Tag: Bendis

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The Flash (and Batman); Ultimate Spider-Man; Black Panther; and Avatar

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s a movie week – comics with The Flash, Black Panther (with a screen writer pedigree), Spider-Man and Avatar.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

The Flash (Featuring Batman)

DC’s Flash Sale runs through Monday, 6/19.

It’s like there’s a movie coming out!  And that means there’s a ton of Batman and Supergirl in the sale, too.

Let’s start with the two most obvious things here:

The Flash film is based on the Flash-centered crossover Event, Flashpoint. That Geoff Johns / Adam Kubert series has The Flash altering the timeline with very unexpected effects and leads into the New 52 relaunch. (Our acquaintance saw a preview of the film, liked it and thought it improved on the comic.)

And since Michael Keaton returns to the Batman role in the film, the obvious tie-in here is Batman ’89.  Sam Ham, the original 80s Batman screenwriter, joins artist Joe Quinones to tell the tale he had in mind for the third Keaton Batman film, had the franchise not had a creative shuffle. And that’s Bill Dee Williams as Two-Face. We enjoyed this one.

Flashpoint   Batman '89

There’s plenty of Batman on sale here at good prices (particularly the 80s material), but let’s have a look at the Flash material, since this is theoretically a Flash sale.

Perhaps the most interesting thing here is the ’87 – ’09, post-Crisis Wally West Flash. It starts out with a collection of the Mike Baron / Butch Guice / Mike Collins run (with William Messner-Loebs tagging in for Baron towards the end of the collection).

Then pop over to the omnibus page of that series for some of the better prices we’ve seen on The Flash by Mark Waid (with Greg Larocque, Mike Collins and Salvador Larocca, among others); the Grant Morrison / Mark Millar / Paul Ryan run; and The Flash by Geoff Johns (with Scott Kolins and Howard Porter, among others). Those are some classic runs and the Flash runs we prefer by Waid and Johns.

The current run of Flash is here, and it starts with a lengthy Josh Williamson run. (It’s a little cheaper to get these three double-volumes which are the equivalent of the first 6 at the first link.)

The Flash   The Flash   Flash

Ultimate Spider-Bendis

The Marvel Ultimate Spider-Man Sale runs through Monday, 6/12.

Is this a companion piece to the Spider-Verse sale? It might as well be, because Miles Morales is the centerpiece of that sale and the saga of the Ultimate Peter Parker runs right into the origin of Miles.  And yes, the two Ultimate Spider-Men could be looked at as one really long Brian Bendis tale.

This sale is easily broken into three parts:

Ultimate Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man   Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Death of Spider-Man Fallout

Black Pantherama

The Marvel Black Panther Legacy Sale runs through Monday, 6/12.

It’s a Legacy sale, which means the whole catalog, so first lets break down the highlights

  • The Don McGregor era (AKA, pre-Priest), where Don McGregor was primary author… with a notable Kirby interlude. The best way to navigate the multiple editions is:
  • The Chrisopher Priest era  – with art by Mark Texiera, M.D. Bright and Sal Velluto (among others)
  • The Reggie Hudlin era (yes, “House Party” / “Boomerang” Hudlin) – with art by John Romita, Jr., Scot Eaton and Denys Cowan (among others)
  • The Ta-Nehisi Coates era (yes, from The Atlantic) – while the volumes are numbered consecutively, it’s split into two listing
    • Part one – with art by Brian Stelfreeze and Chris Sprouse (among others)
    • Part two – with art by Daniel Acuna and Kev Walker (among others)
  • The John Ridley era (Yes, Oscar-winner Ridley from 12 Years a Slave) – with art by Juann Cabal and German Peralta

Honestly, most of the Panther pantheon is pretty good. If you haven’t read the original McGregor run, it’s truly the foundational work on the character and almost everyone calls back to it. (That’s also where Killmonger originates.)

The Priest run might be the most celebrated – and it is extremely good.

And while it’s lesser known (possibly because it’s new), we’ve been pretty happy with the Ridley run, in particular the second volume with its extra biting commentary on colonialism.

Black Panther Masterworks   Black Panther by Priest   Black Panther by John Ridley

Speaking of Movies…

The Dark Horse Avatar Sale runs through Monday, 6/26.

Yes, there are Avatar comics. And they’re displayed in a somewhat confusing way. (Yes, yes… we were shocked, too.)

This link is for the $0.99 single issues AND the three High Ground 88 page “graphic novels.”

The collected editions are here. 6 issues to a $5.99 collected edition, so there’s a 5-cent difference between the two formats, if you’re keeping count.

