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Quantum & Woody's "Most Variant Cover Of All Time!" – First Chromium, Lenticular, Die-Cut, Embossed, Fifth Ink, Double Foil, Hand-Numbered, Randomly Stickered…

Published Tue, 19 Sep 2017 06:00:34 -0500

Valiant has its tongue planted firmly in cheek for its upcoming Quantum and Woody series by Late Show with Stephen Colbert writer Daniel Kibblesmith and artist Kano.

Last week, we were informed that the publisher would be producing a series of "Extreme Ultra-Foil" alternate shelf covers for the series, which would feature cover art by God Country's Geoff Shaw "embossed and enhanced" with "actual 90s foil" – quite literally repurposing cover materials that had produced en masse by DC, Marvel and Image in the decade of Terminator 2 and Pogs.

Now, as first detailed today at CBR, Valiant is raising the stakes considerably with Quantum and Woody #1's "Most Variant Cover of All Time!" – an "unholy and experimental" cover featuring a Barry Windsor-Smith homage by artist Clayton Henry that will subsequently be treated with chromium, lenticular, embossing, die-cutting, iridescent fifth ink, (two kinds of) foil, and come hand numbered and with a "random fourth Valiant hero" stickered onto the cover…as this eye-bleeding gift so succinctly breaks down:

Available on the series launch for issue #1 only, the cover will carry a 1:250 incentive for qualifying comic shops and will be limited to one per store. Reps for the publisher have also repeatedly underlined the absurd nature of their Warhol-inspired art project, as Valiant CEO Dinesh Shamdasani summed up for CBR:

"Our goal here is to break variants. Just completely break them, have some fun with them. People take variants too seriously. There's certainly a demographic of fans that love variants, we're all part of that — we love it, especially when they accentuate story. But people take them too seriously, they get upset by them, and certainly some of the publishers misuse them. We want to remind people, 'Hey, these things are silly, and they're fun, and look how innovative they can be, and how much stupidity can go into them, and how fun that is."

Added Valiant Marketing VP Hunter Gorinson:

"All of these initiatives that we do are always in service of getting the book in front of new people, and people who are going to support the title in their local comic shops. "Whether it was the talking cover back in 2012, or whether it was something more subtle like the preorder editions that we introduced for X-O Manowar earlier this year, both of those accomplished the same things, which was getting people into comic book shops, talking about the books, and hopefully talking about the incredible stories we have coming up."

Try topping this, Marvel Legacy and Doomsday Clock… The ball is in your court. As to whether the comic book itself is any good? Not a frigging clue.

Valiant's Quantum and Woody! #1 arrives in comic shops on December 20th, 2017.