Jay Bardyla of Happy Harbor Comics in Edmonton (Alberta), Canada comments on the recent Dan Buckley interview and the subject of Marvel's variants (see "Interview with Dan Buckley, Part 3").
 
In regards to Mr. Buckley's comments about variants, we would be more inclined to participate in many of them except for a couple of problems.  First, the parameters of certain themed variants are inconsistent, making it problematic for customers who want to collect a specific type of variant.  The Scottie Young variants are the best example of this.  Initially, qualifying retailers could order as many as they liked but then the Young variant for Guardians of the Galaxy #7 became a 1:100 ratio variant, grossly limiting the availability of these covers to the collector's market.
 
The second problem is becoming the ability to qualify for variants as recent books have "exceed" qualifiers against older books that also had "exceed" qualifiers for.  So we are forced to bump orders on a book like the new Wolverine #1 against orders on Infinity #6, which had an exceed incentive against Age of Ultron #5.  The numbers being to climb exponentially and sometimes the variants being offered are not strong enough to help offset the costs of all the extra copies.
 
At least Mr. Buckley did admit when it comes to offering variants that they "probably abuse it."  Small comfort, though.
 
The opinions expressed in this Talk Back are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.