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"Oh Hi! You caught me making another video without one of my famous 'Oh hi!' intros. Speaking of cheap gimmicks designed to attract attention, let's talk about gimmick comic book covers!"

Scene: A boy arrives home with a bag of comic books. Father: “Did you get anything interesting at the comic book shop?” Son: “I’ll say! I got Mega-Blood number negative one half with the holographic and foil embossed cover!” Father: “That’s great. What’s the book about?” Son: “What do you mean ‘about’???” 🤨

Working at a comic shop and processing collections that would come in, we’d sometimes see whole long boxes of X-Force #1, then you’d know it was likely somebody who once owned a shop and had been hauling that albatross along for decades. On the other hand, I never found a 30¢ or 35¢ variant of the old Marvel books.

I hate the gimmickry of variants when it relates to the superficiality of foil covers and such. But when you're talking about great artists like Paul Pope or David Choe doing a cover, I'm all in.

This was a great show. I'm 48 years old and all the gimmick mania was through my senior year of high school and first year of college, brings back great memories.

Oh man, I worked at a comic store in 1989 when Legends of the Dark Knight came out and the owner was so pissed at DC over those 4 covers - pre-orders were out the roof and they had to make sure to get the color info from the customers ,etc.

The Marvel Hip-hop variants. As a person who grew up collecting those albums, it was fun seeing iconic artwork with Superheroes and Villains

i remember my dad was obsessed with all the variants of marvel stuff in the 90s. he had a bunch of the foil spiderman and silver surfer comics framed on the walls lol. of all the ones you showed i think the spectre glow in the dark covers are my favourites

The Superman vs Lobo colorform cover will always be the king of the gimmick covers for me.

My general rule for my comics store pull list is to stick with standard covers. Living thru the 90s has made me very wary of the contemporary variant covers. Regardless of how cool they can be, a part of me feels like a sucker when I buy them. I'll indulge in variants once in a while, but I restrict it to issues that are otherwise meaningful to me.

Lolol I had that ridiculous Death of Aunt May comic...that was the nail in the coffin

I had a cousin who collected ton of comics in the 90s and I still remember flipping through all his X-Men comics with random variants thrown in. Honestly I prefer variants far more to gimmick covers, beautiful artwork from talented people

The amount of work you put into your videos is amazing. Thanks for the hard work.

The Ghost Rider one you have in your thumbnail, I had no idea it was glow in the dark until someone told me while I was browsing some stuff in the glass case. I immediately went home pulled it out of my shoe box.... And sure enough neon green. I always thought it was weird how Sandy the cover felt lool

A big chunk of my collection from that time was accidentally thrown into a dumpster(still hurts) but one of the few survivors were those Spectre issues. They still glow

I have a copy of that Fantastic Four one with the embossed Human Torch performing his nova flame. However, mine is white, not orange. It caught my eye, because I was intrigued by a cover that went the opposite direction than being colorful and the like. The image is hard to see as it is, and can look like a blank white cover, which is an odd thing to think of. It actually inspired an issue of a webcomic I started doing, where one of the issues took place in a white void, where no character was visible, and the cover was almost completely white (except some gray for my "company" logo and the title logo). I may not think that was the best issue I've ever done, but it was a fun experiment, and I can credit a gimmick cover from the 90s for that experience.

Interestingly enough, the Italian edition of Amazing Spider-Man #400 used a different trick, with the "gravestone cover" being a wraparound. It's also worth noticing that, at the time, Marvel Italia was playing catch-up with the US, meaning that each issue actually featured multiple stories, printed on thicker paper and with a poster board cover, making them much more durable.

Of all the speculator BS that we're still living with I think variant covers are the least harmful to the medium and business as a whole. More art from cool artists that doesn't involve constant character introductions, weird nonsense numbers and "big event" stupidity

Way way back in 2011 I lost my whole comic collection in a F5 Tornado in Alabama. I had a lot of awesome comics and all the gimmick covers that I had you showed on screen and I was flooded with nostalgia. For my books.. my grandpa.. and youth. I had to say that my favorites are the glow in the dark. But my owned favorite is the 30th anniversary of Spiderman. All four I had and kept in cases. Never read myself just admired them. Thank you so so so much for what you show on here. My collection is zero as of now but your vids help keep that fire burning. Thank you for helping keep me young at heart. MUCH LOVE!!!

That second Spectre cover was so cool. Especially like how its essentialy a second picture that you can only see in the dark.