Avatar   Avatar

The Green Hood

The Zenescope Character Spotlight Sale runs through Saturday, 6/24.

And the character in question is Robyn Hood (the Grimm’s Fairy Tales version).

This is available in 3 formats:

And as we were looking at this, we saw a couple names we weren’t expecting to see.  The volumes “The Curse” and “Justice” are written by Chuck Dixon. “Outlaw” is written by Howard Mackie.

Robyn Hood x Robyn Hood x Robyn Hood

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: The “Best of 2022” Sales drop with Spidey & Moon Knight; Plus, Dark Horse Superheroes

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we look at the best of the Marvel Masterworks sale plus holiday sales from Image and Dynamite.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

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

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

The holiday sales have ended and the “regular” sales has resumed… except, DC seems to still have the holiday deep discount spirit.

Best of 2020 2022 – Marvel Edition

The Marvel Spotlight on 2022 Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Yes, we can speak to Marvel’s ’22, though we’ll keep it to series that have a V.1 on sale. (No sense sending you into the middle of something, the way these runs tend to work).

The Jed MacKay section, since he had a bit of a breakout year at Marvel:

Moon Knight is MacKay and Alessandro Cappuccio setting up a new status quo for Moon Knight, a character with so many drastically different takes on him, he’s sort of Marvel’s Hawkman in that respect. MacKay and Cappuccio are methodically incorporating and rationalizing the different versions. Moon Knight has opened a “Midnight Mission” to continue his work for Konshu… after a fashion. He’s seeing a therapist. There are vampires on the loose and a rival emissary of Konshu. A somewhat unpredictable ride, but that’s a definite plus.

The Death of Doctor Strange can function as a standalone, but it’s really the first act in a longer arc. MacKay and Lee Garbett kill off Stephen Strange, but not exactly the way you were expecting. A clever book.

Strange is the next act. Clea Strange has assumed the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme. She’s trying to find a way to resurrect Stephen, but keeps butting heads with a group of paranormal gangsters calling themselves “The Blasphemy Cartel.” MacKay is joined by Marcelo Ferreira on art.

Moon Knight x The Death of Doctor Strange x Strange

Also good:

The Marvels is Kurt Busiek and Yildiray Cinar (with Alex Ross covers) doing a story from more of a Marvels (the 90s painted series). The point of view here is an outsider who’s collected some superhero/villain technology and finds himself dragged along on an adventure. Lady Lotus, the Invaders villain is taking over the country of Siancong, in plot that has its origins back in World War II. The scope takes you from there to the present day for a big tour of the Marvel universe with an excursion to some… unusual corners. Basically, a showcase for classic Marvel. (Both volumes are on sale, so treat this like a 2-parter.)

The Defenders: There Are No Rules by Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez find Doctor Strange and… The Masked Rider organizing an inter-dimensional posse of sorts. Very cosmic, very mind-bending and Rodriquez is really outdoing himself here.

Amazing Spider-Man by Zeb Wells and John Romita, Jr. is another recent title we’ve been enjoying. The first arc, with Tombstone, is a bit more serious than we were expecting, but the tone shifts a bit more Wells-like with arc two. Romita is as icon a Spidey artist as his father, so it’s good to see him back on the book.

Marvels   Defenders   Amazing Spider-Man

The Literary Roots of WandaVision

The Marvel Scarlet Witch Sale runs through Monday, 1/9.

Vison & The Scarlet Witch, as the pair were colloquially known for much of their time at Marvel are kind of a strange one to go looking for collections of, largely because most of their adventures were as supporting cast members in The Avengers.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch: The Saga of Wanda and Vision collects their Wedding from Giant-Sized Avengers #4, the ’82 mini-series by Bill Mantlo and Rick Leonardi and the ’85 maxi-series by Steve Englehart and Richard Howell. Usually, it’s that maxi-series that gets referenced the most, but this is as complete a set of early (ish) solo adventures as exists.

Now, it you want something a little closer to the TV show, there’s the John Byrne run of Avengers West Coast. “Vision Quest” is where Vision is disassembled and rebuilt with the white body and revelations are made about her children. “Darker than Scarlet” is the first time Wanda snaps.

If you want Wanda wholesale rewriting reality, that’s more House of M and the Avengers: Disassembled that leads into it and those aren’t in the sale.  WandaVision is a goofy fit with the comics in some ways.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   Avengers West Coast

Best of 2020 2022 – DC Edition

The DC Best of 2022 sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Oof! We hope you were taking advantage of DC’s unusually good discounts at their holiday sale, ’cause the collected editions we’re seeing this week are largely things that were on sale last week, too… except now they’re at least twice as expensive. We’re not going to highlight those.

