Buena Vista Home Entertainment will release a barebones DVD of Sin City on August sixteenth with four different covers -- yes the variant cover craze has made it from comic books into the world of DVDs.  Perhaps Buena Vista execs think that they can con comic fans into buying multiple copies of the Sin City DVD based on great cover graphics, or that eventually one of the designs will become rarer and more collectible -- but these are $29.95 DVDs not $2.95 comic books, and what sort of comic collector would be satisfied with a DVD of Sin City with no extras when a fully loaded version, described at length by co-director Robert Rodriguez (see 'Sin City DVD Will Be Loaded') is waiting in the wings?

Yes it is true that the four cover images are all very cool and that the Special Edition DVD of Sin City won't be out until late 2005 or, more likely, early 2006, but this is a movie that cries out for all that extra footage that Rodriguez talked about -- it would be great to have the option to experience longer versions of the three stories individually rather than mixed together as they were in the theatrical version, to see how the directors were able to use green screen technology to capture the noirish look of Miller's panels so precisely, to watch Quentin Tarantino direct from behind the camera, and who wouldn't want the recipe for Sin City breakfast tacos.