I admit those X-Men Fatal Attractions hologram covers grabbed my interest in my LCS and I dipped my toe in Wolverine for a couple years.

Mark Texiera's Ghostrider pencils were awesome...

I loved the gimmicky covers back in the 90s, and still love them today. Just a fun addition to the hobby.

Some of my favorite variants have to be the recent decade based variants for detective 1000 and action comics 1000. The idea of using different artists for each decade? Created some absolutely beautiful art

So cool to finally see this getting attention! Always was curious about em - thanks Chris!

Not really a variant cover, but Marvel somewhat recently released a collection of rap album covers remixed with their characters. As a fan of hip-hop I thought that was really cool

I think artists lime J. Scott Campbell, Adam Hughes, Frank Cho, Micheal Linsner, Artgem & others have accelerated a great demand for variants! Alot of times id just buy the variants just for the awesome art over a normally boring cover!

Here's the thing: I LOVE variant covers, either if it's from a really talented artist, or if the cover is so well done, it can be framed and used as a picture (virgin variants are good for this). I also think it's great how people can express the comic with their vision through a variant. My biggest problem is when publishers use this to push more product (buy 1 of 100 to get this semi-naked Wonder Woman variant, etc). I feel it's taking advantage of fans. Especially when through other means someone gets wind (or can blatantly tell) that the original "A" cover is a cheap put-together while a variant cover was planned to be the original, but changed at the last minute. If I had to choose: I'd say it's better to have variants, and let people decide with their wallet. What I've personally never understood are people who buy comics as a form of investment, like they're buying a gemstone or gold or something. Like imagine there's a great depression, literally everywhere now that the global economy is in play. WHO will buy a comicbook when they can't afford food? The ONLY way I can imagine a physical comic being valuable is when in the future they don't have physical versions of some comics anymore, and you don't actually OWN the digital versions (subscription based). Who knows how many generations it'll be before we allow that to fly in entertainment?

I remember when the Death of Superman issue first came out. I've been collecting comics for years and I went to this one comic shop at least once a week to pick up my books. I remember the Superman issue was announced and even though I didn't collect the title, I asked the owner of the shop if he could hold one for me. Being a long time customer of his, the owner advised me he would hold a copy for me. The day the book was released was crazy! It was on the news and people were lining up to get that book, hoping to pay for their kid's college fund once they sold the book years later. I showed up at the comic shop and the parking lot was packed. I went inside and the owner had a news channel there, along with a real life coffin draped with a Superman cape. I remember walking up to the counter to get my books and, upon looking thru the stack, I noticed there was no Death of Superman issue in there. I asked the owner about the book and he apologized, stating he had no idea the public demand would be so huge he couldn't hold me back an issue, even stating he had to get one of this workers the distributor to bring back another stack of the book. I was devastated, feeling betrayed because I bought and collected comics for years from this shop and got to know them personally, only to be tossed on the side from the public who never read or collected comics, only hoping to cash in on the popular trend. I left that shop and vowed never to return. A few months later the owner contacted me and asked me how come I haven't been in the shop for awhile. I told him how I thought he did me dirty on that fateful day and he asked me if I still collected comics. I told him I did, but not that much anymore and only picked up issues of my favorite characters if I found them out in the wild, like a grocery store. He told me he still had my subscription books to the side and come in and look at them, pulling the books I didn't have if I wanted them. He also told me he would get me a copy of that Superman book at cover price and apologized for the inconvenience that day. I went back to the store and picked up the books from my subscription pile and noticed the Superman book in the pile. The owner apologized again and stated he was sorry for overlooking his faithful customers that day, stating it was so crazy he couldn't keep up the demand. He even gave me the book for free, even though I tried to give him money for it. It didn't seem it wasn't that much longer that his comic shop was closed. Every time I pick up my copy of the Death of Superman book out of my collection, I can't help but think of that crazy day. To this day I try to avoid variant covers for this reason. It's like the publishers are saying here's the regular cover of the book, but if you want a REALLY good cover art package then you're going to have to pay the extra bucks. Strange how the cover price is listed as the same as the regular cover, but the comic shop owners charge an extra price for the other covers because the hardcore collectors snag them up before us regular collectors can get there.

Thoroughly enjoyed this!! Trip down memory lane. I love that Ghost Rider 15 execution! Hated the Robin III, so muddy. The Silver Surfer 50 just fit the character so perfectly. I did not care for the chromium and by that time my teenage eyes were rolling like crazy over the variant madness. But like you said, some were great executions and some were just so so awful. Thanks for this!!!

