Tag: Comixology Sales

Comixology Sales: Batman, Magneto, Secret Wars and a Small Press Round Up

Highlights of this week’s Comixology Sales include Magneto and Secret Wars from Marvel, a Batman “spotlight” from DC and a Small Press Round Up.

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

Polarizing

The Marvel Magneto Sale runs through Sunday, 5/23.

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   Magneto

But Is It REALLY a Secret?

The  Marvel Secret Wars sale runs through Thursday, 5/27.

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.

Secret Wars

I Shall Become… A Bat

DC’s Batman Spotlight Sale runs through Monday, 5/24.

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.

Batman Death Mask   Batman: Tales of the Demon

Indie Madness

The Small Press Starter Sale runs through Thursday, 5/27.

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 Wrong Earth   Watson and Holmes   Shame

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Civil War, Doctor Doom, Shang-Chi and 50% off BOOM! (and better for Power Rangers)

Highlights from this week’s Comixology Sales include Marvel revisiting Civil War (and including Front Line for a change), Doctor Doom and Shang-Chi; plus CU subscribers get 50% off the BOOM! line which stacks on top of a Power Rangers sale.

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

50% off BOOM! for Subscribers

In what seems to be a fairly regular thing, we have another half-off sale for Comixology Unlimited subscribers.  This time it’s 50% off BOOM! – log in and the discount appears. The sale runs through 11PM ET on Monday 5/17.  You know the drill by now: go to the release date view to get this week’s new comics half off or move forward to pre-order at the same discount. A couple series you might have heard of that we’re happy to vouch for are Once & Future (Kieron Gillen & Dan Mara) and Something Is Killing the Children (James Tynion IV & Werther Dell’Edera).

And since the discount stacks, that means you’re looking at 75% discounts for the Power Rangers Sale.

Power Rangers

Civil War

The Marvel Civil War Complete Event Sale runs through Sunday, 5/16.

Which is to say, all the copious tie-in volumes are also on sale. We’ve been saying this for YEARS – Marvel has done a lousy job packaging the Civil War reprints. There are two titles you need to read Civil War properly. The titular Civil War mini-series is sort of the action movie version of the story. This is the more famous series by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven.  Civil War: Front Line Vol.1  and Vol. 2 written by Paul Jenkins and drawn by lots of folks, including Ramon Bachs, Steve Lieber and Lee Weeks, is the actual plot of the story as reporters (notably Ben Urich) try to track down who caused the conflict and why.  We firmly maintain you should not read Civil War without also reading Front Line.

You can expand to the rest of the line after these two series.  Maybe start with the Wolverine volume as that has Logan going after the people responsible for the inciting incident.

Civil War   Civil War: Front Line V. 1   Civil War: Front Line V. 2

The Face of Doom

The Marvel Doctor Doom Sale runs through Sunday, 5/16.

The recent Doctor Doom series by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca is an instant classic well worth your time. (There’s a second volume not on sale.)

Avengers: The Private War of Doctor Doom has a lot of creators with Gerry Conway, Steve Englehart and Jim Shooter as the primary writers and George Perez as the primary artist. This is a sort of off-shoot of the Doctor Doom vs. Sub-Mariner Super Villain Team-Up title and a fun enough sequence.

Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Name is Doom by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is one of two Fantastic Four Epic Collections in the sale and we just like this volume slightly better for having a particularly iconic Doom story.

Doctor Doom   Avengers - The Private War of Doctor Doom   Fantastic Four Epic Collection: The Name is Doom

Master of Kung Fu

The Marvel Shang-Chi Sale runs through Thursday, 5/20.

As you may have heard, Marvel has a movie coming out with their 70s Kung Fu hero, Shang-Chi. There’s a bit of controversy around the character, as it was originally a licensed feature spinning out of the Fu Manchu franchise. Marvel’s currently re-inventing Shang-Chi without Fu Manchu as more of a fantasy-tinged Kung Fu strip.  We’d suggest checking out the original version, which was much more of an espionage comic. Sort of Shaw Brothers crossed with Ian Fleming.  There are two Epic Editions on sale: Master of Kung Fu Epic Edition: Weapon of the Soul and Master of Kung Fu Epic Edition: Fight Without Pity. Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin launch it, then Doug Moench takes over as writer with several artists rotating through including Jim Craig, Keith Pollard and (most famously) Paul Gulacy. Potential trigger warning on ’70s tropes and color palettes, but a lot of people place MOKF at the top of Marvel’s 70s titles alongside Tomb of Dracula and Man-Thing.

Master of Kung Fu   Master of Kung Fu

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: 50% off Dark Horse, plus House of M, Squadron Supreme and Image Science Fiction

Highlights from this week’s Comixology sales include a line-wide 50% off Dark Horse for CU subscribers, Squadron Supreme and House of M from Marvel and a big batch of “Sci-Fi” titles from Image.

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

50% off All Dark Horse

The parade of Comixology Unlimited half-off sales continues.  In the latest installment, all Dark Horse comics are 50% off through 11PM ET on Monday, 5/10 if you’re a Comixology Unlimited subscriber.

This includes new releases and pre-orders, so do yourself a favor. Go to the release date view and click forward to pre-order on the cheap.

