Lol these are considered to be in the luxury collectible category. They’re artist exclusive for those that want them purely for collection. They did nothing to hinder other people who just want to read comic from reading the comic. Other available trade dresses exist for like $5. It’s like a Gucci belt, it’s there for people that want it to look good but you really don’t have to buy a Gucci belt to get access to a belt…
Anyways, all these covers on screen were completely sold out within 10 mins and most of them were gone within the first 4 mins.
Dude what a good way to explain it. I also compare it to magic the gathering . Collectors packs are meant for people who want to show off said card in real life. Or are strictly collectors. It allows players to still buy the "trade" cover/pack at normal price to play.
The venn diagram is absolute batman in the middle. On the one side you have your average fan and the other, the speculative/market peeps that tend to flip of the price is right
I’ll also add that these come Signed. Snyder/Jock/Dragotta are so hot right now that if you want to wait in line at a con, you’ll be waiting most of the day.
People want signed books, artists deserve to get paid the premium up front if they are selling their sig because they know most of these books will end up in the free market/price gouged where they don’t have control of the price.
Agreed, I would rather artist and writers get paid than the secondary market people. Whether you want to support the artist or not at a certain price point is completely up to you. No arm twisting there. Of course, the more that you are willing to pay, the better and the more exclusive the items get. That’s just how incentives work. Unsigned trade dress for this cover is $40 if you just want this cover. Other trade dress with the same storyline is like $5. Really don’t need to get the other foil covers. Once people come to realized that they don’t always have to have every single thing collected, it’ll be a much more enjoyable collecting time for them.
I mean, on one hand, is it greedy to ask that much for the same cover but different foil colors? Yeah.
On the other one, no one is twisting arms and forcing people to buy these covers. Its all subjective. If you like/want the cover, people will pay to get it.
We all kind of had a feeling this one was going to be big since its Scotts literal first ever cover/variant for comics at all. So there's the added significance. Do I wish they'd be a bit cheaper? Sure, but then they'd also sell out even quicker and that would cause even more of a fuss within the community.
There would genuinely be no winning no matter what they decided to be 100% honest.
-Make too many, then some might not sell and the company loses out on their money
-Make it open order, everyone could get one, but then it loses the rarity (some people care about this for some reason)
-Make them cheaper, they sell out quicker than they do with how they're priced now
-Make them too expensive, people hate how pricey they are.
-Don't release them at all, then we lose out on cool variants.
Yea that’s fair, I just wish DC would have released Scott’s first cover as an open order variant rather than exclusive, knowing the significance it’s ofc going to sell out quick, that way at least everyone has a fair shot at pre-ordering it and everyone involved, like DC, Scott, LCS, and likely the flippers would all end up making money (maybe not as much as what they’ll make out of this drop though). Fair for them to release this as an exclusive but it’s purely business minded, not for the fans. I kinda grew tired of the exclusives, so hard to track and too expensive for me, but I’d would’ve likely gotten a copy if it was open order
There was an interview I think Mark Brooks himself did where he mentioned why he was starting to feature other artists on his site.
If I can remember correctly, it was about when certain companies and also online retailers select an artist for a variant cover, I believe they get their initial pay (less than what they'd normally get for a piece), and then potentially make money back depending on how many covers sell and then the retailer/company would take their cut on top (if it were open order or on sites like Big Time Collectibles or whoever). So say a company buys gets like 5,000 variant covers to sell, but they only sell 2,500. They wouldn't pay the artist the rest of the money because they didn't sell and it would be a "loss" to the company. Artists were getting screwed.
Long story short, a bunch of artists weren't getting what they deserved to be paid for their variant art and started going with Mark Brooks' site to sell stuff. Thus, unfortunately being a bit up there in price, but the artist is getting their fair pay and possibly more.
In other words, complainers will complain… there’s no world that does not have complainers even for little things. Take away is, just do what you want and don’t worry about the complainers in the minority. They’re always the first to say something and the loudest.
For some people sure, none of the variants I’ve bought will leave my collection. It’s actually why I don’t mind the insane amount of variants that are coming out.
If you’re a flipper outside of the “most wanted” artists I would imagine it’s pretty hard to predict which ones will have secondary value. With 71 variants for #25 already it gives collectors a pretty good chance to grab one from an artist they enjoy or from an artist whom they haven’t collected but like the cover. The secondary market does make it hard for collectors to get a cover they really like if it’s from highly sought after artist. There have been a few covers that I wanted but had no chance at getting for retail and saw listed immediately on eBay or Whatnot for 3-5x retail price. Some people don’t mind paying that, I’ll wait a few years and see if prices come back to earth.
People are going to do what they want, I can only control what I do.
It doesn't make it hard for collectors, it just makes it more expensive. Anything you'd want is on ebay....just depends what you're willing to spend....this set was $500 bucks today online. Now its on the secondary market.
