Variant Covers: You want ’em, DC’s got ’em
May 11 — If DC learned anything from selling 52 variant covers to Justice League of America #1, it’s that the comic buying public can’t get enough variant covers.
Justice League of America #1 may have shattered sales records, but that might not have been as good as it sounds for the comics industry. First DC announced that June’s Superman Unchained #1 would have 75 variant covers, and that appears to be just the tip of the iceberg.
In an interview with IGN, DC co-publisher Dan DiDio said, “we’re really excited about it, too. It was one of those things we wanted to do, especially given this was Superman’s 75th anniversary year. With a major launch like this, with the variant covers, we really wanted to capture Superman through the years.” Asked what else DC is planning, DiDio, a man known for his hype, said cryptically, “we [do] have further plans, and we’ll announce them later in the year.”
Could there be any truth to the rumor that DC will start selling variant covers spearate from the comics themselves? That sounds ridiculous, but clearly people are not buying multiple copies of these variant issues because they intend to re-read the same story multiple times. As our source told us, “...think [of the] savings: less cost to print and produce with teh same [number of] sales. Why not try it?”
At DC comics in the future, you may be able to judge a book by its cover, because that’s all any book may be.