My favorites are the Fatal Attractions holograms, they are really done well. Especially Gambit on X-Men 25, the 3D effect really pops.

I love how Venom had like a trillion miniseries for the simple reason to re-start in #1 every five-six months so they could get a new gimmick cover. I really like some of those Venom covers, except Funeral Pyre.

The Spectre had some great glow in the dark covers.

Last year I collected all of the fashion variants for Hellfire Gala because they gave a really good look at the unique costumes.

A lot of the Shadowhawk covers were kinda cool, the unmasking cover stood out a little more than the others.

My first gimmick book was 1982’s Battle for a Three Dimensional World #1, which came with 3D glasses. I remember thinking that a first issue with Jack Kirby art in 3D would become a valuable collector’s item. Of course I was wrong, but it’s still kinda cool as a novelty.

Chris! Recently Ive been loving the "Connecting Variants" these are normally used in minis in a way that you can see a poster by putting all the covers together

Did not expect a Comicpop appearance. Love those guys. 👍🏻

Okay I admit I bought two copies of Ninjak #1 with the cool Joe Queseda chromium foil cover for speculation purposes. Guess I won’t be retiring anytime soon 😔

The GitD and hologram covers the most. Green Lantern 50 was one of my faves, but was lost, so I've been hunting it. Silver Surfer 50 was perfect (the 2nd printing wasn't good with the Surfer being inked), but 75 took it to an awesome level with the silver holographic foil to it. It's amazing

09:00 A friendly correction; Not _all_ those behind Spider-Man and MJ are enemies, but only those lined up on the left side of the cover. Opposite them are superheroes.

One of the interesting variants involving the rivalry between DC and Marvel was the Siege #3 Deadpool variant, which was ordered with fifty stripped covers from select tie-in issues from the Blackest Night story arc. There were also the second printings of the first two issues of Marvel Zombies Return, which were homages of Blackest Night.

ComicPop was just introduced to me last week and here it appears! Comics worlds are colliding!

I remember at the time of that Robin lenticular cover I was at Harris Comics working on Vampirella. As Publisher Dennis Page said: “It looks like Robin’s trying to waft away a fart!”

My uncle is a collector and gave me a ton of variant covers for my birthday back in the 90s. One of my favorite presents I ever got.

God! I hate variant covers. I’ve still bought a few variants though.

This era is bittersweet to me. A hardcore collector since elementary school, by 1991 I had started college, living on campus in northern Maine, and becoming very disengaged and disappointed with both the quality and direction mainstream comics (DC & Marvel) were going, and this variant cover craze was not helping. Every month I found less and less reason to shlep to the local comic shop in town until by late '92 I had stopped buying comics almost completely except for independently published graphic novels or comics from Europe or Asia.

The Continuity Comics "Crazyman" issue shaped like his stressed out face was a gimmick low on numerous levels

All the variants make it feel like the 90’s all over again. Except for me that’s fine because it’s when I got into comics.

I like full-art variant covers made by an artist who can really go all-out.

Superman Man of Steel #30 is by and large my favorite gimmick. The static clings still work and it's always fun to set up fights between Lobo and Superman all over the front and back covers.

Top of my list is the blacklight. It changes the experience. I would like to see it again for the right subject.

Another great video. I must say, my friend and I purposely bought the Tyvek covers to test how indestructible it was. LOL

It's crazy how a cover can make or break a cook sometimes. Punchlines 1st appearance/ original cover is worth some money vs its variants- while Gwen-Pooles very 1st variant cover appearance is worth more than the original cover!

It may be nostalgia but I still dig the covers for Punisher War Journal #61, The Punisher War Zone #23, The Punisher #86 and the die cut cover of Punisher War Journal #64. The foil cover theme of Frank Castle shooting through glass was great and still looks good thanks to the amazing art by Michael Golden. Golden's line work looks great regardless but the contrast of the almost monochrome Punisher against the colorful shattered glass really makes his work pop. In my option, it's right up there with Ghost Rider #15 and Wolverine #50.

An important correction: Batman #500 was not the return of Bruce Wayne as Batman, but the debut of Jean-Paul Valley’s new Batman suit. He had previously been Azrael and then took up the mantle after Bane broke Bruce’s back. The outer flap of the variant cover showed the old suit, and beneath the flap was the new one. Apologies to Chris, as I don’t mean to be “that guy.” I love the channel and know he works hard on researching and compiling these videos. I just remember the issues as I had both the premium variant and the generic cover.

