Each month of Image’s 25th year will boast a theme for special anniversary variants, beginning with Wednesday, February 1st—the exact date of Image Comics’ founding in 1992, and the date of this year’s “Image Comics Day.”
“One of the great things about celebrating our 25th anniversary is that it creates an opportunity for us to look back at over two decades of history-making comics and showcase some of the wonderful work that made Image what it is today,” said Eric Stephenson, Publisher at Image Comics. “Everyone in the Image family is a fan at heart, and this month’s tribute variants give the participating creators a chance to show their admiration for some of comics’ greatest creator-owned triumphs by putting their own unique spin on classic images from that rich and varied past for a collection of covers as fun as they are stunning.”
- Rick Remender and Wes Craig’s DEADLY CLASS #26 commemorating Marc Silvestri’s CYBER FORCE #1 (Diamond Code NOV168917)
- Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta’s EAST OF WEST #31 commemorating Rob Liefeld’s TEAM YOUNGBLOOD #19 (Diamond Code NOV169165)
- Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #26 commemorating Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s SEX CRIMINALS #1 (Diamond Code NOV169053)
- Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker’s INVINCIBLE #133 commemorating Rob Liefeld’s YOUNGBLOOD #1 (Diamond Code NOV169172)
- Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw’s GOD COUNTRY #2 commemorating Erik Larsen’s SAVAGE DRAGON #1 (Diamond Code NOV169169)
- Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, and Elizabeth Breitweiser’s KILL OR BE KILLED #6 commemorating Robert Kirkman’s THE WALKING DEAD #1 (Diamond Code NOV169051)
- Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s SEX CRIMINALS #16 commemorating Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s THE WICKED + THE DIVINE #1 (Diamond Code NOV169052)
- Robert Kirkman’s THE WALKING DEAD #164 commemorating Jim Lee’s WILD C.A.T.S. #1 (Diamond Code NOV169171)
- Charles Soule and Ryan Browne’s CURSE WORDS #2 commemorating Robert Kirkman and Cory Walker’s INVINCIBLE #1 (Diamond Code NOV169173)
- Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen’s DESCENDER #19 commemorating Dale Keown’s PITT #2 (Diamond Code NOV169174)
- Tim Seely and Mike Norton’s REVIVAL #47 commemorating Marc Silvestri, Brian Haberlin, Michael Turner, and David Wohl’s WITCHBLADE #1 (Diamond Code NOV169170)
“If you are a retailer ordering more copies of a comic than you can sell simply to qualify for a variant incentive: Stop.
“Variants don’t build a lasting readership on the books you’re trying to sell. At best, they pay short-term dividends; at worst, they deprive fans of something that is limited in nature. All comics should be for everyone. Not just collectors. Not just whoever has the most cash on hand.
By the same token, if you are a publisher trying to force your comics into the marketplace with exclusive variants retailers can only order by irresponsibly increasing their orders: Stop.”
–Eric Stephenson February, 2016
https://imagecomics.com/content/view/i-want-all-of-us-to-thrive-and-to-succeed-eric-stephensons-2016-comicspro-s#sthash.1qQNViQX.dpuf
Marc,
I may be mistaken, but Stephenson was talking about retailer incentive variants where retailers would have to order x amount of copies of a title to even qualify to order one copy of the variant. Image publishes variants all the time that retailers can order as many (or as little) as they want without having to order excess copies of the main cover. Stephenson’s speech is only hypocritical if retailers have to order 25 copies of Curse Words #2 in order to get one copy of the Invincible tribute, but I don’t think that’s the case.
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