A Dose Of The Sticky Green Rings

Heidi MacDonald at Comics Beat got her hands on an email from DC Comics saying that some percentage of copies of Green Lantern #1, which came out this past Wednesday, are being recalled for replacement due to a printing error that dropped a big, ugly-looking green loop on the cover, making Sinestro look like he’s rocking a raging dose of Oan Face Herpes:

RETAILER ADVISORY: PRINTING ERROR ON SOME COPIES OF GREEN LANTERN #1

DC Comics has received reports of a printing error on the front cover of some copies of GREEN LANTERN #1 (JUL110218). The flaw is an irregular green loop that appears above Sinestro’s ear.

Please check all of your copies for the flaw and report any flawed copies as damages to Diamond by Monday, September 19. DC is working to pull copies printed for other markets to replace the damaged copies, but we need to know the size of the problem and we need to audit our existing inventories to avoid sending out additional flawed copies.

Replacement copies will be scheduled to arrive in stores October 12, the same day issue #2 is scheduled to arrive in stores.

Which doesn’t seem like it would be anything particularly out of the ordinary, except this is a highly-anticipated New 52 book, which means the speculators are looking for any edge to eke out a profit on these… and apparently some see and edge in a case of the Weeping Qwardian Chlamydia, because copies of the books are already showing up on eBay.

IT APPEARS TO BE A TEARDROP MISPRINT VARIANT. A TEARDROP ON THE SIDE OF SINESTRO’S HEAD IS QUITE VISIBLE. I’VE PLACED THE TEARDROP  MISPRINT COVER IN ONE PHOTO AND REGULAR COVER ON THE OTHER PHOTO. ITS REALLY OBVIOUS. I’LL LET YOU BE THE JUDGE, CALL IT WHATEVER YOU LIKE. I think it was intentional especially with a launch of this magnitude.

Um… call me old fashioned, but back in the day? A comic that was gacked up was something we liked to call “damaged”. But okay, you’re telling me that ruined books are “variants” that are worth more now? Because I’ve got some sweet Michael Turner books that I bought back when I was alone on the road in the mid 90’s that are totally variant: the pages are all sticky and stuck together.

Sorry, did I say “variant”? I meant “virulent”.

(eBay link via Comic Book Resources)