All the way at the bottom of the sale page is a selection of (mostly) $1.99 single issues. Yes, we know… they’re not $0.99 anymore, but they did somewhat rotate the selection. Here are some highlights. You should know the drill by now… with longer running titles like Batman, you may need to scroll down a little to get to where things are on sale.

Dark Capes

The Dark Horse Superhero Sale runs through Monday, 1/30.

Yes, Dark Horse has a few superheroes. They even have their own line.

We did a re-read of Nexus over the last couple years and Omnibus line holds up. (We’d also forgotten how many issues Paul Smith drew.) Nexus is sort of a science fiction/superhero mash about a man who reluctantly becomes a superpowered assassin for a mysterious alien. Nexus has nightmares about the mass murderers he’s to kill and they won’t go away until the deed is done. Lots of world building in this one. Mike Baron writes the whole thing and Steve Rude is the primary artist. Omnibuses 1-6 are the original Capital City/First Comics run, V. 7 picks up when the license moved to Dark Horse. Yes, Nexus is still around.

For something way off the beaten path, there’s The Best of Milligan & McCarthy. That would be Peter Milligan (Shade, the Changing Man; Hellblazer; X-Statix) and Brendan  McCarthy (Judge Dredd, Strange Days, and believe it or not, the co-writer of Mad Max: Fury Road). These two collaborated a lot in their early days in the UK market with the best known bits in the US probably being the Strange Days mini-series from Eclipse. It fits in here because of their Paradax strip. Trippy would be the key term for these two.

With Brian Bendis moving his base of operations to Dark Horse, that means Powers is getting a new edition. Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming are the creators of this long running (on again, off again… with 4 relaunches as they’ve switched publishers) police procedural about the cops who investigate those with superhuman abilities. The police aren’t supposed to have powers, but… that would be getting ahead of ourselves. This was one of the early hits that eventually led Bendis to Marvel and it’s a quality series. Perhaps better read in collected edition, since you aren’t trying to figure out the publishing schedule (which has probably diluted the reputation of the series).

Nexus   The Best of Milligan and McCarthy   Powers

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Avengers, Deadpool, ~3K DC Titles and Image Crime

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, DC goes wide and deep with some better prices, Marvel offers up Avengers and Deadpool and Image slashes crime comics.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

Before we get to the sales, a message for the folks at Comixology: you really need to get some pagination in this new format. Yes, sorting and alphabetizing books is important and a step in the right direction, but there really needs to be some pagination or bookmarks. A sale like the current DC sale requires a person to click the “See more” button around 90 times to get to the end. If that person wants to read the details on any item before getting to the end, they get thrown back to the beginning of the sale when they click the back button to return.  That’s a pretty awful UIX experience and puts a significant burden on the user who wants to browse something at the end of the alphabet, like Wonder Woman. Fix this.

(We recommend right-clicking and opening a new tab or window if you want to examine an item in one of these monster-sized sales. It will save you some headaches.)

DC Forget To Put the Kitchen Sink On Sale

The DC Ultimate eBook Sale runs through Monday, 10/3.

As we were saying, this is a REALLY large sale, around 2700 items – all collected editions. And here’s the thing, items that are a few years old (and a couple more recent releases) are frequently $3.99/volume with some of the “Deluxe” editions – i.e., print HCs that contain two TPBs worth of material – for $5.99.  Good deals and as cheap as we’ve seen some of this in some time.  It’s well worth a browse.

Here’s a list of some things that caught our eye as cheaper than usual and/or not always on sale:

