Mignolaverse Variants

[Kees_L]

There'd also be the "Baltimore, or, The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire" (Diamond Distributors) Special Edition HC (2007) -



I'd say not merely a variant cover edition, but a variant book edition as featuring additional content ('alternate cover, sketchbook section, H.C. Andersen's The Steadfast Tin Soldier, 4 or 5 additional illustrations').

[middenway]

The paperback edition again has different content.



This time with Baltimore: The Widow and the Tank included.

[captain onion peeler]

Dark Horse Presents (2011) #7 shipped with 2 covers, the A cover is Mignola / Hellboy
Dark Horse Presents (2011) #8 shipped with 2 covers, the A cover is Fegredo / Hellboy
Dark Horse Presents (2011) #9 shipped with 2 covers, the A cover is Mignola / Lobster Johnson

Dark Horse Presents (2014) #7 will ship with 2 covers, the A cover is Ba / Hellboy and the B cover is Powell / Hellboy et al

I don't think DHP (2011) #7 has a variant issue. I can't find it anywhere.

[captain onion peeler]

I have also updated to include the Baltimore HC/TP information.

Thanks again to all who have provided some updates.

[grogtheslayer]

I don't think DHP (2011) #7 has a variant issue. I can't find it anywhere.

Go to darkhorse.com, search for Dark Horse Presents #7, and you'll see that there was the Mignola cover and a Chaykin cover.

[grogtheslayer]

Well, if this list is going from single comic issues to TPBs and HCs, it's going to get a lot more expansive. For example, with Hellboy in Hell: The Descent, you have different covers for the HC, the TPB, the SDCC HC, and the remarqued HC. Yeah, the remarqued HC is basically the SDCC HC with a border, but it is a "variant" on the cover.

The Seed of Destruction TPB has different covers for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd printings as well as copy included with the book and figure boxed set. And yet another cover variation by including the HC slipcase edition.

I'm sure some comics folk debate the terminology, but to me there is a difference between variant covers - that is, a single issue produced at the same time with two or more different covers - and reprints (especially of older, individual issues or collected titles). It gets messy in the comics industry when a single issue (like Hellboy in Hell #1) goes to a second printing and also does a cover variant to further distinguish it.

[grogtheslayer]

And just to go completely bonkers, howzabout variant covers for non-English editions? Madness!

[Kees_L]

I have also updated to include the Baltimore HC/TP information.

Thanks again to all who have provided some updates.

Cool.

However I don't think the upcoming Baltimore Paperback Edition is a variant, but instead simply a (new) edition, presented with a lush new cover and more extra's.

The Hardcover edition from 2007 also came as a Diamond Distributors "Special Edition", the latter made available through Diamond exclusively. Getting described and sollicited as being a special edition ( - like as in the hope people would buy it ).

Whereas in a few weeks time the Paperback Edition of the same title comes out, albeit with new cover and different extras.


There will be many different editions to a number of the Dark Horse Mignolaverse titles and collections, sometimes as second or third printings to one particular edition.

A "variant edition" seems to signify a special edition next to a regular edition or otherwise it would be an "exclusive" or simply an edition of its own.

Like how "Hellboy: Seed of Destruction" was initially collected not as one but as two different editions: in October 1994 the first edition TPB came out.
The special signed & numbered hardcover slipcase edition followed in March 1995.
Whereas the HB: SoD "second edition" TPB got published in March 1997 - with new cover. Andsoforth.

A "variant cover edition" would signify a variation for the cover only, again as appearing next to a regular version specifically.

The different Dark Horse editions to the Hellboy Trade Paperback collections for instance have been featuring a different cover as being either a first / second / third edition in the cases such would apply. Without getting signified as being variants, but as proving to being different editions.

The "Hellboy Premiere Edition" is an exclusive, as only made available through a Wizard The Comics Magazine #148 offer, ALTHOUGH as appearing in 3 different covers: Movie Photo cover / Mignola / Guy Davis.

The "Hellboy: The Storm #1" BPRD Memberhip variation would be a convention exclusive as far as I'm aware, (NYCC?) since that was the only place it was made available. Not a cover variant 'though, since the cover is the regular one, in B/W as if to signify it would be like a special preview version if that's correct (I don't have that nor have I ever seen it).

