The Marketing and Sales of a Store Exclusive Variant 0

[BeholdersEye]

Out of curiosity, since I have been seeing so many random “Retailer Exclusives” either made directly for the artists like J Scott Campbell, Mark Brooks, Art Adams, Fran Cho, etc or for these online retailers and local comic shops that seem to be more mom & pop sized than nationally recognized, or for comic convention events...

What are the publisher’s requirements to fulfill requests for creating a variant?  I am sure it is subject to approvals and fees on various levels.

It seems that Marvel and Zenescope lead the way in frequency of so many exclusives.

Is there a minimum print run?  I get a sense it is in the 1,000+ range.

Has there ever been an issue released where the person (company) who held all of the copies decided to destroy the majority and only keep 1, to create that “one of a kind” prestige?

It seems like there’s the potential to exploit any number of ways to control distribution and pricing,but then again, here needs to be a demand in order to sell a supply, right?

[Bird]

search google and include "cgc boards" and you will find the answers you seek. Marvel has a minimum of 3000 last I heard.

[sirwesker]

I spoke to Kyle Strahm at a convention once, the initial artist and co-creator of Spread at Image, and he told me it costs like $500 or something like that to prepare the variant cover for manufacture, not including the cost of the comic itself. I don't know if thats true across the board, as this is just anecdotal evidence. 

[ygogolak]

3 minutes ago, sirwesker said:

I spoke to Kyle Strahm at a convention once, the initial artist and co-creator of Spread at Image, and he told me it costs like $500 or something like that to prepare the variant cover for manufacture, not including the cost of the comic itself. I don't know if thats true across the board, as this is just anecdotal evidence. 

Artist fee depends on the artist as well.