  • Challengers of the Unknown – This is the original Jack Kirby run and if you haven’t read it before, you may be shocked how much it feels like early Fantastic Four. $5.99
  • (Original) Doom Patrol – $5.99 for the first omnibus? Yes, please.
  • Fables – The Bill Willingham/Mark Buckingham fantasy epic in $5.99 double-volumes
  • Far Sector – $5.99 for all 12 issues of the N.K. Jemisen/Jamal Campbell instant classic that introduces a new Green Lantern
  • First Issue Special – Are you confused about the new Tom King / Jorge Fornés Black Label series? It spins out of this ’70s anthology series. A serious weird mix, but with some real gems like Doctor Fate by Martin Pasko & Walt Simonson, a few Jack Kirby one-shots and the debut of Mike Grell’s Warlord feature. $7.99 and it hasn’t been discounted until recently.
  • Gotham Central – $3.99 for double volumes of the Ed Brubaker/Greg Rucka/Michael Lark/Stefano Gaudiano/Kano classic?  That’s crazy cheap for the material.
  • Green Lantern (’60-’86) – There’s a lot here for $3.99 a pop, but here’s a good sequence that’s not always properly discounted V.1 = Len Wein/Dave Gibbons, V.2 = Wein/Gibbons and transitions to Steve Englehart/Joe Staton; V.3 = Englehart/Staton; V.4 of the sequence is inexplicably packaged as Tales of the Green Lantern Corps V.3, but is the next Englehart/Staton volume. The series then changes to Green Lantern Corps, but that volume is $7.99.
  • Green Lantern (’18-’20) – i.e., the Grant Morrison/Liam Sharp run. It’s all one extended story and it’s _all_ on sale now. Season 1 – $3.99. Season 2 – $3.99/$4.99
  • Hardware: The Man in the Machine – $3.99 for the great intro arc by Dwayne McDuffie and Denys Cowan
  • Lois Lane: Enemy of the People – The 12-part Greg Rucka/Mike Perkins serial. – $5.99
  • New Teen Titans (’80-’88) – The original Marv Wolfman/George Perez classic at $3.99/volume
  • Orion – Walt Simonson’s criminally under-rated New Gods series. $5.99/$6.99
  • Rorschach – Tom King and Jorge Fornés do an excellent, if tangential, follow-up to Watchmen with a surprisingly meta meditation on identity and modern mythology.
  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – The Alan Moore era for $3.99/volume.
  • Suicide Squad (87-’92) – The John Ostrander/Luke McDonnell run that defined the concept for $3.99/volume? Ayup!
  • Superman: Phantom Zone – The wonderfully bizarre and creepy Steve Gerber/Gene Colan mini-series that takes more of a horror angle on Superman, plus the DC Comics Presents follow-up. $3.99
  • Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen: Who Killed Jimmy Olsen – Extremely funny take on Jimmy by Matt Fraction and Steve Leiber. HIGHLY recommended.

There’s a ton of stuff here and it’s worth your time to have an extended browse.

Gotham Central   Superman: Phantom Zone   Rorschach

Avengers Disassemble

The Marvel Avengers/Mighty Avengers Sale runs through Monday, 10/3.

This would be the Bendis “New Avengers” era. There are multiple formats in play with this sale, but omnibus seems to be the way to go here:

That said, there a couple things in this sale we prefer from this era: the lesser known Mighty Avengers run by Dan Slott with Koi Pham as the lead artist. It’s not the classic Avengers lineup, but it has more of a classic Avengers feel.

You’ve also got the Ed Brubaker and Rick Remender eras of Secret Avengers. This is the Avengers “covert” ops team, so more of a spy flavor.

The Mighty Avengers by Dan Slott   Secret Avengers

No, Not the Dirty Harry Film

The Marvel Deadpool Vs. the Marvel Universe Sale runs through Monday, 10/3.

Deadpool has always had a lot of fairly short run titles swapping around at any given time, this is a collection of those secondary titles.

The longest running of the set is Deadpool & Cable, Fabian Nicieza and Patrick Zircher being the team most associated with it. Amusingly, the monthly comic was called Cable & Deadpool, but the character popularity has flipped since then.

Deadpool Corps maybe of heightened interest with Rob Liefeld joining writing Victor Gischler for it.

Deadpool & Cable   Deadpool Corps

Crime Time?

The Image Crime Sale runs through Monday, 10/17.

We’d probably call a LOT of these comics more SF/F than Crime, but we always did like a genre-bender.

If you want a straight up crime comic, The Good Asian by Pornsak Pichetshote and Alexandre Tefenkgi should trip your trigger. It lives up to the considerable hype (especially the first half). This is a noir mystery about a Hawaiian detective of Chinese descent, summoned to San Francisco to investigate a disappearance related to his wealthy guardians family… and then things sideways. Conspiracies mingle with politics and racial identity. And it’s well researched, too.

While Criminal was originally published at Icon/Marvel, it’s kind of the old school flagship for crime work at Image, since that’s where Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips started doing crime tales (non-superpowered crime tales, at least, since they’d previously worked together on Sleeper).

Now, if you want something a lot further out there, but still with a criminal element, we’ve always been big fans of Chew. This John Layman / Rob Guillory classic is the right kind of weird. It’s also frequently hilarious. In world recovering from a nasty bird flu, after which poultry is outlawed, FDA agent Tony Chu chases a conspiracy, aided by ability to experience the memories of anything he eats.  Awesomely strange, one might say. (The sequel series, Chu is also top notch.) Oh, yes… there’s also a death-dealing rooster named Poyo.

The rest of the sale is definitely worth a browse. It’s a nice selection, especially if you like Brubaker/Phillips.

