Is there a way to get books directly through the artist? I was watching a video on John Tyler Christopher and he made it sound like you could buy some prereleases direct rather than waiting for the shop to get theres. I emailed JTC last night. 1 1

[Funkoboss]

[revat]

Absolutely you can

but it absolutely depends on the artist

generally check artist website or social media, should be fairly obvious.  But no harm in emailing/contacting too

[stormflora]

On 11/30/2023 at 9:38 AM, revat said:

Absolutely you can

but it absolutely depends on the artist

generally check artist website or social media, should be fairly obvious.  But no harm in emailing/contacting too

^ This.

In theory, sure. But in practice, it highly depends, but more likely to not be possible.

Most creators involved with commercial IPs sign NDAs and other agreements not to sell/part with any materials that pertain to the IP in question.

The only possibility is if they themselves were provided with a standard retail copy, which is identical to what would be in stores.

And this does not necessarily mean that it's going to be NM/M or anything like that. They could treat the comic just like anyone else does.

Plus, you need to be willing to pay them a premium for their time and also the work involved in shipping.

Unless you're absolutely desperate to get a comic early or know that it's rare for being discontinued or something like that, it's probably not advisable.

Edited November 30, 2023 by stormflora

[AndyFish]

We get copies for every book we work on, some companies, like BOOM, send a LOT of copies.  They are identical to retail copies in every case and we usually get them about a month before they hit stores.   When it's a variant cover we'll get contacted almost immediately through social media so we know it's selling for big bucks on eBay.   The vast majority of the time we don't have time to fulfill order requests, it's just not worth it to take the time to package up a comic book and send it out.   It's not even worth it to bring them with us to a show.

We sell them through a vendor on WhatNot.

[shadroch]

On 12/17/2023 at 8:52 AM, AndyFish said:

We get copies for every book we work on, some companies, like BOOM, send a LOT of copies.  They are identical to retail copies in every case and we usually get them about a month before they hit stores.   When it's a variant cover we'll get contacted almost immediately through social media so we know it's selling for big bucks on eBay.   The vast majority of the time we don't have time to fulfill order requests, it's just not worth it to take the time to package up a comic book and send it out.   It's not even worth it to bring them with us to a show.

We sell them through a vendor on WhatNot.

So the books are printed a month before they are distributed? When I had my store, most major companies delivered their books within a day or two.

[Funkoboss]

I saw the same video on John Tyler Christopher (amazing artist) and emailed him twice but never got a response. Now that he is done with the Star Wars run I think we'll be seeing hom work on some new exciting projects but it sounds to be like he'll only be releasing 3-4 times per year.