Ahoy Archives - Comics.Cheap

Polarizing

For a good value, check out the X-Men Epic Collections (scroll down to collected editions or just look at the main sale link). High page counts = low cost per issue.

If you want something off the beaten path, Cullen Bunn and Gabriel Hernandez Walta (pre-Vision) did an interesting and dark Magneto series in ’14-’15.

X-Men Epic Collection: The Sentinels Live

But Is It REALLY a Secret?

This is the Secret Wars that’s the endcap to the Jonathan Hickman Avengers run (and to an extent, his Fantastic Four run as well). When the timestream collapses… well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?

The main Secret Wars mini-series by Hickman and Esad Ribic is where you want to start with this and you can move on to the myriad of tie-in titles included in the sale if a character’s side-story catches your eye.

I Shall Become… A Bat

Keep an eye on the discounts here. Plenty of books are only 40-46% off, which not Cheap. More are 50%, which is so-so for DC. A couple things at a better discount?

Batman: Death Mask by Yoshinori Natsume is a manga edition that’s 60% off.

Batman: Tales of the Demon is a collection of Ra’s al Ghul stories. The originals, plus a sequence from ’78-’80. Denny O’Neil is the scribe with Neal Adams and Don Newton dominating the art. This one is 74% off, though it’s starting from higher list price.

Indie Madness

These are the first volumes of series put out by smaller publishers. Highlights?

We do like AHOY Comics here at the Tower of Cheap. The Wrong Earth by Tom Peyer, Jamal Igle and Juan Castro is one of their best. Think Adam West Batman and Dark Knight Batman switching places and being bewildered by each other’s world.

Watson & Holmes: A Study in Black by Karl Bollers, Rick Leonardi and Larry Stroman is a reimaging of Sherlock Holmes in contemporary Harlem. It’s also very good.

Going a little further off the beaten path, we hadn’t heard of the Shame series by Lovern Kindzierski and John Bolton. John Bolton remains a very underappreciated artist.

The Comixology sales this week include the wonder that is The Immortal Hulk, a stroll through Event tie-ins past with Avengers Academy and a deep dive into the big Small Press Sale.

(Disclosure: If you buy something we link to on our site, we may earn commission.)

All You Need Is Hulk

Probably the best sale currently going on is Marvel’s Immortal Hulk Sale which runs through Thursday (12/17). Simply put, this comic would be our pick for Marvel’s best comic of the last couple years. Al Ewing writes and Joe Bennett is the primary artist on this horror take on ‘ole Jade Jaws. Psychological horror, body horror, resurrections and that green doorway to <spoilers>. It’s a great comic and $2.99/tpb is cheap!

The Marvel Avengers Academy Sale is, at its core, a series of Event spin-offs about teen superheroes. Avengers: The Initiative spun out of Civil War and continued through Secret Invasion, then morphed into Avengers Academy with the Dark Reign era of Marvel. This will come as no shock to folks who’ve been watching the Marvel documentaries on Disney+, but Avengers: The Initiative started out as a Dan Slott written title that transitioned over to Christos Gage taking it over. Yes, that trend really does go back to 2008.

Sifting Through the Small Press

The “Best of Small Press Sale” is running through 1/7 and comes in two flavors: Graphic Novels and Single Issues. That’s a lot to plough through, so let’s take a bit of time and take a look at some of the more interesting bits.

Over at The Tower of Cheap, we’ve been suitably impressed with what we’ve seen out of Ahoy, an indie publisher with bent towards satire and fun. The majority of their material is on sale right now, so as a shortcut, here’s their Publisher Page. The Ahoy single issues are $0.99, so keep in mind you’re going to be saving money if you get those instead of the collected editions. We will personally vouch for The Wrong Earth and Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror. Billionaire Island is currently in our reading queue.

The Wrong Earth by Tom Peyer, Jamal Igle and Juan Castro fits the elevator pitch of “what happens when Adam West’s campy TV Batman and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Batman end up in each other’s universe?” It’s funny _and_ satisfying.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror is a sort of funhouse mirror of a horror anthology. A blind drunk Edgar Allan Poe stands in for the Crypt Keeper: our host guiding us through snarky horror stories. It’s well worth your time.

Billionaire Island by Mark Russell and Steve Pugh – the sublime team behind The Flintstones at DC a few years ago – has the Billionaires escaping the ravages of climate change to their own artificially made island… a tax-free domicile, naturally…

You remember Pat Mills? One of the original architects of Judge Dredd. Famed for things like Nemesis the Warlock, Charley’s War (which is excellent and almost totally unknown in the US) and Marshall Law. It seems he has his own “Millsverse” publishing imprint at Comixology. Of particular interest may be the Requiem Vampire Knight series with art by Olivier Ledroit. I’m given to understand this is a particularly dark one, not for kids, and was originally written for the French market.

And then there’s his current project – Spacewarp, which has Mills creating a new 2000 AD-esque science fiction anthology. Something he’s well qualified to be doing. From the description:

“Featuring Special Forces One at war with Giant Viruses! Jurassic Punks versus Dinosaurs! Xecutioners: authorized to terminate Aliens! Slayer – one Robot in a Galactic war against a million Space Knights. Hellbreaker escapes from Hell to punish the Living. Fu-tant – a terrifying school for Mutants! Space Cops! Mutant secret agents! Killer robots! Virus armies! Alien invasions! Interacting in a unique Spacewarp Universe! Inventive, action-packed, heartfelt, heroic, humorous, fast-paced and fantastic value for money – as only the Brits know how. Aimed at ordinary readers of all ages. ”

Speaking of folks doing their own publishing, if you follow the Diamond sales charts for the US Direct Market, very few people are having much luck being their own publisher. One of the two exceptions that come to mind is Joe Benitez, who steampunk cyborg adventure/SF/F series Lady Mechanika has outsold a lot of comics from larger publishers.