The Good Asian   Criminal   Chew

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Marvel Max (Miracleman / Punisher / Alias), Thanos, James Bond 007 and a Metric Ton of Kodansha Manga

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, Marvel Max doles out discounts, which means Miracleman, Alias, Punisher and… Conan? Thanos is also on sale, and is James Bond and seemingly the whole Kondansha line if you’re in a manga kind of mood.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

A little housekeeping first. We’re going to be travelling the rest of the week, so we’re posting on Tuesday. We’ll see you next week at the usual spatio-temporal coordinates.  Also, there doesn’t appear to be a new DC sale this week. They seem to be standing pat with the Sandman sale (see: still on sale at the end of the column or the last couple weeks’ columns).

Is THAT Where HBO Max Got the Name?

The Marvel Max Sale runs through Thursday 9/8.

In this case, “Marvel Max” refers to Marvel’s old, on and off, mature readers line. (Yes, that does mean a lot of Garth Ennis material.) They generally only float this one once or twice year, so let’s have a look.

Since it looks like new material is finally getting back on the schedule, there’s a couple Miracleman runs that are a little more topical.

First is the Alan Moore / Gary Leach / Alan Davis / John Totleben run. Originally started WAY pre-Watchmen, this is an early and influential post-modern superhero reconstruction with Moore resurrecting a 50s era UK superhero that’s a bit a of Captain Marvel (Shazam) clone and taking things to their logical conclusion with a mad scientist foe, a conspiracy and a sidekick gone wrong.  It’s been half-forgotten after being out of print for a long time and Marvel botched the initial rollout of the reprints. (Don’t ask about the pricing on their original reprints.)

So then Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham got passed the torch when Moore finished his story. “The Golden Age” shows an age where Miracleman sits atop Olympus, presiding over an “age of miracles,” like a god over the mere mortals on the ground. This is where the story will picked up from after all these years.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

We have no idea what a Conan book is doing in this sale, but… we like the material. Conan Chronicles: Return to Cimmeria is from the Dark Horse era and features the endcap to the Kurt Busiek/Cary Nord run and the beginning of the Tim Truman/Tomas Giorello run.  Can’t complain about a Conan sale and we’re a little fuzzy what’s going to be happening with the reprints after the new material switches over to Titan.

Alias, which made it to Netflix as “Jessica Jones” is the Brian Bendis/Michael Gaydos hard drinking superpowered private eye series, now conveniently in 2 volumes.

Conan Chronicles   Alias

Oh, you want Ennis Punisher?  Well, browse the main link for some of his one-offs (there are several), but here’s an overview:

If you were expecting Thanatos…

The Marvel Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Thanos has become a saga, at least with the Starlin-driven material.

Avengers Vs. Thanos is a meaty ~470 page collection of the original ’70s appearances that were centered in Captain Marvel and Warlock.  You could make an argument that this is where “cosmic” Marvel was born. (It’s one of a handful of candidates.) Recommended.

And then Thanos was mostly on the shelf for ~13 years until Jim Starlin started writing Silver Surfer (with Ron Lim drawing… oh yes, those two would do some collaborating).  The Rebirth of Thanos arc was the “oh, snap” moment (pun intended) where Thanos resurfaced and the wheels were set in motion for The Infinity Gauntlet (with art by George Perez and Ron Lim).  And both of those are recommended, too.

There were two more Infinity sequels:

And a ton of supporting material.  “Infinity” and Adam Warlock were practically a sub-imprint for a couple years.

Starlin did more Thanos follow-ups over the years, culminating in a graphic novel trilogy:

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Rebirth of Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

Bondage

The Dynamite James Bond Sale runs through Monday, 8/29.

There is one 007 comic we recommend above all others. Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida is a great updating of the literary James Bond.  SMERSH is back and trying to undermine NATO… and assassinate a few people. This may be the best executing of melding the current political situation with Bond’s Cold War roots.  Highly recommended if you’re into this sort of thing.

While we’ve been waiting for the collected edition and can’t review, we have been really curious about James Bond: Himeros,  which has Rodney Barnes from Killadelphia and HBO’s Winning Time putting 007 up against sex traffickers. The single issues are $0.99.

James Bond Kill Chain   James Bond: Himeros

All-In Manga

The Kodansha End of Summer Line-Wide Sale runs through Monday, 8/22.

Cards upfront, we’re not as familiar with manga as we could be.  That said, (along with the rest of the world), we’ve really enjoyed Attack on Titan, a surprisingly complex series combining elements of horror and political thriller with a little bit of steampunk around the edges. It’s a little hard to discuss without a steady stream of spoilers. But it lives up to the hype.

