January 8, 2025, was a glorious day for Zootopia fans around the world. That was the day that saw the release of the very first Zootopia comic book! And while I’m sure many fans were excited to read the actual story and see what was going to happen to our favorite bunny/fox cop duo, the more hardcore Zootopia collectors were presented with a brand-new challenge: collecting all the cover variants. But exactly how many are there? Where can you buy them? And the most important question: doesn’t this seem a bit excessive just for a few pages of paper that all look identical on the inside?
Yes. Yes it is.
How’s it going, Zootopia? My name is Skul, and today I have the privilege of sharing my knowledge of the Zootopia #1 comic cover variants with all of you! I hope you find this post interesting, and maybe learn a thing or two along the way. So strap yourselves in, and let’s get straight into it!
Let’s go ahead and take a look at the five “standard” releases. Cover A is the “official” cover for the issue, with art by Trish Forstner.
Cover B features art by Alessandro Ranaldi, the artist in charge of the comic itself.
Cover C is called a “bleed” variant, since the main color of Judy’s uniform transitions seamlessly into the background.
Cover D is called a “Storybook Art” variant. It features a scene from the movie, not seen in the comic itself.
Finally, Cover E is a simple stock image of Nick and Judy on a blank white background.
Going forward, we can expect most, if not all, issues of Zootopia to have five covers with these features: one with art by Trish Forstner, one with art by Alessandro Ranaldi, one bleed variant, one Storybook Art variant, and one with a stock image of a character.
(Fun fact: the trend so far is that the character with a stock image on the cover of one issue, gets a bleed variant the next.)
For most issues of Zootopia, those five covers will be it. However, Zootopia #1 features several extra retailer-exclusive covers to celebrate the comic’s debut. Don’t expect to see this again, except maybe for the release of Issue #10 at the end of the series.
Let’s start with my personal favorite of the cover variants: this beautiful Sunset cover by Alessandro Ranaldi, the same artist who drew Cover B. In fact, it’s the exact same image, but changed to take place during–as the name suggests–sunset in Zootopia. This is exclusive to Dynamite.com, and is limited to only 100 copies. As of the time of this article being written, there are still copies available.
Next up, this cover from Krums World. The artist for this cover is Peter Smith.
This next one is exclusive to MBArtist. The art was done by veteran Disney artist James C Mulligan, and is limited to 600 copies.
Artist Karen Hallion did an official cover sold exclusively through her Etsy store, limited to 500 copies. She signed my copy, which you can see in the picture below.
And finally, The Comic Mint offered a cover variant, with art by Chrissie Zullo, exclusively through MegaCon 2025 in Florida. Copies that were not sold at MegaCon became available to buy through their website. Limited to 300.
In addition, there are two blank covers available. These covers have a slightly different texture to them, to make it easier for artists to draw unique art on the front. There are two colors available, white and teal, both exclusive to Authentix.
Now, you would think after all of that, we’d be done talking about variants, right? Well, it turns out, comic book collecting is serious business. There are not only these twelve cover variants, but in many cases, there are variants of the variants! In fact, if you want to count every single possible variant, there are a total of 31 to go after!
Let’s start with virgin variants. What are virgin variants? Virgin variants are where you take the cover of a comic and remove all the text on the front, leaving just the art by itself. This is available for all five regular covers and most of the retailer exclusives.
In addition to that, there are also foil variants. Think of it like a holographic Pokémon card, where the whole cover is reflective and shiny. Most trade covers and most virgin covers received foil variants.
Finally, there is a metal cover. That’s right, metal. Which means it’s very, very, very expensive. I don’t own it, and I don’t know of anyone else who does. In case you’re curious, it’s the virgin variant of Cover A. It looks like this.
Some other tidbits to mention: The artists who made these covers will oftentimes sign them if you order from them directly and ask nicely (as was the case with my Karen Hallion copy). Sometimes artists will even add a little doodle to personalize your copy, as Chrissie Zullo did at MegaCon to attendees who bought a copy in person.
One last thing: Right now, Alessandro Ranaldi is taking commissions for custom artwork on the blank covers. These are one-of-a-kind and made to order, so if you’re interested in an extra-special cover and you’re willing to help support the artist who’s making all of this happen, be sure to reach out to him on social media!
I think that covers (no pun intended) all of the variants of Zootopia #1! Thankfully, starting with Zootopia #2, the number of variants has dwindled down considerably. Things should remain calm until Zootopia #10 releases later this year. If you wish to see ZNN cover the cover variants of all future issues, let us know!
That does it for now! I hope you all learned a thing or two about the comic collecting world. I’m so happy that Zootopia is getting so much love and recognition this year. Between these comics and Zootopia 2, we fans have it pretty good right now! What’s your favorite cover variant? Let us know in the comments!
See you all next time!
First Comment on your first post! Great work, Skul!