>DC Comics issued new terms and conditions for comic book retailers who commission exclusive cover variants of their comics, a trend highlighted of late by Absolute Batman, where the number of approved covers was capped for the first time, as well as by rising values and the events of Dropgate and Covergate. Bleeding Cool reproduces them below. It is worth noting the following:>Retailers may sell the exclusive variant cover for any price, but as "DC does not wish to support price-gouging of DC's customers", it "strongly encourages" a limit to five times the cover price for unsigfned books, ten times for autographed books, and DC says that they may discontinue future sales of exclusive variants to retailers that exceed those guidelines.>While DC states that they won't provide the exact same art commissioned exclusively by one retailer for another exclusive retailer cover, they do say that they may use it in merch, prints, on foreign covers, or inside comics, and may provide other retailers with differently colored or black-and-white versions, or with different backgrounds. Worth bearing in mind. Because the retailer is not allowed to use the cover art on their own merch, including shirts, prints, posters, stickers, collectables, bags, or on any other publication. And they are not allowed to use it as a component of a larger image commissioned from other artists or publishers, or to create a diptych, tryptych, or other composite.
>>154621048>Partnerships commissioning such covers must be disclosed at the beginning, so a sudden co-publishing deal, comic con exclusive or the likes aren't a big surprise to DC. They also have to abide by an embargo date to release the image.>Also, it states that all communication between the retailer and artist must be through DC, and no direction should be given without editorial approval. In some cases, the artists are good friends with the retailer, even a customer. And with an artist's own studio now often commissioning official, exclusive covers featuring the artist on the cover, is the artist really forbidden from communicating with themselves or giving themselves direction?
This seems to be have been in response to Absolute Batman #19's variant by Dan Quintana for Heavy Mental Comics having had only 25 copies selling for $25 despite having a 2k print run before being auctioned off at well past $100 and selling it to as high as $1500.
>>154621118>Heavy Mental Comicswhat
>>154622018All they seem to do is sell marked up variants and collectibles. Not sure if they're even a LCS
>>154622138From what I can tell it's just a few people who started just doing whatnot streams auctioning off comics and eventually made enough connections to start having their own variants they can sell online.Wouldn't be surprised if Quintana is part owner or something.
>>154622443DId they start doing that before Absolute because that reeks of post Absolute Batman behavior
Yeah, if DC wants to implement socialism, then I'm out. Good luck though. I guess Supergirl movie flopping wasn't enough for them to realize their strategy doesn't work anymore.
>>154622817DC Studios and DC Comics aren’t the same company
>>154621048Good at DC. Wish they’d lower the max amount more but I guess they don’t want retailers getting mad at them cutting more of their profits off.
>>154622876A lot of people seem to forget this somehow.
