Amazing Spider-Man #798 already seems to be a must have for collectors and Spidey fans due to the first appearance of the Red Goblin. Pre-orders for the issue are through the roof, making variant covers even more hotly sought than usual. A pair of stores are taking advantage of the demand for the upcoming comic to raise money for charity. Space Cadets in Houston, Texas and NJoy Games and Comics in Northridge, California teamed up to commission a variant to help fund Texas Children’s Hospital.
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The variant cover features a black-and-white image of Spider-Man drawn by artist Greg Land against a bright red background, which you can see at the bottom of this article. It is currently being sold on the Space Cadets EBay store for $19.99 along with a black-and-white virgin variant that is going for $34.99. Each copy sold will donate $1 plus 10% of the selling price above that directly to Texas Children’s Hospital. That means the purchase of the main variant for $19.99 will result in a $2.90 donation, and a purchase of the virgin variant will result in a $4.40 donation. More than $2,000 has been raised for the charity so far.
Texas Children’s Hospital is a nationally recognized not-for-profit organization dedicated to serving the health needs of children and women to create a better future. They are regularly ranked as one of the ten best hospitals for children by organizations like U.S. News and World Report. They have had a significant impact on the lives of children in Houston and surrounding communities and continue to grow their organization, reach, and impact on an annual basis.
The concept for the cover to benefit Texas Children’s Hospital was conceived of by Brainy Singh of NJoy Games and Comics and Jen King of Space Cadets when Brainy contacted Jen with the idea of doing a charitable variant together. They decided on Amazing Spider-Man #798 due to the probability that it would be the first full appearance of the Red Goblin, forecasting the current hype. King had previously volunteered as the VP for Extra Life, another charitable organization that works in conjunction with Texas Children’s Hospital. Through this work, she discovered their impact on the lives of many children, which in turn led her to select them as the recipient for this charity drive.
The art for the cover was selected from existing pieces made available by Marvel Comics due to the tight deadline before the release of Amazing Spider-Man #798. The decision for King and Singh was easy once they saw the Greg Land piece. “We immediately loved Greg’s art and knew it was fate that it was available. We could never have asked for a better image,” King said. After visualizing the image on a red background, it was obvious that no more color was needed to make the artwork really pop. Unfortunately neither owner has been able to contact and thank Land personally for the use of his artwork due to a lack of social media presence for the artist. “I wish that we could reach him to thank him for such an amazing image that is raising so much money for the kids,” King added.
This is not a unique occasion for the stores involved. Both are pillars in their communities and engaged with many more activities than selling comics. We profiled the good work done by Space Cadets in our first Local Comics Store Spotlight last year for this very reason. It’s not the first time Marvel Comics has been involved with a charity variant, and it’s probably not the last time Space Cadets or NJoy will team with the publisher to help a good cause.
Interested readers and collectors can still purchase the red and virgin variant covers to help raise funds for the Texas Children’s Hospital until remaining copies are sold out.
