Aftershock Roll Out New Retailer Initiative This February

Aftershock celebrates 5 years of making comics in 2020 and to help mark this occasion, they’re rolling out a new publishing, pricing and retail initiative starting in February.
As well as AfterShock committing to solicit new projects “only once the first two issues of a series are completed and ready to be previewed by retailers with a third issue already scripted”,  they’re also giving debut issues a bit of a bump with additional pages of content and card-stock covers that will retail at $4.99, with issues 2-5 still costing fans $3.99.. What that content is, they don’t say, but they could well go the way of AHOY comics, who’s additional  pages include prose and poetry from established writers. Or, an additional comic strip.
Oh, and there’s one more thing they’ll be doing too:

AfterShock is also making adjustments to its returnability and retailer cover incentive program. In keeping with Diamond Comic Distributors policies, retailers who order a minimum of 10 copies of a new #1 will be eligible for 100% returnability of all unsold copies. Retailers who order 15 copies will also be eligible to order one variant cover incentive and may purchase up to two additional copies of that variant cover. When placing orders for issue #2, retailers may order one variant cover incentive for every 10 regular copies ordered, with no limits.

So, bigger first issues, more returnability, and variant covers. All in the hope of supporting not only their new titles, but also supporting brick and mortar stores too. Is this a win-win for everyone then? We shall see.