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I really don’t care about DC or Batman, but the cover from Rafael Grampa will be mine.

One would think that Superman: Lois and Clark would deserve a variant considering that Lois Lane is the 3rd billed female chatecter in the movie and it’s actually LOIS (not Wonder Woman) who is living with Clark Kent in Batman v Superman. But I realize that that would be expecting DC Comics to 1) remember that they have more than one female character who is important and 2) have any kind of synergy with their products and marketing. As per usual, DC Comics fails on both fronts.

Correction; Lois Lane is the FIRST billed FEMALE chatecter in the movie. 3rd overall. Yet, the comic bearing her name doesn’t get a variant. Because DC clearly thinks they did “enough” by just promoting Wonder Woman and can’t be bothered to care about any other women because that would require actual effort.

Lois and Clark comic is 12 issues limited series that does not seem to be selling well at all. All listed comics are ongoings that are much more stable sellers.

Its really nothing against Lois, but simply DC focusing on boosting sales of their ongoings.

I think this is a pretty great promotional gimmick. I was impressed with the quality of the free Iron Man paper doll components–especially given the questionable quality of Marvel’s overpriced print comics. The Iron Man doll parts seemed well designed and printed and were a lot of fun to put together.

Unfortunately my retailer must not have ordered enough of all the right titles, so my Iron Man only has a head/torso and a right arm.

Wow. Amazing stuff.

These are all quite fabulous. I’d love to see the insides of DC’s comics reflect this attitude as well…

Yes, DC characters almost always look better when drawn by Darwyn Cooke.

But wouldn’t it have been even better if DC had instead commissioned Cooke to produce 22 pages of sequential art–you know, something fans of his art might actually buy?

Or if they think these Cooke covers are so great (which they should), just make them the regular covers of those books.

Variant covers are a plague. Spend this talent elsewhere.

Cooke drew this month’s All Star Western, and it was great.

I’m aware. I’d still rather see him draw another book than all these variant covers. But I understand current market conditions may make it in DC’s short term interests to assign top artists to sales stunts like this. I’ll leave that question to this site’s sales analysts, and to commenters like Brian Hibbs.

If DC is clever, they will issue these covers enlarged, on nice paper, as a limited edition portfolio.

I personally think there’s little question it makes more financial sense for them to put him on this than a random book. Now, a book with a sustained push that can be made into an evergreen trade?? That’s worth it, but simetimes that’s a crap shoot. Variants are a much surer coffer-filler.

Man, I wish Vertigo books coulda got in on this too — !

kdb

Looks very awesome.

Kurt – can’t you ask Cooke to draw one for you, or is there an extra layer due to it being with DC?

C’mon Marvel, do a month of variant covers by Milo Manara.
Hehe.

Landscape is just the new fancy word for wraparound correct? And I wouldn’t give the selfies covers the eye roll. I thought they were surprisingly inventive. Something about seeing Wonder Woman doing both the atypical selfie poses seemed really cool.

Now the Lego variants……that’s worth an eye roll. But Darwyn month MORE than makes up for it.

I hope DC collects all of these in one place. Definite must buy!

>> can’t you ask Cooke to draw one for you, or is there an extra layer due to it being with DC?>>

I suppose I could, but it’d have been more fun to do it as part of the month-long event, and it’s a little late for that.

Also, the last two times we’ve done variant covers, Alex chose to do both of them. Which I didn’t remotely complain about!

kdb

@Evan: I don’t think they’re wraparound, just rotated 90°.

Mr. Busiek:
Here’s my idea:
An entire issue of variant covers.
No word balloons.
Some text.
Splash pages, with logos and trade dress. (The logos do not have to read “Astro City”.)
The pages are interchangeable. (Either a “22 Pages about Astro City”, or truly random storytelling, where the pages can be reshuffled.)

Two 1:1 variants, where the issue is just folded over so that the interior gutter becomes the spine for the other issue. (Page 22? becomes the cover, the cover becomes page 22.)

One polybagged variant (10:1?), where the pages are loose.
One “sketch cover” variant, where the loose pages are packaged in a plain white portfolio, with one extra blank white page.

If DC had put Cooke in charge of the New 52 I’d probably be reading every issue.