Lunar, Variants, and The 2023 v23.2 Update (Livestream #124)

[Edison R. Brito]

Hello Everyone,

@Peter R. Bickford Just finished watching the recorded livestream above. Perhaps I missed something in the video, but can we not use the UPC to determine which is the regular cover and its variants? Since the second last digit of the UPC code is reserved for the cover, I have always found that if the 2nd last digit is "1", then that is the regular cover. As a result, can we then not assign cover B if the 2nd last digit is "2" and so on? That being said, it will get confusing once we get beyond the second last digit being "9", but the majority of comics normally don't have that many variants.

[Steven L. Dasinger]

My guess is that the feed they get from Lunar (or where ever) does not include the UPC. It probably has something like the Diamond Order and Stock code.

[Fred Slota]

That can tell you what the 'first' variant is, but it sounds like that either is not reliably the regular cover when one exists, and/or there are issues that just aren't getting regular covers...  and it's getting hard to tell when either is the case...

[Mark J. Castaneda]

UPC numbers are provided by Lunar. When an upcoming issue has variants (ex: Action Comics), cover letter designations are already set by Lunar. Our stance going forward is we'll just stick with what is provided and go with what Lunar says. This cuts down a lot of editorial time indexing future releases for our team which has been a headache since Lunar has been handling DC releases.

*I notice some online comic shops like Midtown Comics do the same thing.