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How Did The Exclusives Sell At Emerald City Comicon?

Published Fri, 10 Mar 2017 11:30:36 -0600

Ian Melton writes,

It isn't a new story, a major convention, even small conventions, have exclusives for sale, sometimes by the convention runners, the retailers at the convention, or most often now both. These exclusives are a major draw for many fans since they are advertised of only being available at that convention and can create HUGE lines for getting them and anger and problems when the exclusives aren't able to be obtained by those who want them. Well, how did ECCC shape up, considering there were many exclusives for sale? What was hot and what was not?

We'll start with what was the main draw for the convention exclusive wise and had the longest lines: Funko. Now they had 19 exclusives but the exclusives weren't quite as exclusive as last years since 1) most had 3000 pieces available, unlike 300 for some the previous year, and 2) very similar items (probably near identical) were made available at other outlets as Bleeding Cool's Jeremy Konrad reported. Nevertheless at ECCC, Funko had the longest lines and the one exclusive not for sale at other outlets the Hikari Power Rangers Megazord did sell out even with a higher price tag but a much more limited run and The Hong Kong Phooey, Michigan Frog, and Captain America WWII Variant were very popular. Many attendants could be seen carrying the large blue Funko Marvel's Collector Corp bags around the convention.

Next were comics drawing attention and the #1 comic that seemed to have the most heat was the convention exclusive for Skybound: Extremity #1. Considering it is now on a second print the demand isn't surprising.

The other Image convention exclusive offerings had heat as well with Old Guard #1 being next, and Royal City #1 having a lot of interest, though not as much as the first two.

The Hardcover collections of normal first trades for Seven to Eternity and Kill or Be Killed had interest but their hefty price tag did reduce their sales.

The exclusive Glitterbomb TP #1 for Jim Zub was a good sale for Jim Zub at his table.

The other two Image offerings were harder to find as Rat Queen's #1 Convention Sketch Edition was only for sale from creator Kurtis Weibe and most of the print run was actually used by artist Owen Gieni for sketches reducing the number for sale.

The Magdelena #0 ashcan was also hard to find in Artist's Alley but its low cost made it easy to sell.

Graphitti Design did very well as usual with their DC offerings of foil covers (silver editions as they call them) of Super Sons #1, The Wild Storm #1, and JLA #1 and yet another DKIII variant. In addition to these new offers, Suicide Squad #1, All-Star Batman #1 and Supergirl #1 foil covers were still available for sale from past conventions. Graphitti Designs huge print run for their convention appearances made all these variants easy to grab and they did sell well during the convention.

Dark Horse's offerings were few this year, but the American Gods #1 exclusive cover, out two weeks earlier than the normal book moved fast, though was limited to 2 copies a person so some were still available. The Henchgirl HC was unannounced before ECCC and did not seem to move many copies. Dark Horse for the past year has kept their exclusives more close to the vest, not announcing them at all for some conventions or not showing covers or giving much information until the convention. This can drive up interest but also remove any interest and the Henchgirl HC may have fallen to this.

Oni's main offering was another Invader Zim exclusive cover but that didn't create any large draw and even Invader Zim fans seem to be experiencing variant overload for the series.

Valiant's convention exclusive continued their pet cosplay variant theme. Their booth seemed to move more trades then the exclusive but when the cat who was the cosplay model was at the booth the variant moved more copies. Now Valiant's policy of not selling convention variants at other conventions does drive up their demand, but their price tag is always at least twice what other vendors are selling for making them less popular then variants from other vendors. The freebies they offered during Jason David Frank's signings were very popular with huge lines.

Boom Studios usually has 3 or 4 new variants a convention, with their Power Rangers variants being the most popular over the last year. However, ECCC had no new Power Rangers variant so their top exclusive was for the Dark Crystal #1 variant. Even the WWE #1 variant was not near as popular as the Dark Crystal variant. In addition Boom sells all their remaining stock at other conventions with comics from NYCC and other conventions for sale at ECCC.

Reedpop themselves did not have any new ECCC exclusive comic for this year but were selling exclusive comics from other conventions, leading to greatly reduced lines at their booth this year.

The most popular variant for ECCC 2017 though was Zenescope's offerings. The Greg Horn Grimm Fairy Tales #3 variant was very popular with two different versions, but the most popular variant which, was sold out by Saturday, of its 350 copy run was the Spider-Gwen / Anti-Venom cosplay variant for Robyn Hood I Love NY #9. These variants were not announced for mass consumption online and were only talked about on their newsletter. The small print run and crossover for both Zenescope fans / pretty woman / and Spider-Gwen fans made this the #1 comic exclusive for the convention.

Beyond Funko and comics the other main collectibles were the Invincible figures and pins from Skybound. The pins did not seem to move at all, the high price tag probably responsible, but the Invincible figures did well with many fans wanting the bloody Invincible figure. Considering this time next year Invincible will be wrapped up as a series the demand for the action figures was surprising.

Prints rounded out the selection with many fans getting prints of the Zenescope Robyn Hood cosplay cover, and getting prints by their favorite artists in Artist Alley. The rarest and hottest prints for ECCC though were from Image who more or less had Image Expo at ECCC this year in a reduced capacity. They made prints of each new comic announced at their panel while artists were signing at the Image booth. Most con goers were unaware of this as Image did not announce it so unless you wandered by as the signings were going on at the Image booth could someone have found out. A Youngblood print, a Mage III Print, and many more were made available.

Over all ECCC had a wide range of exclusives with the Funko Pops being the biggest draw and Image having the most exclusives fans wanted but Zenescope having the variant that everyone wanted that few got.

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