Black Friday Archives - Page 2 of 2

The Black Friday Comixology sales are locked in and most of them are running through Cyber Monday. And there are a lot of them. We’re going to be running through them a little more quickly than usual, though you can go back to the previous two columns for more depth on select sales.

Since we’ve gotten requests for it, there are now links to the Amazon versions of these sales. Amazon and Comixology are in the same ecosphere, after all.

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

DC’s ~2,400 Graphic Novels Sale

DC’s Black Friday deal is in three parts and the whole thing has it’s own page. (Amazon version) Last time we talked about some titles from the $4.99 section of the sale, since DC doesn’t go under $5.99 with great regularity unlike other publishers. Today let’s take a quick look at the rest of the sale.

22 out of 23 volumes of the Vertigo version of John Constantine, Hellblazer are on sale for $5.99/$6.99. Those haven’t all been on sale at once in a while and there’s a reason the series ran so long.

Batman Universe by Brian Bendis and Nick Derington really didn’t make a splash when it it came out, which is a shame. This is a FUN Batman title (yes, that’s possible) as the caped crusader finds himself chasing<spoilers> through time and space. There’s a little old school The Brave and the Bold in it with lots of guest stars and the banter/bickering with Alfred is well done. Lucky you, it’s 59% off.

For an old school option, Jack Kirby’s New Gods is a classic and one of DC’s better values with 424 pages for your $6.99. 2,400-ish graphic novels for you to browse before Cyber Monday ends, so get to it.

The Marvel Deals

The Dawn of X Sale (Amazon Version) – We had plenty to sayabout the Dawn of X collections on Monday. Short version – the anthology reading format is interesting and has merit.

The Marvel Earth Shattering Events Sale (Amazon Version), modestly named as it, runs until Thursday 12/3. We spoke a little more about it last Monday, too. Short version: if you go old school like Kree/Skrull War, Armor Wars or Asgardian Wars, the plots are a little more contained.

Dark Horse, Part 2

Last time out, we talked about some of the goodies in Part 1 of the Dark Horse Graphic Novel Sale. This time, we’ll look at Part 2, as promised. (Amazon has all the Dark Horse material in one link.)

Possibly the greatest samurai manga of all time Lone Wolf and Cub by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima is a great value. Most of these volumes are around 300 pages for the sale price of $2.99. A disgraced executioner bides his time as an assassin while seeking revenge on those who framed him, all while caring for his 3 year old son. (Be aware, there are very graphic sword fights in this. It’s not a YA title.)

Kabuki is David Mack’s critically acclaimed saga of a Japanese government assassin caught in a struggle between her agency and the yakuza. At 360+ pages for $4.99, these are also good buys.

Light Brigade is Peter Tomasi’s and Peter Snejbjerg’s tale of WWII U.S. soldiers who find themselves charged with recovering the Sword of God before the Nazis and Fallen Angels get their hands on it. An excellent comic that’s largely flown under the radar.

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The Big Comixology Sale Roundup

The Image Black Friday Sale (Amazon version) we discussed last time. It feels like their full digital library is on sale from the recent Brubaker/Phillips Pulp to years of Spawn and Savage Dragon. The best bang for your buck might be the massive Walking Dead and Invincible Compendiums.

The Dynamite Black Friday Sale (Amazon version) is 605 items deep. Interesting items include the sly Watchmen commentary in Kieron Gillen’s Peter Cannon: Thunderbolt and classics like Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! and Jim Starlin’s Dreadstar.

The Comixology Originals Sale (Amazon version) is Comixology’s eclectic line of commissioned comics and manga imports. We’ve spoken a bit about Elephantmen in the past, which moved over from Image. We also like Delver by Spike Trottman and MK Reed, a fantasy comics that might fall into the LitRPG literary genre, but also gets into the economics repercussions of adventurers showing up when the entrance to a mystical dungeon materializes in a remote farming community.

The Viz Black Friday Sale (Amazon version) isn’t the best deal you’re going to find today at only 43% off, but there’s a ton of Blue Exorcist, One Piece and Yu-Gi-Oh! at a $3.99 price point.

The Kodansha Black Friday Sale (Amazon Version) has the first volumes in various series like Attack on Titan, Beck and Ghost in the Shell for $0.99 each – i.e., cheap.

The Best of Archie Sale (Amazon version) has classic Archie, modern Archie and some Riverdale thrown in for good measure. Some of the V. 1’s are $0.99, too.

The Best of IDW Sale (Amazon version) strangely does not have Ragnarok in it… but it does have some flagship titles like Locke & Key, G.I. Joe and My Little Pony.

The Best of BOOM! Sale (Amazon version) is a small one. You’ll find Giant Days, Irredeemable, Angel (as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Lumberjanes and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. We loved Irredeemable, a Mark Waid/Peter Krause superhero tale (universe, really) where the elevator pitch might be “What if Superman had a psychotic break?” – NOTE: the Comixology version of this has some $0.99 first volumes. Amazon does have the same pricing, but not on the sale page. You’ll need to go to the series page on Amazon for that.