I know it's not a comic but back in 04 I was the web designer/flash animator for The Simpsons and they tapped my shoulder to do some special TV Guide covers. They were lenticular animated x-mas ornaments. I grew up in the 80's and 90's with all these gimmick covers and always wanted to do one of those. So much fun.

Hello i loved this chapter, i Buy many of those comics back in the 90s and still have them, i was a reader of almost every mutant title and Ghost Rider. Thanks for your amazing videos and keep it doing it. Greethings from Guadalajara México

I like the idea of being able to "choose" your favorite cover. Like not getting multiple variants necessarily, just getting the one you think looks the coolest. It makes the buying process a little more fun, and makes a casual collection way more personalized!

I remember buying the gloss platinum cover of Generation X #1 when I was a teenager and the vendor told me it was gonna be worth thousands when I got older. Then I saw tons of them in every store from Pennsylvania to New York and was like "ohhh *I'm the mark, here"

I love the variant covers by Russell Dauterman showing every characters costume (or most of them at least) and my favorite is the wasp variant. There is something so cool about seeing so many of janet's most popular costumes on a cover. It made it that much more special that Janet's first solo had such a cool variant cover

I definitely confused the chromium with the holographic covers as a kid, I did enjoy Age of Apocalypse, though. The chromium covers and the artwork on it are the only things I remember about it. Great coverage!

This is why I'm a SUBSCRIBER!!! You are not only a great Historian of comics, your RESEARCH in putting these vids. together, is UNCANNY!!!

Huge fan of Peach Momoko's work. I love collecting her peices!

I remember seeing about 100 Xforce #1 for 10cents each in the late 90's. Variant cover is a bane of modern comics in my opinion. edit I owned at least 5 still in the polly bag lol I'm a sucker to !

This video unlocked my memory of owning that Eclipso purple gem comic as a kid. I think I threw it away

The thing I hate about variant covers these days is they can sometimes mislead you as to what the book is even about.

One of my favorite variant cover tropes is when they honor the “Coming of Galactus” story for Fantastic Four books, and an artist recreates the iconic scene of the main heros and the Watcher looking towards the sky. It really catches my eye and last time they did it I bought the issue, introducing me to a FANTASTIC comic run.

From the DC-Superman-Lobo book with the stickers, i placed on of the stickers on to my motorbike helmet back when in came out in the 90s. The sticker has wandered from old helmet to new one all these years and is still there today. Never fell off or got lost. My man of steel good luck charm.

Those Spider-Man 30th anniversary hologram issues are essential nostalgia comics for me. There was an article in Marvel Age #114 (July 1992) that showed how they made the holograms by sculpting and such. Great stuff!

INCREDIBLE walk down memory lane. Impeccable research. This is one of the best comic book related videos ever put on KZfaq.

The comic book racks at the convenience and grocery stores were where I fell in love with comic books as a child. First comic I remember having was a Spider-Man with Dr. Octopus in it that my dad bought it for me at a Seven Eleven near Rehoboth Beach in 1983

I love your cover story about the variant covers. I remember the variant cover for Image comics before (Wildstorm to be precise), when they did a cover for all their titles and you can assemble the covers to make a 9 cut poster.

As someone raised in the 90s, I can appreciate all these variant covers lol

I remember that white spider-man cover. Even as a kid, I remember thinking we had gone too far.

I don't know if they ever did it for a comic cover, but I seem to remember scratch and sniff gunpowder Punisher trading cards that I thought were ridiculous and fun.

My favorite gimmick cover is Silver Surfer #50 and it gets personal. I am Greek and there were not any comic shops importing US comic books back in '91, only the national distribution company, which distributed certain titles to newstands and selected bookstores. Things were quite random and the titles that appeared here overseas were mostly the best sellers. For instance, Silver Surfer had started appearing on newstands around issue #35. When in the summer of '91 I saw the cover on the newstand, my jaw dropped. There were two copies there, but my allowance could afford only one. Went home, read it and the story was awesome, so I wanted a second copy to perserve it! By next week, when I dropped by the newstand again, the second copy was gone. However, over time, I became frustrated with gimmick covers. My allowance was limited and it meant that I had to pay more for not missing an issue of my favourite series, which at that time it meant that when it was gone, it was gone for good. I loved Peter David's The Incrediblle Hullk, but 3 of these covers within 2 years was annoying and expensive. Runner up, is Generation X #1. By '94 we had a bookstore that was importing comic books and is now mostly a comic book shop, got it, read it who knows how many times, got it signed by the writer and it still is in great shape!

