Dispelling the myth of the INCENTIVE variant4358
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DocBrown private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Tedsaid You've phrased your questions here to lead to your conclusion...just sayin'.... |
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X51 private msg quote post Address this user | |
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Logan510 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Please don't get this thread locked. Do you guys realize how hard it is to be a (self) noted comics historian with literally hundreds if not thousands of posts "published" on comic message boards? Please, have some respect for all the hard work. |
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DocBrown private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Tedsaid Here, I'll phrase it in the opposing view: For well over a decade...perhaps 2002 for Dreamwave, 2004 for DC, Marvel, etc...publishers have used what is called the "incentive variant" to get retailers to order additional copies of regular books. In the language that the publishers have used...and here is an example: http://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1/1/3/819?articleID=110712 ...publishers have never represented their "ratios" as anything other than that: ordering formulas by which retailers can qualify to obtain/purchase the incentive. It is, therefore, presumptuous and erroneous to extrapolate those ratios as applying to the print runs of the various incentives. While I agree that it is certainly appealing to want to USE these numbers to come up with answers that have not been forthcoming from the publishers, it is, ultimately, an error to do so. Furthermore, we know that the publishers have routinely printed substantially in excess of what has been needed to fulfill qualifying orders, because 1. they have handed out incentive variants at various retailer conferences, sometimes long after the books were originally published, and 2. they have had sales of incentive variants through Diamond long after the books were originally published. So, either there is a scandal going on on a massive scale, and the publishers both stated that the ratios are, in fact, tied to print runs, and then ignored those ratios for their own gain, lying to their customer base, and having foreknowledge about which variants would become valuable on the aftermarket.... ...or, the publishers state the ratios for qualifying order purposes only, and print what they want, for whatever reason they want, without regard to what the public may or may not believe. Which, then, is the more likely scenario...? |
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det_tobor private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DocBrown It works for answering open ended questions the same way. The form and length of the answer can be whatever way he needs it to be. |
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DocBrown private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DocBrown Repeat. |
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X51 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DocBrown FWIW, I agree with most of what you say. |
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X51 private msg quote post Address this user | |
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DocBrown private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by X51 Thanks...it's appreciated. |
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50AE_DE private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by X51 +1 |
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 Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock
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Tedsaid private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DocBrown I win, because mine was shorter. :-) |
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 I had no way of knowing that 9.8 graded copies signed by Adam Hughes weren't what you were looking for.
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drchaos private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Tedsaid + 1,000 for brevity |
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I had no way of knowing that 9.8 graded copies signed by Adam Hughes weren't what you were looking for.
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drchaos private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Logan510  |
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X51 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Logan510 My understanding is that the board will only hold a certain number of threads and eventually they all get bumped out of existence as new ones are posted. I could be wrong, but I'd start printing pdf's now if you'll need this info in the future. |
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Logan510 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by X51 I wish I could have it in audio book form done in the voice of Bob Ross  |
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det_tobor private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by drchaos Who do you think you are Chris at @Midnight ? Points!!! |
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DocBrown private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Sometimes, one has to wonder what the motivations...the real ones, the hidden ones, the ones they don't share with anybody...are. For example...could some of the people who are in opposition be doing so because they have sunk a lot of money into these things, and don't want anyone upsetting the boat...? It's a question that has to be asked. |
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Logan510 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I have a lot of money invested in silicone backers |
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X51 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DocBrown I've found this to be true, but some people have wishful thinking and their logic for estimating rarity has worked in an environment that the publishers have created. I was fooled awhile back and bought a 50's comic that I thought was relatively rare. After I bought the comic, I discovered there had been a warehouse find. I think that's the risk in being the end consumer for these items. Flipping them is one thing, but getting stuck with them is another. |
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Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock
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Tedsaid private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DocBrown Who me? No. I only buy a few incentive covers, if I really like the art (or the book, or both). You said "Furthermore, we know that the publishers have routinely printed substantially in excess of what has been needed to fulfill qualifying orders, because 1. they have handed out incentive variants at various retailer conferences, sometimes long after the books were originally published, and 2. they have had sales of incentive variants through Diamond long after the books were originally published." I don't believe this is true. One can easily account for the extra hand-outs and sales based on the formula for ordering incentives, and the extra incentive covers that process produces. Even if a strict print run matches the ordering ratios. You have yet to refute that with anything other than conjecture. In fact, I believe you originally pointed out the fact that tiered ordering approach results in these extra copies. Particularly with the rarest incentives, such that a tiered approach results in, say, only 650 of 1000 incentives being sold. I'm pretty sure you've never cited an actual example of a publisher's give-away that could show the printing ratio was bogus. (I.e., DC giving away 1000 copies of a 1:200 incentive when the actual print run was less than 200,000.) |
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I had no way of knowing that 9.8 graded copies signed by Adam Hughes weren't what you were looking for.
