TIL a comic book shop employee changed how I look at variant covers

I was at Third Eye Comics in Annapolis last Saturday and this dude named Dave behind the counter asked why I was grabbing like 4 variants of the same issue. He said 'you're paying $12 each for cover art you could just screenshot for free.' At first I was annoyed but then he showed me his pull box with zero variants and just one copy of each main story. It stuck with me because I realized I was chasing FOMO not the actual story. Has anyone else had a shop employee call them out like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

ward.anna19d ago

Wait, a comic shop employee actually told you to save your money? That's wild. Most of them want you to buy as many variants as possible, especially the hot ones that go up in value. Dave must have really cared about you as a customer to risk his commission like that. I've had a guy at my local shop try to upsell me on the 1:100 ratio variants before, so hearing about someone actively talking people out of buying them is a little jarring. It makes me wonder if that shop has a different culture where they focus on readers over investors.

wilson.olivia19d ago

@jana769 hit it. Same reason I stopped buying sneakers - chasing variants is just consumerism with extra steps.

jana76919d ago

Did that shop give Dave a commission or something? @ward.anna youre probably right that most places push variants hard, but I had a buddy who worked at a shop in Virginia and he said the owner there told them straight up they were there to sell stories, not cardboard. He said theyd rather have a customer come back for issue 2 than buy five variants of issue 1 and never show up again. It sounds like Dave probably isnt on commission at all, or the shop just has a different way of doing things. My friend even said theyd point people to the back issue bins if someone only wanted cheap reads. It made me think most shops could do better by just being honest with folks instead of treating them like walking wallets.