of the most popular characters ever for star wars so it’s worth the “gamble” to hang onto a few more than I normally would. Hard to think they would be less than cover price long term so the risk is minimal in my opinion.
My personal plan is to create 10 sets of the full 8 issue run, keep at least one each of the ratios, and then collect the other variants that I like. Not buying every store exclusive since there are going to be so many. And none of the exclusives scream “the one” to me. I do personally really like the Mayhew one because I love the moment on the cover but that’s for my PC not really a spec thing.
I’m also going to keep a bunch of the JTC action figure variants because, while they’re not really my thing, I think people will be interested in NM+ copies of that down the road.
Essentially I think the Cover As may never be worth a ton because of the print run but I think its likely safe that they wont lose money. Again just my opinion.
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Hoping for a second print here…stash a few cover A’s but order a little more of the second print 
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it will got to a 4th print almost assuredly, 2-3 weeks after book comes out the sdcc takes place, will there be a special sdcc variant?
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