Posted in: Comics | Tagged: all new comics, big bang comics, legacy, lenticular covers, marvel, marvel legacy, mycomicshop, variants

Industry In Revolt As More Retailers Boycott Marvel Lenticular Covers

As Marvel tries to secure its grip on the Diamond Throne, more retailers are refusing to bend the knee and order its line-wide lenticular variant covers.

Earlier this month, Bleeding Cool told you about All New Comics, an Ontario retailer that was refusing to order any of Marvel's line-wide Legacy lenticular variant covers. The shop cited Marvel's "insane" ordering requirements that aimed to spike sales by double or triple the usual order numbers just to qualify to order the variants.

For the Marvel Legacy event, the rules are not nearly as clear cut (and is constantly changing). At this point we need to order 100%-200% of our previous issue's #'s in order to qualify to order any lenticular covers. There are also additional tiers which will qualify us for other variant covers. There is so much math involved that it is insane.

That's not to say that Marvel had no bannermen willing to remain loyal. Online retailer MMComics said they would be ordering all of the covers, claiming they could "comfortably" offer all the covers even though the buy-in was "steep." But with Final Order Cutoff for the covers approaching tomorrow, more stores are entering into open revolt.

Across the narrow sea in Ireland, Big Bang Comics declared their intentions to boycott the covers as well:

Big Bang Comics also cited the high ordering requirements:

And spoke out against the depravity of Marvel's tactic of using variants to artificially increase their sales numbers, even though no one is actually reading all those extra comics:

And to make matters more serious, the shop says they've been in touch with 70 other retailers, and the spirit of revolution is in the air.

But no armistice could be agreed to. And today, another prominent retailer, MyComicShop, has declared itself the King in the South, announcing it too will not be ordering any lenticular variants other than the Marvel Legacy #1 special in any of their stores.

Reported on The Beat, Lone Star Comics owner Buddy Saunders revealed the news in the shop's newsletter as local lords cheered him on, along with plans to speak at length about the issue next week:

Except for Marvel Legacy #1, we will not be offering the Marvel Legacy lenticular covers

This decision comes too late for me to address it in detail this week. I will do so next week, as you, our customers, need to know why we made the decision not to stock the 29 Marvel Legacy title lenticular covers. The only lenticular cover we will offer is that for Marvel Legacy #1. Many retailers have made the same choice we have. Next week I'll tell you why.

It looks like the realm of comics could be gearing up for all-out war. But who's bringing the dragons? And what about the army of the dead? Are we taking these Game of Thrones references too far? Probably. But hey, we're just looking out for everyone's best interest here. We have no ulterior motives.

So where do you stand in the lenticular rebellion? Whose side are you on?

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