One of the cool things about my collection is that it's liberally seeded with what are commonly known as "premium" comics. These will be low print run special editions of other series offered for sale to the public through specialty services. Dynamic Forces, the purveyor of today's short comic, is one of the most successful that I know of. Each special edition is accompanied by a lovely certificate stating the print run and this particular issue's individual number.
I've only ordered from DF once or twice, and it was generally to get special comics that actually contained new story material from series I was following. I always thought it was a bit of a scam to withhold story from those who couldn't afford the premium, but I got sucked in anyway. But I think most of their business comes from selling variant covers of pre-existing comics. For instance, today's Top Cow sampler comes in two different covers - one where the characters are in vertical strips and one where they're more horizontally aligned. The interiors are literally the same. It's just the covers that are different. Variants like this are part of the hobby of collecting that I never really did get. I like having a choice of regularly-priced covers (Marvel are killing it with this practice these days), but I never really understood paying a premium for a cardstock or holofoil cover. As I've noted before, I gave up comics basically through the speculator boom of the late 80s and early 90s. I often wonder if I'd have been sucked into it had I still been a collector.
As for today's comic, it's some rough previews of three series. I'll admit, with my new respect for Top Cow's properties and their aesthetic, I was somewhat intrigued by all three. I kind of wonder why this particular preview was a premium comic. Perhaps it's simply that it's a European preview, different somehow from the North American one? But I have two copies of it, one with each cover, so I'm sure I'll pontificate about its premium-ness at least one more time during this project.
To be continued.
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