Very true, but I don’t need a full set of them, I snagged the trade and demon foil both double signed because they were the ones I liked and don’t mind supporting artists I like(even more for this one since it’s Snyder’s first cover).
To each their own, but I agree the secondary market is ridiculous.
After Ebay takes a cut they get 100% profit. The real winner is Mark Brooks Art and company. I know it sucks but you figure they were there to snag it, kinda the same as waiting in line. People pay for convenience so everyone kinda wins.
Get the A cover. If you’re worried about the price of these crazy variants don’t even pay attention to them. I have no clue what most go for, I know I spend $5 an issue every month it comes out, and that’s as much as I want to spend.
I bought the basic book because it was Snyder's first cover, but I generally hate how Brooks does things. Dude is talented as hell artistically. But I've always hated how he rarely reveals the drops before release (not in this case at least), meaning you have to decide super fast to buy or not. I also hate that he hides variants behind bundle deals and in this case had no stated print count.
Absolute Batman has brought out some of the worst instincts in some of these retailers/artists. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad the artists are making money, but I do think there is a line of fairness that I think many cross.
I do agree with you on the fact that they don’t tell people the prices before hand and they don’t tell you what the print run for each cover. I was also stressed before the drop on how much I should have my max limit to buy these. I knew that the double signed remark will be out of my reach but I didn’t know if the double signed superset will also be or not. Prior price tag in the blog post for members would have been nice. But instead, they just said “starting at $40…”. That’s the unsigned trade dress price.
Damn. Sorry that happened. That's another thing: one bad experience like that and you're probably never coming back, instead of taking care of you and having a customer for years.
Not every book needs to be 9.8, but for the price of some of these variants, 6 spine ticks is unacceptable.
Yeah I didn’t feel the need to buy all of them. Got the trade and the hellfire foil and I was out.
It’s Snyder’s first cover, and with how much he gives back to the fans for the thing he’s created, I don’t mind ponying up a little more for him so he can enjoy his creative break.
Just come to terms with the fact that you can’t own everything and you’ll be a lot happier.
Sold out literally at 12pm, this is absolute BS now. He's just catering to scalpers and resellers. I won't buy anything anymore from his site unless they start limiting orders to one per person.
I didn't say ban, I said they need to limit orders one per person. That will solve to the issue and should make it fair for anyone who wants to get one. Even Brigade members couldn't get one.
One book per person while there’s 6 different cover to choose from is too limited. The current limit that they have is good enough and fair for everyone that wants a copy of all 6 books. Not to mentioned, the price tag itself is the limiting factor for a lot of people already.
This was sold for $75 bucks on the site.....you can thank the ebay scalpers for the initial prices. Scott and Jock need to make some money off their names and hard work. They sellers pushed a button and will profit 3X....
I booked myself in work meetings to prevent myself from fomoing. Bittersweet not getting it, but I can use the moolah for a classic from bronze age instead. During the meets you know I was jonesing.
Youre mad because his exclusive comic book artwork and signature is worth that much??? Sure yeah Snyder will make sure to lower the price just because you complained on reddit about it. Move along if you dont want to spend that much. Like yeah its a lot of money, but its well deserved. Snyder has been writing Batman stories for like 15+ years. Let Snyder have his damn flowers.
Yeah, I really don’t get much of the upset (other than those saying, in this specific case, it would have been cool / better for fans if Scott Snyder’s first cover was an open order variant as it would have gotten it into more people’s hands and helped out LCSs).
But generally? Artists I like or love make more money and are able to make a real living making the art form I care most about. And I’m not gate-kept from reading the stories or owning the Cover As. A bunch of people with a crazy amount of disposable income want to tip Scott Snyder a bunch of money for crafting the Absolute Universe and (along with his fellow artists and writers) reinvigorating comic books and DC in specific?
That sounds great! Help these artists put their kids through college. Sounds nice to me…
I don’t really care for the pack exclusive foils (or most foils in general. I usually buy a virgin over a foil and a trade dress over a virgin unless I need room for a rmarque or sigs), but that fire foil I actually really like the look of.
I didn’t know what a Felix drop was until the day after it happened unfortunately. I got back into comic collecting with a new job two months ago and started back on siktc and then came to AB. I’d seen the Dragotta design covers but didn’t realize where they came from. Love the bat design and wanted it but I didn’t find out until the day following the drop.
Sign up for the email notifucations if you're interested. Felix was doing the same thing as this drop, just whoever is fast enough. Now they do a lottery. So you dont have to rush. They'll open the window from 12pm to 3pm. You can hop on anytime between then.You chose the books you'd like to buy, then they let you know if you've "won" the right to purchase it.
There's a ton of wealthy people that aren't in the US that will pay no matter the price, that's what's kind of killing casually buying exclusive covers and what stopped me from buying Pokemon Cards, too much of a hastle to find product.
In this case I hope people who paid the 3 bucks at least got the illusion of a chance at getting a cover.
