Yeah, I’ve only gotten the Mayhew (I really like the cover). I had the TFAW in my cart for a couple of hours and dropped it; I like the cover, but I’ve got several Keeve 1:25s now and even though the picture is cool, I’m passing. Definitely not giving Wanted my money, and I’m cool with just not nabbing any of these others. I can see how this gets to be a pernicious treadmill and I’m not biting.
(Although I did go for that really sweet Proctor Valley Road TFAW cover mmmm mmmm)
That tells me it’s going to be hard to get…and prices will rise for those here in the US that want it.
Is HR#1 4th print on TFAW??
Yeah why isn’t high republic #1 4th print up at TFAW?
With HR #3 and Adventures #2 dropping the same week, which will be the book to have if Ro is in both?
Feels like a tough call. HR is probably a larger print run (and sometimes the lower print book wins by virtue of being rarer), and HRA #1 had a cameo appearance so it’s got the continuity going for it. On the other hand, the plethora of exclusives for HR #3 (two with Ro on the cover) have put that book front and center for people. Get both I guess.
Edit: Ro is actually a part of the HRA storyline, unless something shifts for HR #3. I’m kinda expecting the adventures to win out but what do I know!
I hate exclusives, so I’m putting my money on the 1:25 & the 1:10.
It will be up on Monday. It FOCs next week so there’s still time.
We haven’t had everyone able to be working today because of various people losing power and Internet service cutting on and off in different areas around Portland with the snow/ice, so the priorities were anything FOCing this week and anything more time sensitive.
What do we think on this Forbidden Planet cover? I tend not to buy store exclusives, but this one is nice.
Ding ding ding… retailers don’t care about the guts of the book as long as their cash register keeps ringing up the inflated prices of these store variants.
These stores pay their Diamond discount for each copy ($1.50) for their variants (virgin or trade) then sell them at 10x-20x-30x-50x for each book, to their lucky customers. How long will the customers have to wait to see those same returns, if any return at all? I’d rather invest my money, from a speculation stand point, in an actual key. To each their own. 
The cost is actually slightly higher than that. The $1.50 you mentioned per book is the cost per book. You still have to pay things like; the artist for the art, the plate change fee (two if you do a Virgin and a trade dress), freight for 3,000-5000 comics, which can be very pricy. In the end you are really looking at (depending on who did the art) upwards of $5-7 per book for an exclusive.
$5-$7 per book? $7 x 4000 (3000 trade, 1000 virgin) = $28,000. Do you think that these shops are investing $28G to do one exclusive? I don’t think so.
The artists fee is maybe $1 extra per book ($4000), and shipping is not thousands of dollars. Hundreds, yes but not thousands.
The stores do pay $1.50 (approx) for each book. Let’s add another $1 per for artists fees, and about .30 per for shipping, as I believe that is the number that the retailer have thrown out there for shipping fees on larger orders.
That still brings us to only a $2.80 per book. A far cry from $5-$7, imo.
I may be way off base with my artists fees, but I seriously can’t believe that these comic stores are paying these artists $10000-$15000 to do a cover for a store variant.
For 500 print run books that I have done in the past the cost have been $4-5 a book. The more you do of course the less the cost per issue but yes, some of the stores are kicking out tons of money no these books. Especially for big named artists. But it’s way more than the $1.50 per issue you claimed
The cheapest covers I ever did were the Black #1 as I didn’t have to pay an artist, I did the cover myself, the Solar Flare #1, again no artist charge because a reader did the art and I did most of the colors, and the blank Enormous because there was no art.
That would make more mathematical sense, indeed. I thought we were discussing Marvel store variants. But, even $4 - $5 is quite a bit cheaper than $5 - $7. Jus’ sayin’.
But, I am not defending store exclusives. Look at TFAWs covers. They are pricing cheap but they still have to be doubling their money and that includes issues they are holding back to cover damages.
A lot of store variants also use reused art for their virgin variants (looking at you, known comics). I believe my original analysis holds much truer to these particular variants. Meaning, shops are only paying $1.50 per book, give or take, from Diamond.
I can honestly say there is no way, even if they reuse art, that the books are costing them $1.50 a copy. There are a lot of fees and stuff that could not be absorbed in that price point
And I am not attacking them. We are simply discussing them, and their wholesale costs. Nothing more. I think it’s a healthy conversation to have. We can have vastly different opinions, and at the same time, we can still discuss it civilly.
Well, if they don’t have artists fees, then their overhead costs would be wholesale ($1.50 or so on a $4 cover, with the largest diamond discount) + .3 per for shipping. $1.80 - $2 per book, at the most, for a larger shop. The Math is the math, Tony. What am I missing here?