Steve Nemeckay of Amazing Heroes in Union, New Jersey saw our coverage of variant covers (see 'Variant Covers--Are They Back?'; 'Variant Covers -- Marvel's Gui Karyo'; 'Variant Covers -- DC's Bob Wayne'; 'Variant Covers -- Image's Erik Larsen'; and 'Variant Cover -- Dark Horse's Jeff Macey') and explains that incentive covers are the type of variants that he finds most damaging:

I was reading the article about variant covers and I have no problem with covers that I can order, (I order even numbers when offered and put them on my shelf mixed together).  What I have a problem with is incentive covers.  My customers want them and that forces me to, in some cases, over-order what I can sell of a book.  I'm the end consumer, not my customer.  I have no return privileges.  If I order and don't sell it, I'm stuck.  In the past, I have offered some of my better customers the option to order the amount of books (with a discount) and just give them the incentive.  Most of them have turned that offer down since they don't want 50 or 100 copies of some book just sitting around.  Who does?  I would hate to see the industry return to variant incentives because I believe it will stagnate the growth that we have worked so hard to jump-start and push us back a few years.

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