What I can tell you is that it was a result of publishers taking advantage of comics becoming a speculator property. Special editions, alternate covers, special poly-bagged issues, all fueled by the idea that, for some reason, these more rare covers would somehow be desirable collectibles in the future, guaranteeing the investor a lifetime of riches.
It, of course, didn't work, the companies poured money into these enhanced and signed editions, and then they stopped being worth anything at all. I'm starting to think, as I read through a bit of that era, it's very much because people realized that regardless of how pretty the cover looked, the comic inside was still pretty crap. I'm sure it somehow connected to Marvel's near-bankruptcy in the early 2000s, and it certainly influenced the rethinking of comics in the early new Millennium. Well, that, and webcomics. But don't take my word for it - I'm sure there's a much more comprehensive account of the crash somewhere else. Maybe shoot me a link if you find a good one!
I recently purged my comic collection of a fair number of items, most of them alternate covers that I had of individual issues. When I had my comic store, we would get lists of sale items, and as this was just after the crash of the industry (and September 11 - can I pick times to open a business or what?), a lot of them were left over alternate covers and special editions that no one wanted anymore. Lots of them were from Avatar Press, but also some from the bigger publishers.
There was, however, one set of books I was loathe to part with.
Alan Moore's Glory is the unfinished series amongst unfinished series for me. While it's widely recognized that much of what Moore had planned for Glory played out in the Promethea series, I really loved his Awesome Universe, and I think there's enough difference between the characters that it would have been something special. Moore's Glory consists of 5 issues, 3 of which contain identical content. Originally published by Rob Liefeld's Aweseome Entertainment, the zero issue introduced us to a new paradigm for Glory, now forced to share a body, Captain Marvel/Rick Jones-style, with a young schizophrenic woman named Gloria. This issue establishes Glory's place in the increasingly complex Awesome Universe, and sets us up for "Glory and the Gate of Tears."
Which. Never. Arrived.
A few years pass, Awesome Entertainment fizzles, taking some masterful superhero stories with it (Supreme, Youngblood). And then Avatar Press publishes its Glory Preview, a black and white preview of the forthcoming chapter 1 of "The Gate of Tears." There was much rejoicing ;P And then they reprint the zero issue. And then, over a year or so, they put out 2 issues of the main series. And then nothing. Glory is over, or this version of her is, anyway. It was nice to see a nod to this era in the recent Glory series, but Moore's version is done.
Bringing these two threads together, I thought that, if I'm going to partake in a part of the hobby that I don't necessarily think is good, but is intrinsically a part of the hobby, it might as well be with a comic that I think is really great.
But there's one more thing. There are, including the ones I have, 42 different covers over these 5 issues. 42 fucking different covers! So I've decided I'm going to try to track them all down. Over the next little while I'll post scans of the ones I do have, in a nice big format for anyone who wants the art, and I'll perhaps have something to say about the cover. I'm not sure if I'll read every single one of these for my 40 Years project. Though it would give me the opportunity to revisit the story for many, many years.
I'll offer a couple of covers now, and then we'll drop into a biweekly schedule. That seems to be the one that works best for me these days. And I'll only be uploading pictures of my own copies. It would be easy to download them all, but it's also about the hunt for them.
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