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People who buy comics for variant covers only is "upsetting" to Chip Zdarsky, and wishes the industry would just print variants as prints to save trees
How Chip Zdarsky learned to stop worrying and love variant covers
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If you’ve been a comic reader or collector for more than five minutes, chances are you’ve come across variant covers. Variants were once a rarity that publishers only used for anniversary issues of certain titles and other milestones, but now they’re arguably one of the biggest parts of the industry.
Exclusive variant covers drive people to certain comic shops and convention booths. If you look at solicitations for upcoming releases, you might be shocked to see just how many variants big publishers like Marvel and DC publish per month. For example, Superman/Spider-Man #1 had over 26 variant covers alone.
A recent report from ICv2 estimated that variants account for roughly 43% of DC’s sales and 38% for Marvel. That same report cited figures from one comic retailer who stated that variants accounted for 34-43% of their new comic revenue.
So yeah, variant covers are a big deal, and they won’t be going away anytime soon. However, one of the biggest writers in the comic book industry isn’t a fan. “I think it’s just a waste of resources. Natural resources,” Chip Zdarsky says during a conversation with SKTCHD.
Chip Zdarsky is an Eisner Award-winning comic creator who has written Batman, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, Sex Criminals, and various other projects. For his creator-owned projects, such as Public Domain, he tries to avoid using variant covers.
“It’s not nothing. If you want to print 100,000 copies of a Image Comics #1 or whatever, that’s like 25 trees or something. It’s not nothing. The idea of variants where someone is buying it for the cover, they’re buying it for one sliver of paper, and all the other paper in the middle is just useless to them. They’re not deriving any enjoyment from the actual product. I found that upsetting for sure. This is not without a cost to the world.”
Zdarsky admits that his stance has softened, especially as he’s recognized the importance of the collectors market.
“[James Tynion IV] is obviously a much smarter person than I am, especially when it comes to the business. I think at one point he said that there are readers and there are collectors, and we have to work with both markets.”
“Some people just love variants. They just love the look of it. They’re like, I love this artist, so I want this. There are Skottie Young fans who will pick up a book, with maybe no intention of reading the book, but they love the artwork and I think that’s cool. That kind of softened my stance on it a little bit.”
However, Zdarsky still thinks it’s pointless to print the full comic if all the collector wants is the cover.
“I would rather just print the cover and be like, here’s your cover. It’s 10 bucks. That’s all you want right?”
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