During 2017, Panini Comics France will release not one, not two, but 20 (yes, 20 !) exclusive covers to celebrate its 20th Anniversary. 8 of those will be drawn by « classic » cover superstars, such as Gabriele Dell’Otto, Adi Granov, Alan Davis, Humberto Ramos,… while the other 12 covers will be drawn by French artists. Sometimes, it had happened in the past that Panini Exclusive Covers were also published in other countries thereafter, such as Italia or U.K., where this company has subsidiaries. But this time this won’t be the case : those covers will be really exclusive to France! As a matter of fact, those covers won’t be published in the U.S.A. and could be, for some, very sought after! In this article, we will see some of the covers that have been already revealed. All covers will be presented during the Angoulême Festival in France, at the end of January, and rumors says that some could already be available there.

But first, I think that Panini Comics France (PCF) deserves a quick introduction. To keep it short, let’s just say that PCF is a french publisher and one of the major actors of the comic book scene in France. It is a very dynamic company that got the rights to translate Marvel material in French. Panini did a great job popularizing the comic books in France, gaining many new readers. Some years ago, the company also had the rights to translate DC material but it now belongs to its main competitor …

The monthly issues published by Panini are thicker that US comics, because lots of French readers are more used to thicker books (in this case monthly issues collecting around 4 issues of, more or less related series in a small TPBs for approximitavely $6) or HC collecting full stories (sold for $17 or more). Generally, each of those monthlies or HCs are published with 1, 2 or 3 different covers (Panini uses a ratio, by example 50%/50%, or 25%/25%/50% to indicate scarcity)…Their print run is information PCF keeps secret, but some sources talk about each monthly or HC being printed up to 24,000 copies. So, by example, if it has a ratio of 25%/25%/50%, it means that 6,000 copies of the first two covers and 12,000 of the third cover will be printed … Most of the time, those covers aren’t exclusive but may already be a great way to get your hands on covers otherwise expensive or hard to get in their original US version (if you do a quick search on the internet you will find famous JSC covers and so on). But this time, we are talking about REAL exclusive covers… As a last word, i’d say that Panini’s issues can be found in France in comics shops and/or bookstores, but also in malls, where hordes of persons read those, often without any care and sometimes without even buying. This means that it can be sometimes very tricky to find Near Mint issues. Often, the spine will be damaged and/or the cover will be a bit folded …

I hear you, though, show me those covers right now:

All-New Iron Man & Avengers 8

Artist: Humberto Ramos

Release date: 1/3/17 (already released)

Ratio: 50%

Can be found in Comic Shops, Malls and Bookstores All-New Deadpool 9

Artist: Steve Epting

Release date: 2/3/17

Ratio: 50%

Can be found in Comics Shops, Malls, and Bookstores Astonishing X-Men

HC reprinting Whedon’s first 6 issues

Artist: Lewis Trondheim

Release date: 2/8/17

Ratio: 100%

Can be found in Bookstores Spider-Man

HC reprinting One More Day

Artist: Bastien Vives

Release date: 2/8/17

Ratio: 100%

Can be found in Bookstores Deadpool

HC reprinting Wade Wilson’s War

Artist: “Boulet”

Release date: 2/8/17

Ratio: 100%

Can be found in Bookstores Miss Marvel

HC reprinting Ms Marvel (2014) #1-5

Artist: Pénélope Bagieu

Release date: February 8th

Ratio: 100%

Can be found in Bookstores All New X-Men 10

Artist: Alan Davis

Release date: 3/3/17

Ratio: 50%

Can be found in Comics Shops, Malls, and Bookstores Les Gardiens de la Galaxie 11

Artist: Gabriele Dell’Otto

Release date: April (TBA)

Ratio: TBA

Can be found in Comics Shops, Malls, and Bookstores

More to come :