$1.99 for the first volume of old school classic Ghost in the Shell strikes us as a good deal.

Although, in this case, it might be expensive. Most of the first volumes in the sale are $0.99.  So if you have a manga itch, it would behoove you to browse this one.

Attack on Titan   Ghost in the Shell

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Sandman, Paper Girls, The Mask, Flaming Carrot and a Daredevil Non-Sale?

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s TV sale time:  Sandman and Paper Girls get solo sales as the Netflix/Prime hype builds. Marvel may or may not have a Daredevil sale. DC goes “Deluxe” and Dark Horse points out they have some superheroes, too.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

In case you’re having troubles with the new UIX (a LOT of people have been):

We’re Going To Find Who Made That Pun

DC’s Sandman: The Streaming Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

The Streaming? Oh, somebody thinks they’re funny.  Good grief.

Anyway, Sandman is finally coming to Netflix and it’s slated to drop on 8/5.  There’s a sale, although it’s really been on sale for about a month.  If you’re looking to read it, there is a slight difference in reading order between the two formats.  Since they’re doing an OK job separating out the options on the sale page, we’ll go through it that way… and then point out the important detail that page layout is hiding.

The Deluxe Format is reprinting straight through as it was published.

The “Graphic Novels,” the original collections, aren’t *quite* straight through. The short stories that sometimes pop up between arcs get their own volume.

There’s not _much_ price difference between the two, but the graphic novels will save you a couple bucks. Also, the Deluxe run – and there’s a reason they don’t link you to the series page on this – does not have the final, 5th volume on sale.

So, pick your poison.

Sandman

Where’s Their Two Dollars?

The Paper Girls Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

Seems like we gave you the heads up on this a little earlier, but now there’s a solo sale.  Paper Girls is time-hopping science fiction romp by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang that finds some newspaper delivery girls stumbling into a very strange and recursive conflict. We enjoyed it and the Amazon Prime adaption drops today (if you’re reading this on 7/29).  The best buy here is the all-in-one Omnibus.

Paper Girls

We’re Holding Out For Chips Deluxe

The DC Deluxe eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

This Deluxe eBook thing… higher page count, but based on print HC pricing, so you only want to approach during a sale. The whole HC pricing for digital model is problematic at its core, but let’s see if we can find some value buys.

Dial H is the reimagining of “Dial H for Hero” by weird fiction icon China Miéville, Mateus Santolouco and Alberto Ponticelli.  And a gloriously weird and offbeat thing it is, particularly as our heroes probe the topic of where the powers that get dialed up actually come from. A highly entertaining book that flew under the radar during the New 52 era and probably would have been more at home at Vertigo in the early ’90s. (That was not an insult.) #0-15 for $9.99, so under a buck per issue.

Marshal Law by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neil is roughly what you’d get if you crossed a meaner Judge Dredd with The Boys, although it precedes The Boys by over a decade. We’d forgotten DC still had the rights to this, but we’re probably within 10 feet of the HC while typing this.  The premise is a more fanatical lawman in the Judge Dredd mold stalking his prey in a future populated by superheroes.  And he HATES superheroes. Possibly more than Billy Butcher. So when one goes bad, it’s his pleasure to handle the situation.  Very funny, very dark and not for kids.  Not cheap, per se, but you get 450+ pages and it’s quality material.

A good budget buy would be JSA: The Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith. $5.99 will get you the Elseworlds story of what happened to the Justice Society after WWII, featuring the McCarthy Committee and a conspiracy.  To say more would be spoilers, but this was effectively Robinson’s warm-up for Starman and Paul Smith is… well, Paul Smith.

Dial H   Marshal Law   JSA: The Golden Age

The Man Without Discounts

In theory, Marvel has a Daredevil: The Man Without Fear sale running through Thursday, 8/11.

BEWARE. As of this writing, it does not look like these comics are actually discounted.  It’s largely the Marvel Knights run – and we have no problem recommending that whole run, particularly the Bendis/Brubaker eras.

We’ll revisit this next week – if there are discounts by then. (We’ve seen the discounts arrive after a few days for DC sales in the past, but this is the first time we recall seeing one for Marvel.) Maybe these will turn into good deals.

In the meantime, we’ll say that Daredevil: Love’s Labor Lost is the only thing currently reprinted from the Denny O’Neil run the bridged that gap between Frank Miller’s two stints. The rest of it isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited.  This is the tale end of that run, featuring art by David Mazzucchelli, who’d started 9 issues earlier. It’s worth a look, if the discounts show up (and we don’t know why the rest of this era is buried).