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drchaos private msg quote post Address this user | |
| On the other guy's forum there were discussions about the "what I collect is great, what you collect sucks" mentality. People making money collecting and selling variants for a profit is no different than people collecting and selling gold or silver age comics. In the end they are all just funny books and there is no telling what till be in demand 100 years from now. As I pointed out earlier in this thread there are over 1,000 CGC graded copies of many valuable books (AF 15 being a prime example). The high value of these books is not due just to a low supply (more than 1,000 copies is not all that low) but primarily caused by the great demand for the first appearances of popular characters. The demand for relatively hard to find variants by popular artists is no different. |
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DocBrown private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Tedsaid Again, I refer to the video I posted earlier...personally, I think more information, not less, is better. Let's people come to their own conclusions. |
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I had no way of knowing that 9.8 graded copies signed by Adam Hughes weren't what you were looking for.
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drchaos private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Logan510 Some invest in silicone fronters.  |
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TheComicMint private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I think we would need to ask representatives of the publishing companies about how they manage incentive ratio variants. It is an interesting question but one that I do not believe I have enough information to answer. | ||
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det_tobor private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by drchaos Does this mean SNOW CONES for everybody? |
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X51 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by drchaos Since I don't buy new comics, there are VERY few covers that would even catch my eye as being a hard to find variant. I understand why variants are made. It's desperation to get the print runs up, otherwise the comics aren't making enough profit to pay the overhead expenses. I think variants are bad for the industry. They convolute the ordering process and prevent publishers from knowing which story content is well received and which isn't. It forces stores to do a crap shoot on ordering because there are no usable sales trends. The interiors and the covers are printed separately, so paying for an artist to draw a new cover or going with a blank sketch cover is the cheapest way to sell the interior pages multiple times. In the end though, it stop collectors from being completists and that is where it hurts the industry. Harris Comics is a prime example of a dead company that no one is trying to collect as back issues. They were one of the first to produce 10 variants on every comic they produced. Who really wants 10 copies or even 5 copies of the same comic? I don't. Collectors are reliable. They'll buy a series just to keep the numbering intact. Readers and art aficionados are chasing after their favorite creators and have no vested interest in the characters or the company. I supported one indy comic and bought all the solicited variants. I did it to support a creator. After, I preordered the comic, I discovered that there was one store that forked out money for a cover that had not been solicited. So now I own 3 common covers and if I want the harder to get cover, I have to pay some jacked up price. I can't take any pride in what I bought through Diamond. I have to get online and figure out how many other covers they made without telling anyone. I might even be willing to track down one limited distribution cover, but I'm not going to do it on every comic for every issue for every series. My answer is to buy nothing and I save A LOT of money by buying nothing. Unexpected bills pop up and I just write a check. I don't have any remorse or regrets about not buying 5 covers of the same comic. |
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I had no way of knowing that 9.8 graded copies signed by Adam Hughes weren't what you were looking for.
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drchaos private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DocBrown Brevity is the ability to present the same amount of information using less words. While more information in some cases is better breaking a large topic into smaller portions can be a way to better present information. The breaks also allow for more discussion and more input on each topic. This increases the likelihood of a dialogue instead of a monologue. |
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DocBrown private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Tedsaid No, not you. Quote: Originally Posted by tedsaid Sure...IF you start with the faulty premise that they printed 100,000 of the regular, so they then printed 1,000 of the 1:100 incentive. It's a faulty premise because you don't know how much they print, of either. When you start with a faulty premise, everything after that necessarily fails. Quote: Originally Posted by tedsaid You've come up with a completely hypothetical scenario...your 100,000 regular copies (unknowable) ----> 1,000 1:100 incentive copies (unknowable) ----> 650 qualifying orders (unknowable) ----> 350 "extra copies" available for handouts and sales (unknowable), but I've yet to refute your conjecture with anything other than conjecture...? Really...? I mean, those numbers look great, they really prove your point...until you realize that they are pulled completely out of thin air. It is certainly true. Have you ever been to a Diamond Retailer Summit...? At these summits, there are 500 or more retailers present...all of whom get various incentive variants from the publishers for coming. Where do you think these come from...? And when Diamond sells their incentive overstocks, they don't just sell a few dozen copies...they sell hundreds, and sometimes thousands. Quote: Originally Posted by tedsaid Don't be offended...but you're STILL repeating an error, which is: you don't know what the actual print