[Kees_L]

It gets messy in the comics industry when a single issue (like Hellboy in Hell #1) goes to a second printing and also does a cover variant to further distinguish it.

In any industry it may get messy if the intent wouldn't merely be to fit terminology or practicality I would wager.

Promotion or making product known would be quite a practical goal in itself, but promoting stuff as for crossing over habitualness would perhaps be proving practical even more so?

Even if publishing would cater towards readers it could do so through various venues and formats with multiple factors or factions involved I'd be to think?

Maybe refraining from habitualness too rigidly or too onesidedly could well result into even less practicality? Could comics publishers opt to not do exclusives or specials - in this day and age? I wouldn't think so frankly.
I don't think comics creators or publishers could just simply do as they pleased. Or at least not where sales or promotion would be concerned.
Whereas readers or fans could generally pick and choose within certain limitations of practicality, like as customers at a store pretty much?

[captain onion peeler]

Go to darkhorse.com, search for Dark Horse Presents #7, and you'll see that there was the Mignola cover and a Chaykin cover.

Weird! If I search by Dark Horse Presents and go through the issues I don't see it. If I search specifically for #7 I do. Hmm. Glad to have that settled. Thanks.

--

I have been noodling the idea about variants today while I was out running errands. I am going to take the list back to variant single issues. I may still include "specials" that are widely published and will leave myself some flexibility there. That should keep it manageable because I don't want to track variances in trades, books, etc.

[Kees_L]

And just to go completely bonkers, howzabout variant covers for non-English editions? Madness!

Off the top of my head I can think of just two of those, both French: the 1999 Delcourt Le Diable Dans La Boîte TPB / HC by Mignola and the 2000 Semic comic Ghost #5 featuring Hellboy & Ghost by Claire Wendling. As all other art I can think of would be re-used material or just the regular covers.

Also I seem to recall we did a thread on here no more than two years ago (post-reboot): http://community.comicbookresources....DCC-Exclusives
for which I compiled a list of all existing Hellboy TPB & HC editions at that time:
http://community.comicbookresources....l=1#post269901
Totally complete and up-to-date (at the time)!

[Sasquatch by Night]

I didn't know where else to ask this, but this seemed like the best place to do it: does anybody know how Dark Horse's variant program generally works? I can't really find any info on it online, so I didn't know if it was ridiculously complicated like Marvel's, or some other beast entirely.

[Kees_L]

I didn't know where else to ask this, but this seemed like the best place to do it: does anybody know how Dark Horse's variant program generally works? I can't really find any info on it online, so I didn't know if it was ridiculously complicated like Marvel's, or some other beast entirely.

Well, I guess a "variant program" means a specific or coherent schedule for cover variations per edition or "Vol.", which one could opt to collect and complete for the duration of it proving currently in stock?

Then it would for the single or "staple-bound" comic formats simply be a regular first edition comic plus pretty rarely a variant cover edition (to commemorate something or to have other artists or mr Mike Mignola take on cover art), or for second printings potentially, but never special b&w or inverted color or sketch type-of-variations. No regular foil or hologram editions neither. As yet. (I do own one ashcan Hellboy cover foil-embossed header fanzine to be honest, but that's a convention exclusive so not part of the main line)

For collected editions or graphic novels it would be different, in how for those editions may vary. There are the slimline straight-to-hardcover Hellboy books which aren't collections but simply hardcover graphic novels instead.

The TPB's either collect the comics but those also come as Hellboy Library Editions or BPRD Omnibus Editions. Those last ones are like ultimate collections, containing every epilogue or such both as all kinds of bonus material. The TPB's may vary for their covers both as content due to how more and more content may've been becoming available.

Then there will be some bits such as dealer incentives and convention exclusives - potentially rare or coveted but not necessarily. Not mass-produced necessarily either, just like how not all print or product would neededly come intended as 'collectible'.

Whereas the booklines are made available, the exclusives aren't ever necessary for complete reading.
Also many covers find their way into the main book lines in some form or other, or either into the Mignola B&W Sketchbooks (as sold through the website artofmikemignola.com).

[captain onion peeler]

Updates on first page post.

I don't think Dark Horse has a specific variant program. They are randomly issued and vary from in house to special issues - like the new Books-a-Million Joe Golem #1.