Daredevil

Non-Big 2 Capes

The Dark Horse Superhero sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

OK, maybe this is a little shorter on literal capes. The usual suspects: Umbrella Academy, Black Hammer, Grendel and Nexus, we’ve talked about in recent weeks, but are here if you want to look them up.  We’ll look a little further afield for this sale.

The Mask is better known for the Jim Carey / Cameron Diaz film, but it was originally a comic. Primarily a John Arcudi (yes, also of B.P.R.D fame) and Doug Mahnke comic for the first few series (and following an incarnation as “The Masque,”) you can get a couple omnibuses of this particular flavor of mayhem.  And yes, that includes the Arcudi/Mahnke version debuting in the comic Mayhem.

If you want really off the beaten path, there’s The Flaming Carrot. Bob Burden’s 80’s creation is… hard to describe. Surreal is perhaps the word most often used. We’d probably add eccentric and absurdist. It’s also hard to compare to other comics.  Perhaps a stranger predecessor to The Tick with fewer powers floating around? Look, there’s a pretty good sized preview available if you click on the cover on the listing page. It might be easier to just read a bit yourself.  Know that it’s considered a cult classic.

For something a bit more recent (at least the DH edition is from June), there’s the Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev Scarlet. This edition collects both of the previous series about a young woman who sparks a revolution while fighting back against corrupt police. It’s not what we’d call a superhero story. It’s more along the lines of the old school Bendis Caliber catalog… except with Maleev’s art and frankly we were happy to see the throwback. Frankly, this book is a lot more topical than when either series originally came out.

And if you’d like to explore the $0.99 single issue, this link will sort them to the top. (Still a bit of a mess, but easier access.)

Mask Omnibus   Flaming Carrot   Scarlet

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Still On Sale

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Comixology Sales: Batman, Conan, GI Joe and where the new sale pages are

This week in Comixology Sales… can we still all it Comixology? Well, the logo’s still on the Amazon page. Anyway, we have a look at some discounts on Batman, Conan and GI Joe… plus some advice on navigating the new Amazon page.

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

We’re not sure how this whole “Comixology on Amazon” thing is going to go. We surely were not happy with the churlish and authoritarian forced updates to the app, so you’re not going to hear us complaining if you’re giving Amazon a “time out” over this — we sure did.

The format may get tweaked a little, but then again you’d expect that with the applecart getting upset. We’ll give it a try and see how it goes.

First things first, some navigational bits. We’ve been hearing a lot of complaints about the UIX, so here’s a cheat sheet for you.

Where did the New Releases and Sale pages go?

The new releases page is here. Bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it.  You’re going to want to scroll down to the bottom of the page the see the real/full new releases. It’s similar, but perhaps a bit clunkier, than the old Comixology setup.  You can filter for major/mid-major publishers only.  Basically, the top list of filter options from the old version.

Since we know the Comixology folks read this – Comixology needs to consider AT MINIMUM adding an alphabetical sort to that new releases window. It isn’t clear what determines the order things are displayed in, but it comes off as haphazard and a lot more painful to use. You’re not doing your reputation any favors with the current state of things. We’d probably also add an option to display content in blocks by publisher… that might be overkill, but a lot of folks would use that.  (We’re so old, we remember when Amazon cared about customer opinions.)

The “Comics Deals” page is here. That’s the page for what’s on sale. Again, bookmark it if you’ve been having trouble finding it. We’re not sure about the rhythm of the updates yet – we were giving Amazon a time out. It isn’t clear the update pattern will exactly match the old Comixology site. Time will tell.  History suggests that ALL the sales may not turn up on the deals page and may start prior to showing up on the deals page, so… stay vigilant?

Something that made us laugh

Amazon/Comixology now has a “Graphic Novels” page. Maybe someone will come to their sense and fix this before you click, but right now we’re seeing X-Men #9, Saga #56, Batman #121 — which is to say, Comixology gets absorbed by Amazon and suddenly they can’t tell the difference between a single issue and a graphic novel.  Not inspiring much confidence there, sport!

So… anyway, what’s on sale right now that might be interesting?

Dark thoughts need a Dark Knight

There’s a Batman sale running through Monday, the 14th.

Yeah, it’s going to be a pain to click through 200+ pages, since Amazon doesn’t seem to have a grid display option for the complete sale, just their highlights.

What’s good?  $2.99 for Batman:Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli is a great value.

