Twenty bags. Twenty copies of Cover H.

That was our experience opening Mark Spears’ Graveyard Shift #1 Body Bag Edition live on eBay Live at Cowabunga Comics. We ordered these expecting a fun opening experience for our customers. Instead, we kept revealing the same cover.

By the end, there wasn’t much suspense left.

I posted about it on Facebook:

“Mark Spears bagging up one variant of his books and selling it as a ‘mystery bag’ is the biggest troll I've seen in all my years selling comics.”

That was frustration talking, and there’s a distinction worth making: other covers do exist in these bags. But the way they’re distributed is exactly why so many people are upset.

Cover H is the common result. Every other cover is a chase variant, with the least scarce alternative listed at 1:50.

The solicitation lists eight bag-exclusive covers in total, ranging from Cover H to a hand-signed and sketched Cover O at 1:20,000. These aren’t eight equally likely possibilities. The published lineup puts every alternative to H behind a rarity ratio.

That’s a very different experience from what a lot of us thought we were ordering.

We Weren’t Expecting Twenty Jackpot Winners

Nobody here expected every bag to contain a signed sketch or some impossibly rare foil.

We expected variety.

There’s a difference between opening a common cover instead of a rare one and opening the same common cover twenty consecutive times. A selection of ordinary covers can still make opening bags enjoyable. You can like one image better than another, trade with a friend, or build a collection without needing a major hit.

With these bags, getting a different cover at all is the chase.

Other people in the comments reported similar experiences. Marco Falletta wrote:

“we had 10 opened so far and all 10 same book”

J Thomas Chambers IV reported:

“These were 3/3 cover H.”

Those are individual reports, not an audit of the print run. But they help explain why our opening didn’t feel like an isolated disappointment.

Yes, the Ratios Were in the Solicitation

This was the main counterargument in the comments, and it deserves to be included.

Ryan G Anzaldi defended the release:

“Comes with a card, yall. Bagged to keep the card in. Solicits were extremely clear.”

Others were happy with their purchases. Jer Zion reported buying two bags and pulling a base cover and a 1:100 foil variant. Barry Milavetz said he received Cover H with a rare foil card and saw no reason to be upset.

Fair enough. Someone buying one copy to read, who likes Cover H and enjoys the card, can walk away satisfied.

And yes, we should have read the solicitation more carefully. We ordered the books. We have to own that.

Retailer Danny Martinez put it plainly:

“Lesson learned for me. Read the solicitation all the way through.”

But retailers acknowledging that mistake doesn’t settle the question of whether this was a satisfying blind bag product.

A product can deliver what its solicitation describes and still leave customers disappointed. The comments show a real disagreement over how clearly this format was communicated, especially to people expecting something similar to previous blind bag releases.

Will Damante Jr. wrote:

“I thought they’d be the same as before. The description should have been more clear.”

That was our expectation, too.

The Trading Card Didn’t Replace the Missing Variety

The included trading card matters to some buyers. That’s fine.

But we ordered these for comic book customers. The comic was the reason we bought them, and the cover reveal was supposed to be part of the fun.

If the intended appeal is primarily a randomized card alongside a common comic, make that the headline. Tell retailers plainly that they should expect repeated copies of Cover H, with scarce replacement covers randomly inserted.

That would help stores decide whether to order a few copies for readers or a larger quantity for customers who enjoy opening blind bags.

Those are different purchasing decisions. We would have approached this order differently with that expectation firmly in mind.

Blind Bags Still Have to Be Fun

Some commenters took this as proof that all comic book blind bags are bad.

I don’t agree.

We sell blind bags. We enjoy the format when the contents give customers an opening experience worth having. Duplicates happen, and rare books are supposed to be rare. Neither of those things is automatically a problem.

But when the ordinary experience becomes the same reveal over and over, people are going to question why they bought multiple bags.

Amy Gardner summed up our reaction:

“Completely ruins the fun of blind bags.”

That’s the criticism I keep coming back to. We wanted to have fun with our customers. Instead, we stood there opening twenty bags and showing them the same cover twenty times.

We’ll read future solicitations more closely. Publishers should also pay attention to what retailers and collectors are saying about this release.

Getting people excited enough to buy a mystery comic is one thing. Giving them an experience that makes them want to buy another is what matters afterward.

P.S. Reddit Has Plenty to Say, Too

After reading through a discussion on r/comicbooks, it’s clear our frustration extends beyond our own Facebook comments.

Reddit user u/youbringlightin reported:

“God I wish I saw this before buying 5 today... all cover H.”

But the comment that best captured our issue came from u/mpau25, who enjoyed Spears’ previous blind bags:

“I wouldn’t even say it’s a blind bag, it’s more of a lottery for the ratios.”

That’s the distinction. People who liked the earlier releases came back expecting another assortment of covers. Getting the same book repeatedly felt like a considerable change from the experience they enjoyed.

Some commenters questioned the evidence behind the thread’s claim that 95% of bags contain Cover H. u/Rammadeus asked:

“Do you have reputable sources that have a very large sample size?”

That’s a fair question. Reports from individual stores and collectors don’t establish an audited percentage for the entire print run. We can confirm our twenty bags contained twenty copies of Cover H. Other users described similar results, but we shouldn’t turn those accounts into a verified production statistic.

The discussion also showed how quickly a disappointing release can sour people on the whole format. u/FortCarrion wrote:

“Def my first and last blind bag. Whole thing sucks”

The most highly upvoted comment in the supplied thread was u/WWfan41’s blunt advice:

“Just don't buy blind bags at all”

I still disagree with writing off every blind bag. But publishers and retailers should pay attention when that becomes the strongest reaction to a release.

There were collectors defending the enjoyment of owning different covers, too. u/saints21 explained:

“I've got multiple covers for some issues because I like the cover and want it in my collection.”

Exactly. Collecting cover art is part of this hobby. Enjoying a mystery opening can be part of it, too. Neither requires an expectation of making money.

What concerns me most is hearing people say this experience has put them off future purchases, including the series itself. A disappointing opening can cost more than one sale. It can cost a reader’s interest and a customer’s trust.

We bought twenty bags because we thought our customers would enjoy opening them. That’s twenty chances we had to deliver a fun experience, and twenty times we showed them Cover H. The Reddit feedback gives us more reason to take that disappointment seriously.