The Best of Humanoids Sale (Amazon Version) is mostly $0.99 books on Comixology (be warned – these are $4.99 on Amazon). The Incal sequence by Jodorowsky and Moebius is the publisher’s flagship, along with its many spinoffs. If you’d like something a little more interesting Kabul Disco is an amusing account of ex-pat life in Afghanistan where the laughs come with a chill.

The Best of Valiant Sale (Amazon version) runs through 12/03. We’ve covered this one before, but it’s hard to beat $0.99 Volume 1’s and Archer & Armstrong is a scream.

The Best of Oni Sale (currently no Amazon master link for the sale, but here’s V.1 of Letter 44.) also runs through 12/3. While The Sixth Gun is a glaring omission from a “Best of” list, you’ve probably already heard of Scott Pilgrim and Letter 44 by Charles Soule and Alberto Alburquerque, about political intrigue surrounding a first contact incident, is a real page turner.

DC’s Got a $4.99 Sale

DC’s got multiple sales going on… they even have their own special Black Friday Sale page. At the top of that page is the $4.99 section we’re going to pay a little more attention to, as DC doesn’t go down to $4.99 every week. You’ve got until Monday (11/30) to browse this one.

The Unwritten is a long-running Vertigo title by Mike Carey (perhaps better known these days as M.R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts) and Peter Gross. Tom Taylor’s father wrote books about a boy wizard named Tom Taylor. Is Tom his father’s son, the actual character from the books or something else? Magic, conspiracies and unwanted celebrity collide in this one. Save a couple bucks – Unwritten Deluxe Book One collects the first two tpbs for less.

Prez may not have seen it’s natural end, but it’s so timely right now. This Mark Russell/Ben Caldwell/Mark Morales book tells the tale of the Corndog Girl when a series of coincidences involving social media and a contested election sent to Congress for a vote land her in the Oval Office. Worth it just for the “how to pick a Vice President” sequence.

Batman: Gothic is one of Grant Morrison’s early Batman tales. Drawn by Klaus Jansen, it finds Batman drawn into a conflict between Gotham’s mobsters and killer who won’t stay dead. It’s called “Gothic” because Morrison was heavily influenced by gothic horror when writing it.

Dark Horse discounts for Black Friday

Dark Horse has just about everything except the original run of Dark Horse Comics Presents on sale. Today, we’ll have a look at Part 1 of their Graphic Novel sale. (We’ll hit Part 2 on Friday, but feel free to skip ahead if you’re itching for Lone Wolf and Cub.) As is our custom, we’ll try and highlight things that haven’t been part of recent sales, but rest assured that the usual suspect are also 50% off.

Have you tried Blacksad yet? Blacksad is a Raymond Chandler-esque detective series that happens to be done in anthropomorphic style. The characters are animals, but it’s absolutely not a funny animal comic, it’s hard boiled detective stories. Old school. It’s by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido. It’s one of the best illustrated comics out there, too.

Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan: The Complete Joe Kubert Years is just what it says it is: Kubert’s complete early 70s Tarzan run for DC. A labor of love from one of the most influential artists… and that complete edition is a lot more convenient than when I had to go tracking down the archive editions in print!

Finder is Carla Speed McNeil’s long running science fiction series. It’s heavy on world building and especially culture building. Finder racks up awards: Igantz, Eisner and even an LA Times Book Prize. It’s criminal that its not better known. Also, the first two “Finder Library” volumes are over 600 pages each, so an excellent value on top of the quality work.

This sale runs through Monday (11/30). There are also two single issue sales: Part one takes you from the beginning of the alphabet into “I.” Part 2 finishes the set.

Image goes Black Friday, too

Image also has pretty much the entire catalog on sale for Black Friday. 1,463 items for you to browse between now and Cyber Monday (11/30). This is a 50% off sale, so if you were meaning to pick up a digital collection, dig around for it and the odds are good it’ll be there. A few items of possible interest?

Die (as in “dice”) is a fantasy adventure by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans about a middle-aged group of friends discovering an otherworldly incident involving a role-playing game in their teen years isn’t over after all. If you wanted to do the Hollywood cliche elevator pitch on this one, “The Dungeons & Dragon cartoon meets It” would not be unreasonable. It’s very good, but be aware it’s as darkly-themed a comic as there is on the market.

Kane is Paul Grist’s cult harboiled detective series about a cop in corrupt department. He might be a little better known in the U.S. for Jack Staff or his Doctor Who work, but this is where he made his name.

Kick-Ass has been over at Image for a spell. This comes in two flavors: the better known “Dave” years are by Mark Millar and John Romita, Jr. After the opening arc for “The New Girl,” they tag out for Steve Niles and Marcelo Frusin.