Call us crazy (you wouldn’t be the first), but we thought Batman: Universe by Brian Bendis and Nick Derington was a really fun ride. It’s a nice tour of the DCU, the snarkfest of Bruce’s and Alfred’s conversation is top notch and you don’t see the “fun” version of Batman that often. It’s just well done.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat V. 1 is the tail end of the Alan Grant / Norm Breyfogle era of Batman… and also comes with some Tim Sale art, which is never a bad thing. At $4.99, it’s the most cost effective entry in that era (which is well worth your time).

Batman: Year One   Batman Universe   Batman: Shadow of the Bat

The Cheap Barbarian

Marvel’s Conan Sale runs through Sunday, 3/6.

Conan, possibly because it’s a licensed property, doesn’t seem like it’s on sale as much as other titles, so it might be worth some attention if you’re barbarian friendly.

We’d put this in three buckets:

  1. The original Marvel run of Conan The Barbarian by Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith, John Buscema and friends. This is conveniently available in Epic Collections. It is a classic and one of the most popular titles of its time.
  2. The Dark Horse “Conan Chronicles“— also conveniently available in Epic Collections (some of the most recent material in Epic format, too?). We’re particularly fond of the early Kurt Busiek / Card Nord run.
  3. Savage Avengers by Gerry Duggan and Patrick Zircher (as the primary artist). OK, we had to be coaxed into this one, too. Conan, Venom, The Punisher, Elektra and Doctor Voodoo questing after Kulan Gath. “Savage Defenders” might be a more apt name for it, because it really reminded me of what you’d get if Conan was running the old “non-team,” instead of Nighthawk or Doctor Strange. Except more over the top and macho. A comic that’s entertaining, while not taking itself completely seriously… and you’ll know by the description if it’s for you.

Conan the Barbarian   Conan Chronicles   Savage Avengers

The Discount Egress

The IDW GI Joe Sale runs through Thursday, 3/24.

We bring this one up because the GI Joe license is going to be leaving IDW at the end of the year. Depending on the roll-out at the new publisher, that means some of the material might not be in digital for awhile. So if you’re interested in it, now is a good time to get current with that interest.

We’d say go with the Larry Hama run. (Which continues here.)

GI Joe

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Comixology Sales – DC Resumes “Real Discounts” (73-77% off across the board)… of course we have suggestions

It’s a Labor Day Miracle! After months of mostly subpar discounts, DC’s got very large selection their graphic novels at 73%-77% off. (Mostly 77%.)  Let’s have a look at what’s on sale, shall we?

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

The DC Labor Day Sale runs through Monday, 9/6 and is in two parts – Part 1 (100 – Bullets to John Constantine, Hellblazer) and Part 2 (John Constantine, Hellblazer to Zero Hour).

We were wondering if we were going to see these kind of discounts again before Black Friday, so it’s a Labor Day surprise and it gets it’s own post.  77% off beats a BOGO, so let’s take a little closer look at the catalog.

100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso.  The classic crime/revenge series about untraceable guns and ammos that eventually turns into a conspiracy thriller.  Take the link, scroll down to the Omnibuses section and you can get the whole thing in 5 volumes for $3.99 a pop. An exceptional value.

100 Bullets

You say you like James Tynion IV’s Batman?  Were you around for his Detective Comics run? Tynion writes V. 1-7.  $2.99/volume.  Similar deals for the Snyder and King Batman runs, too.

Detective Comics by Tynion

Remember when Bendis showed up at DC and you wanted him to write Batman?  Well he did write Batman… for the Walmart editions. The Direct Market version never really took off, but you know what?  Batman: Universe with Nick Derington on the art was a ton of fun and we’d be up for more. Again, a lousy $2.99.

Batman Universe

The DC Universe by Len Wein is a retrospective that might have flown under your radar.  Yes, Wein did more than just create Swamp Thing and Wolverine.  (Although that would be enough for most people.) Of particular note is a section of his *excellent* Phantom Stranger run with Jim Aparo that has never gotten the appropriate respect.  The original Mongul story arc from DC Comics Presents with Jim Starlin is in there, as is the more often reprinted JLA/JSA team-up that reintroduced the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

DC Universe by Len Wein

If you like the Flash, check out the  Ominbuses section of the ’87-09 series.  Here you will find The Flash by Mark Waid, which was then followed by The Flash by Geoff Johns.  Two great runs at good discounts.

The Flash

The 90s JLA series is most famous for the Grant Morrison / Howard Porter run.  While that was a classic run, there’s more that followed… including a Mark Waid/Bryan Hitch run, Chris Claremont and John Byrne reuniting and Kurt Busiek/Ron Garney.

JLA

We’ll be back at our regularly scheduled time at the end of the week to look at the back half of the sale and the rest of the week’s deals, but we thought we’d give you a head start on your browsing to celebrate DC offering decent discounts this week.

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