Posted in: Comics, Thank FOC It's Friday | Tagged: Comics, coronavirus comics, distributor wars, FOC

Ludocrats Yes But Marvel No – Thank FOC It's Friday 1st of May

Published Fri, 01 May 2020 11:55:47 -0500

Welcome to Thank FOC It's Friday (mostly) every Friday and planned to coincide and cover the demands of Final Order Cut Off. Of course, in these times, so much of this is up in the air. We haven't had an industry-wide FOC for a month. DC Comics is now coming through Diamond, USC and Lunar. And there's a lot of product coming through that needs adjusting. Because this represents the comic book industry returning to comic book stores en masse, Almost.

Traditionally FOC is the date when retailers have a last chance to amend their advance orders for comic books without penalty. A final chance for publishers to promote books while orders can still be added. A time for credits to be amends, new covers to be revealed and a final push given. This is an attempt to sift through them all and find the most relevant items. Right now, that just needs a little sense to be made.

So what's FOC'ing today? And from whom?

We start with Diamond Comic Distributors. Who has a completely separate FOC section for DC Comics with FOC dates for this week and next week, as that's what USC and Lunar have been doing. But we will focus on this week's FOC. Where we also notice that Marvel Comics has not listed any titles. They are special and will be doing something separately, like DC Comics, just not yet. Boy oh boy oh boy.

Previews is missing a month, so the following Previews will be a combined volume, #380-381 May/June.
We get to see Sanford Greene's variant cover to Far Sector #6 for the first time.
DC Comics has the hardcover deluxe version of Flash #750.
It should have been out last year, then earlier this year, when the movie came out but finally, log after the DVD, Birds Of Prey from Azzarello and Lupacchino is getting the FOC.
Both Catwoman #22 and the Catwoman 80th Anniversary issue FOC for the same week? Seems so. The latter includes a tribute to Darwyn Cooke from Ed Brubaker and Cameron Stewart. Green Lantern gets their anniversary FOC'ed in a week.
The new Leviathan Checkmate series from Bendis and Maleev gets FOC'ed. How did the last one do?
Also John Constantine: Hellblazer has been great. A stellar run. Check your numbers on #6 for a new storyline. #7 gets FOC'ed in a week.
Shazam #12 at least has more of an excuse to be late now.
Boom Studios is making a lot of fuss over a big surprise appearance in Buffy The Vampire Slayer #14 with an FOC cover too.
Dynamite is celebrating a new FOC date with new FOC covers for Red Sonja #15, with ll the tiered variants,FOC variants and standard variants, that's 21 covers for the return of one comic.
IDW is launching Star Wars Adventures Clone Wars #1 with a 1:10 and 1:100 variant. Something tells me the latter will be even rarer than usual.
We mentioned Bog Bodies coming out from Image Comics, and a stack in Ireland that have sold out since we posted the story. So here's an easier way to get them.
Ludocrats #1 by Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol and Jeff Stokely is finally launching too. Though one lucky Creators4Comics auction winner got there first. Remember, this comic will ship with 5 covers in equal ratio and one of these covers will feature a quote from the top ordering account.
While Mirka Andolfo's Mercy burnt up the charts at Image, Unsacred from Ablaze hasn't. Might be worth a second look?
Dead Day #1 from Ryan Parrott and Evgeny Bornyakov is launching from AfterShock as is Disaster Inc #1 fromJoe Harris and Sebastian Piriz.
Year Zero #1 by Ben Percy and Ramon Rosanas is launching from AWA.