I randomly found out about Whitman just last week, and that ends up being your next episode. Amazing, Chris!

I remember when I was collecting Spider-Man: One More Day (I know, I know) my LCS *only* had a variant cover for one of the books. so I have three Quesada covers, and a variant. I guess I'd be more pissed if it was an actually good storyline...but it was one of the first I was following and collecting in real time, so it was still a bummer.

The mini series "Robin II: The Joker's Wild" had variant and gimmick covers for each issue. Each issue had a direct market edition with a hologram and a newsstand cover without a hologram. In addition the newsstsnd cover was different art than the direct market cover. And even further issue 1 of the direct market edition had 4 variants (4 totally unique cover illustrations) all with the same hologram, while issue 2 had 3 variants (3 totally unique cover illustrations) all with the same hologram yet a different hologram than issue 1, and issue 3 had 2 variants (2 totally unique cover illustrations) both with the same hologram yet a different hologram than issue 1 or 2, and 1ssue 4 had just a single direct market cover with its own unique hologram. That's 5 covers for issue 1, 4 covers for issue 2, 3 covers for issue 3, and 2 covers for issue 4. 14 different cover illustrations for a 4 issue limited series.

I'm glad the Sleepwalker mask cover was included in the video, I always thought that one was so weird and silly.

Batman # 500 was not the return of Bruce Wayne as Batman, but the last issue of the Knightfall storyline, and the first issue when Jean Paul Valley appears in full AzBat costume.

That ghost rider cover was so awesome to my teenage self. 90s were wild. Darkhawk and Danny Ketch GR were my favs

Another slam dunk, and the picture looked gorgeous - can’t wait for the next one Chris!

I came into comics about 6 years ago. I soon fell in love with David Finch's work, among them his variant covers for Marvel's Second Coming X-men storyline. His work there is among my favorite variant covers, no doubt about it!

You are going to make me climb into my attic just too see how many of these gimmick covers I still have. Super nostalgia of my 12 year old self. If I only knew the it was all a ploy to get my allowance money

I've got a copy of the first issue of "The Button" story from DC Rebirth with a lenticular cover that alternates between Batman and The Flash. I think it's pretty neat, especially since the story is essentially a team-up between the two, and is evenly split between both series

Your best recent video. Loved this. Deep dives into the industry and little known titles are my favourites.

You know it’s a good day, when comic tropes pops up on your notifications 😊

My moms boyfriend at the time was one of those who tried to flip special covered books in the 90s. Him taking me to buy them got me into comics. When my mom and him broke up, he left his collection with me. Now I own many of those crazy and fun books.

My favorite variant covers that I actively collected were the Before Watchmen comics. I was in college at the time (right across from a great comic shop) and my friends and I devoured these comics. I enjoyed (most of) the stories, but the covers were so strong and iconic. We would race to the shop after lecture on Wednesdays and try to get the variants. I still have all of those today and fondly remember them. Also as an artist myself, sketch covers are such a welcome variant!

I remember when Dreamwave was doing the Transformers comics in the early 2000s they had put out an insane number of variants including some ultra rare foil cover throwbacks. Marvel did a tongue-in-cheek gag on this with one issue of the dreadful Marville title. It had giant robot taxi cabs with foil on the cover as well.

Im tryna get dem glow in the dark ones

As a teenager in the 90s, I was an enthusiastic comic collector, and mine were read, treasured, and usually ended up in a box. Ghost Rider 15 I did have framed

Solar Man of the Atom #10 from Valiant. The Black cover was so sleek and different at the time

I subscribed to Amazing Spiderman as a kid, and the first issue I got was the 30th Ann. Hologram Cover. I was so pumped!

Knocked another one out of the park Chris! I have most of all the early 90s comics and this brought me back. I love the gimmicks, but hated the variants

Thanks for this fascinating rundown on variants. One you didn't mention was the overseas variant covers. In the UK, this was just a black plate switch so they could change the price from say, 20¢ to 6p. However, from 1974 to 1980 there was a more extensive variation, as the strip across the top that said Marvel Comics Group and the character name was changed to Marvel All-Colour Comics which sometimes required changing more than one plate. I believe this was so that the US comics would not compete with the British reprints, which were being sold with the Marvel Comics Group cover box in the left corner, like the 60s US comics.

Gimmick covers are what first brought me into comics with Infinity Crusade #1 and Warlock Chronicles #1.