Astronaut photograph above the Earth limb

2026-06-21

Notes from a Saturday Groot-variant table in Bangkok

Six collectors, one folding table, and a disagreement about whether a metallic Groot head counts as a different issue or only a different jacket.

The table was in a bookshop side room near the river, not a gallery. People brought printouts, not projectors. The argument was bibliographical. If the interiors are identical and only the cover foil changes, is that a variant of issue #7 or a separate object that belongs on a different line in the anthology map?

Our working rule, which nobody at the table loved, is this: if the publisher assigned a separate drop listing and a separate allotment, we file it as a sibling issue. If the foil was a random overlay inside one listing, we file it as a jacket of the same issue. The story does not change. The shelf label does.

One collector had minted the foil by accident while trying to grab the flat colour cover for a child who prefers the softer Groot face. That is a collector-desk problem, not a tragedy. We logged both, noted the interiors match, and put the foil in a sleeve so it would not dominate the reading pile.

These afternoons are how we hear which drops actually confused people. Marketing copy will not tell you that. A person holding two printouts of the same page will.

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