What a disappointment.  When Marvel first started promoting their 70th Anniversary (despite more dubious math) I was very excited.  I knew some cool things (like The Marvels Project) were planned, but what immediately came to mind was the prospect of another set of Anniversary covers in the same style as the 25th Anniversary books I have such fond memories of.  A few months back, these “frame” style covers were confirmed and the artwork was revealed.  The frame is honestly a great image by Jim Cheung and works as a fitting homage to the original.

A few weeks later, we started to see some of the specific cover artwork that was to be used.  While they were pretty hit or miss for me, there are definitely some that I would like to own.  At the same time we started seeing these, Marvel also revealed a set of regular covers for the same books, meaning these would be variants of some nature.  Disappointing, but I assumed the best and these would be what are called 50/50 variants, meaning an equal number of each cover would ship to stores.

As August is the pinnacle of the 70th Anniversary celebration, this is the month we’ll finally be seeing these books on the shelves.  Next Wednesday is the first comic book day of the month and the first of these issues will ship Amazing Spider-Man 601 (which should be a lot of fun, 600 was great), Black Panther 7, Exiles 5, Hulk 13, and Invincible Iron Man 16.  Well, I just learned that the “frame” cover is an incentive variant, so it well ship in some < 50/50 ratio.  This means the books will carry a higher price tag at most stores (Midtown Comics has them listed at $7 before their typical 15% discount) and will be more difficult to find.

So I think I’m out for these.  I’m assuming stores are going to have issues getting them, keeping them in stock and pricing them.  Couple that with the fact that I’m not even that crazy about the artwork (I think I just really preferred the portrait style of the originals) and it’s just not worth it at all.  Part of what was so great and memorable about the 25th Anniversary books was that they were on every title in the publishing line, every single one.  It was a complete set that looked great on the shelves at the time.  I realize 1986 was a time before cover variants and incentives and collector speculation ravaged the hobby I love, but I can’t help but be a little disappointed.  The custom MLD variants help though!

It’s been six months since our first post on MLD and I thought it would be fun to talk about some of the experiences we’ve had and milestones we’ve reached.

We’ve had hits from around the world, which is always incredible to me.  Seeing pageloads from all over North and South America, Europe and Asia is pretty cool.  Still waiting for Australia, Africa and Antarctica, along with 10 states.

While we haven’t gotten as many comments posted here as we’d like, there has certainly been a great response and great support from the people reading the site.  If you’re hesitant to post your reactions here, don’t be.  You’re among friends who would love to hear what you think.

Some of the feedback we have received has helped with a lot of our site updates and changes we’ve made to our navigation since we started out.  Hopefully, you can find anything you’re looking for when you’re on the site, and any suggestions are always welcome.

The searches that have been used to get here are probably the most fascinating part of the site to me.  Countless people have found us searching for “floories” along with “male nudity”, “tearjerkers“, “how to roast peppers for human consumption” and various spellings of “Djurjevic“.  Of course there’s always the odd search for “pocky” every now and then.

Thank you for the attention you’ve paid to MLD.  It’s great to know that there are people out there enjoying what we’re doing.

This week (and part of last week) MLD’s web expert and I have been adjusting, tweaking and remodeling a lot of the site. To say this has been a distraction would be a gross understatement. We’ve changed the navigation, added more information about who we are, and tried to make the overall experience of visiting the site more pleasant.

None of this could have been done without Cory’s help, and we both learned a lot in the process.  Let us know how we did.  Look for more revisions as the months go by, and of course come back for our regular updates and postings.

Welcome to MyLatestDistraction.