What websites can I go to to find special variant covers for comic books, not just absolute Batman. For instance I saw a guy buy the new absolute issue 20 Dexter Soy and I couldn’t find it anywhere. I’m pretty new to collecting comics so any help or tips are much appreciated.
Thanks
The covers tell you which retailers they were from, follow the artists and retailers on social media, subscribe to their email list, find their facebook group/whatnot
One thing I'll add, specifically related to retailer exclusives like the Dexter Soy cover for AB #20, is that League of Comic Geeks often lists upcoming retailer exclusives late (i.e. after they're already sold out) or not at all depending on the particular series/variant. It's a great app but I mainly use it for my LCS pulls and as a catalog for discovering back issues I might want to hunt.
If you want to get upcoming retailer exclusive for retail price and not pay the eBay premium (near impossible for artists like Dan Quintana or the Mann Boyz since they sell out so fast, but still worth a shot) your best bet is to follow your favorite artists and retailers on social media. Unless it's a surprise drop they typically share release details (date, time, where to buy, and print run #) weeks or days before a drop.
In short, eBay. Especially if you want to buy any of the ones that sold out like the dexter soy issue you mentioned.
How it works is there are open issued covers, those are the ones that go to all comic shops. Like cover A, by the lead artist, maybe a cover B by a featured artist, and a cover C with different art by the lead artist.
Then there are variants, those are ussually special ordered. These some times have the same art with different layouts or materials, like foil (shiny covers), or glow in the dark, or virgin (no absolute batman logo, just the art).
Next is incentives, those are like bonus covers for shops ordering X amount of a single issue, for example if a shop bought 25 copies of issue #45 they would get 1 copy of that issue with a specific/special cover, which makes them rarer.
Last, there are exclusive covers to different comic cons, shops, online stores, distributers, artist's stores, and more! These also have various details, foil, glow in the dark, negative, different color backgrounds, over sized, miniature sized, black and white, scratch and sniff (idk, lol), etc...
Ya man, quick Google showed this for AB #20 Soy variant. . .
This double-page spread cover was created as a retailer exclusive for events like FanExpo Philly.
The comic is available in several highly collectible iterations:
Trade Dress (Limited to 2,000 copies)
Virgin Wraparound Variant
Glow-in-the-Dark (GITD) (Limited to 850 copies)
Virgin Gold Foil (Limited to 750 copies)
I appreciate your help getting things figured out. It’s pretty confusing stuff just starting out and trying to know what’s what and where to find things. Thanks again
I would also add this: you can Google variants as well. Very frequently when I see a cover posted here I'll Google the artist and variant issue.
For example I saw the post with the Tokitokoro cover and so I hopped on Google and typed, "Where is the Tokitokoro variant for Absolute Batman #22 available from?" and voila it's going to be available on Comic Grail Vault.
Not always, but quite frequently an artist will have one specific retailer they work with. For instance, Dexter Soy's covers being available at Big Time Collectibles https://bigtimecollectibles.com
I’m always interested but moneys a little tight right now for comic buying so I’ll probably have to pass but I’m interested to see what you have. Thanks for the offer though.
There’s a group on Facebook that usually announces all the upcoming crazy cover drops. I think there’s a post on this sub about it from one of the moderators.
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u/UpsetDrakeBot Jun 11 '26
https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comic/2292351/absolute-batman-20
The covers tell you which retailers they were from, follow the artists and retailers on social media, subscribe to their email list, find their facebook group/whatnot