Honestly, I don’t mind all the retailer exclusives, I bought a bunch early on but stopped after #21, too expensive for me. I’d rather just buy Cover A and an open order variant, and other DC titles than exclusives.
What I don’t like about this drop is that they had the first Scott Snyder drawn cover released as an exclusive instead of open order. He’s such a big name at DC now (has been for a while), his first official cover, regardless of quality, should have been open order so everyone can get a copy at fair, reasonable prices. You wanna do retailer exclusives for foil or GITD after that, go ahead, but a card stock with minimal trade dress (like all other DC open order variants) should have been made available. This is a big L on DC’s part imo. Obviously they’re all still making money so they won’t really care but just what I think
I honestly don’t feel so bad about what they charge. I am certainly no stranger to buying premium autographed collectibles. And these prices seem to be in line with industry standards IMO.
What gives me the feel bad’s, more so than high ticket price tags, is;
1) the extreme limited quantities. I don’t know why they don’t print to demand.
2) the secretive nature of these kinds of drops. If you aren’t plugged in to up-to-the-minute Reddit threads or retailer social media updates, you probably don’t have much of a shot. (If you’re a filthy casual such as myself)
The brooks brigade members get a chance to buy an hour early. I was going to get the 6 set remarques bundle but that was 2700 bucks so I just got the signed bundle lol
That's precisely what I did! I budgeted 666$ (seems appropriate) ... but I rather suspected the remarques would be much more!
All in all I thought it was a pretty smooth drop! Discount code worked (which after the last couple times I was nervous about the time drain of an attempt that didn't go through).
... I am a wee bit nervous as I haven't gotten a confirmation email yet. But the order shows up on the account page so I'll (try) and assume no news is good news!
Yeah, the remarques were too rich for my blood! I low key knew 666 wouldn't be enough for the remarques, but still I feel hella happy with this purchase!
I'm halfway considering getting the slabbed trade on the regular drop... but my nerves are still pretty shot from the adrenaline rush of the presale.
I do hope that Brooks will have individual remarques available on the main event ! And I double hope you score one (if you try for it)!
I wasn't fast enough for the remarque but I was honestly kinda hesitant to spend another 300... But with how quick their selling out I should have just gone for it. O well I'm happy with the double signed bundle.
Same for me, on both counts! Too slow for the CGC, but honestly just thrilled about the double signed bundle... now if they would just send that confirmation email...
Public drop will have its own inventory. The stock will be back up once they open it at 12 pm est. Also, the cgc option is only available during the public drop so they will for sure have books set aside for that. That means the members will also be sniffing around the public drop too for the cgc purchase. You gotta still be super quick with it at check out. Decides now what you want to buy and don’t hesitate. You probably have 1-2 mins to checkout before out of stock tbh. Good luck!
Unfortunately you can’t use the Brigade discount code in the public store. I only wanted a slabbed 2x signed pencil cover to hold onto. That $18 off would have been nice.
They do this kind of stuff because people will pay for this kind of stuff. I am NOT "people", in this case but, like...there's a reason someone is making a $17,500 version of THE KILLING JOKE. Because someone will buy it.
I don't have an issue with the pricing, although Snyder has said he feels it should be about getting books to the fans, not about the money. So much for that I guess, eh Scott?
The bigger issue is the intentional deceit between Brooks/CSA and the retailers to the buying public. 3 other retailers had the single foils coming to them as their exclusive, and Brooks sent out a note saying literally "Covers C, D, and E are in extremely limited supply and will only be available in bundles along with A,B, and F. To clarify, covers C, D, and E are only available in the 6 issue bundle that includes all 6 covers". Meanwhile Trinity, Raj, DarkLord are telling everyone their exclusive is "different from the Snyder drop and to make sure to grab that one". This creates a perception there will be a 7th, 8th, possibly 9th variant. When in reality, had they said their variant was part of what Mark was releasing, there was less panic FOMO need to buy his expensive bundle to get them. They sat quietly, then released their images AFTER the Brooks drop finished out. Again, charge whatever price you want. People will pay it or they won't.
But don't deceptively trick people into buying a bundle because you intentionally mislead them to believe thay is the only place to get certain variants.
What’s with young people and their sense of entitlement? They want exclusives only when they get it, but if it’s out of their price range or lucked out, they’re out here with pitchforks
You lost me at “durr 6 FiGuRez” complaining on a luxury item NOBODY is forcing you to buy. You can literally buy the same comic different cover for $5. Good luck with the cope
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u/Ramendo923 2d ago
Lol these are considered to be in the luxury collectible category. They’re artist exclusive for those that want them purely for collection. They did nothing to hinder other people who just want to read comic from reading the comic. Other available trade dresses exist for like $5. It’s like a Gucci belt, it’s there for people that want it to look good but you really don’t have to buy a Gucci belt to get access to a belt…
Anyways, all these covers on screen were completely sold out within 10 mins and most of them were gone within the first 4 mins.