run is...for anything. No one does. So, you can't say...no one can say...except the publisher and printer, and they aren't talking...if an "actual print run was less than 200,000." So, if you keep starting with a faulty premise...that they're "printing 1,000 copies based on a 100,000 print run of the regular", neither of which you know NOR can confirm...everything that follows is necessarily faulty, too. And you also can't say "well, you haven't shown any ACTUAL proof of a giveaway that was demonstrably greater than the ratio would dictate", because those numbers are a SECRET. We don't KNOW how many they printed, we don't KNOW how many qualifying orders there were, we don't KNOW how many they made for promotional purposes...all we know is that there have been REGULAR instances of these incentives for sale, at GREATER NUMBERS, and GREATER VARIETY than would be suggested by a strictly run program based on "ratios." And again...if hypothetically they only need 650, and they know that BEFORE they are printing them...why are they printing 1,000 copies...? To fulfill some expectation of a segment of the public that they had no right to make in the first place...? Assuming they actually are printing 1,000 copies, which no one knows. Why not 800? Why not 1200? Why not 2000? We simply don't know, and the publishers aren't telling. But ASIDE from that, the publishers HAVE given away AND SOLD 1:100 variants and others. Go HERE: https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/402666-110-125-150-1100-are-distribution-numbers-not-print-run-numbers/?page=9 See Chuck Gower's excellent analysis in response to jaydogrules, along with the charts of incentive variants that have been recently sold as overstock over the last couple of years. Here's an example of a famous liquidation: https://www.bleedingcool.com/2015/05/15/marvel-liquidates-miracleman-1-10-in-all-its-variants/ Understand what I'm saying, here: for all we know, the publishers DO print to the ratios. They could! But we don't KNOW, and that's the issue. And...there's NO evidence that suggests they do this, and plenty of evidence that suggests they don't (such as the language of the incentive offers, the LACK of any language that indicates that those ratios are applied any other way, the giveaways of incentives in large quantities, the sales of incentives in large overstock bundles on a regular basis, etc.) Doesn't it just make a lot more sense to say "the publishers print what they want, for their own purposes, for reasons that they don't make public" than it does to make leaps and conjectures about what they do based on ordering formulas applied to sales numbers to derive potential print runs that may not, and likely does not, have any relation to either of those previous numbers....? What happened was, some people came along and said "gosh, I wonder how many of these they printed", then said "well, if I take the ratio (first mistake) and apply it to the sales numbers (second mistake) I can get an estimated print run of the variants!" And, because the numbers were neat and tidy, and the publishers didn't do anything to dispel the notion...because, of course, they LIKE the idea that people think their publications are rarer than they really are, mind...and VOILA! "1:50 variant? Comichron reports 56,274 print run, so that means they only printed 1,125 copies of the variant, VOILA!" Except that Comichron doesn't report print runs, and nothing the publishers have said has ever even hinted that they "print to the ratios"...and even if they did, we don't know what the print run of the regular cover actually is, and we have no idea how many were sold in the UK, and how many were sold in Hong Kong, and how many were sold in Australia, and we're using estimates to make further estimates, and we're so far down the rabbit hole, it's become useless. We KNOW how much of the print run of LOTDK #1 was orange: 25%. DC TOLD us that. We CAN make a reasonable estimate of the print run of that variant, because we know (it was reported in the comics press of the time) that the print run was about 850,000 copies. |
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conditionfreak private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I remember an episode of King of Queens, when Doug found out his dog had died three times and his parents always went out and found another that looked just like it. And he didn't know the dog ever died. He thought his dog had lived 27 years. But the one he had now was actually Rocky IV. Then when his wife Carrie told him about it. He hated her. She responded that he needed to face life as it is and that life was not made of marshmallows. Doug told his wife he was mad at her, because it didn't matter if the world was made of marshmallows or we just THINK it is made of marshmallows. Either one of those and we are happy. But the truth would make us sad. She ruined his happiness with the ugly truth. Do you have any marshmallows? Suddenly I'm craving some.  |
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Quote:Originally Posted by drchaos If I were you, this is where I'd put a cat playing with yarn pic, right...? However, I'm not you. As far as your opinion here goes, do you not understand how condescending it is to be lecturing other people on how you think they should express themselves...? Your points may be valid, or they may not...but what business is it of yours to tell other people how they should post, especially when you've shown no concern whatsoever for me as a human being? You've demonstrated quite the contrary, in fact. It would be one thing if what you said was from a position of caring concern; it's quite another from yours. IF I thought you cared about me, on any level, it would be much easier to consider what you had to say. And, lest you protest again about me lecturing about trolling, that's trolling we're talking about, not civil disagreement. Lecturing you about posting kitten with yarn pics as a harbinger of my "imminent suspension" isn't even close to the same level as you lecturing others about how they should post. I get it. You're offended by reading. Message received, multiple times. I'm not going to change my style, and you're not going to change yours. I don't lecture you about it...how about you afford everyone else the same courtesy...? Let's move on, shall we...? |
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