And this discounts stacks on the “regular” sales, which means the current Stranger Things sale is extremely cheap! Especially the 50-cent single issues.

Stranger Things

The Pastiche Evolved

The Marvel Squadron Supreme Sale runs through Sunday, 5/9.

Yes, what started out as a pastiche of DC’s Justice League grew into something a little bigger Marvel, as these things have a way of doing.

The centerpiece here is the Mark Gruenwald / Bob Hall / Paul Ryan Squadron Supreme series that’s still the bar by which this franchise is judged.

For a more old school version, the Squadron appears in their traditional sinister mode in Avengers: Serpent Crown by Steve Englehart and George Perez.

Squadron Supreme   Avengers: Serpent Crown

Not WandaVision, but…

The  House of M Sale runs through Thursday, 5/13.

For those unfamiliar, this is the series where the Scarlet Witch snaps and rewrites reality to bring her children back into existence. It isn’t exactly the comics version of WandaVision, but it was surely an influence on it.  Also, “no more mutants.” As a comic, it may have broken more things at Marvel than it fixed, but you can’t deny it’s influential.

The way to go here is to start with the actual Brian Bendis / Olivier Coipel series and then go back for the supplemental titles if you want more.

House of M

She Blinded Me With Science Fiction

The Image Sci-Fi Sale runs through Wednesday, 5/26.

Lots of good stuff on sale here and it’s worth flipping through when you have a chance. Some highlights?

Saga: Compendium One is the first 54 issues for $23.99. That’s a bit under 45 cents/issue. That’s CHEAP.  We assume you haven’t been living under a rock and know what this Brian K. Vaughan/Fiona Staples masterwork is.  We keep hearing whispers that its return is imminent. Hopefully we hear something a little more concrete soon.

Farmhand is written and drawn by Chew’s Rob Guillory. If you like Chew, you’ll probably like Farmhand. Agriculture and pharma intersect as Jeddidiah Jenkins grows replacement organs on his farm. Harvest one and drop it into a patient – it’s plug and play. Except there’s a rot sinking to the organs and something lurking in the shadows.

That Jonathan Hickman guy who’s running the X-Men right now? He’s done a few things at Image.  One of them is The Manhattan Projects with Nick Pitarra. It’s a sort of alternate history where the Manhattan Project brain trust is working on mad science experiments far beyond the atomic bomb, taking them to space and other, stranger, destinations.  Sometimes silly and sometimes dark. It’s a good one.

Saga   Farmhand   The Manhattan Projects

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Comixology Sales – Marvel Still 50% off with Captain Marvel, Thor, Darkhawk, Carl Barks, Don Rosa, The Question, All-Star Squadron and Atomic Robo

This week in Comixology sales, Marvel’s still half off for Comixology Unlimited subscribers with stackable discounts on Captain Marvel, Thor and Darkhawk that makes them awfully CHEAP. Plus some DC Classics highlights, Atomic Robo and Disney Ducks.

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

50% off Marvel for Comixology Unlimited Subscribers

That’s right, if you’re a Comixology Unlimited subscriber, you get 1/2 off all Marvel comics (except subscriptions and bundles) through 11pm ET on Monday, 4/19. Unusually, this includes _current_ comics. It also includes pre-orders. Click here to see the release week view for Marvel. You can move forward, week-to-week and pre-order at 1/2 off through the end of June.

And yes, that CU discount stacks on top of the sales, so some of those Captain Marvel and Thor collections are a rock bottom $1.50. We think that qualifies as cheap.

Kree Goodness

The  Marvel Captain Marvel World’s Mightiest Hero Sale runs through Sunday, 4/18. It’s predominantly made up of three runs:

Captain Marvel   Captain Marvel   Ms. Marvel

The Once and Future Thor

The Marvel Jane Foster Sale runs through Thursday (Thor’s Day), 4/22. This would encompass the three titles Jason Aaron has written with Jane.

It starts with Thor by Aaron and Russell Dauterman.

It’s Marvel, so of course there was a relaunch, and it emerged as The Mighty Thor, still with Aaron and Dauterman as the primary creators.

After the Thor runs were over, Jane becomes Valkyrie as written by Aaron and Al Ewing with Cafu as the primary artist.

Thor   The Mighty Thor   Valkyrie

Not Nighthawk

The Marvel Darkhawk Sale runs through Sunday, 4/18.

Darkhawk Classic is the original run by Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley.

For something a little different in the Darkhawk vein, there’s Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Round Robin. Darkhawk teams up with Spidey, Punisher, Moon Knight, Nova and Night Thrasher (yes, it’s the ’90s) in the titular tale from that collection from the Michelinie/Bagley era of Amazing.

Darkhawk Classic   Amazing Spider-Man Epic Collection: Round Robin

DC Single Issues That Haven’t Been Collected

The DC Classics Sale runs through Monday, 4/19 and it’s broken into 5 sections:        Graphic Novels, Single Issues I, Single Issues II, Single Issues III and Single Issues IV

Last week, we looked at graphic novels in this sale. This week, we’re looking at a few individual series that haven’t been collected into graphic novel format… and in some case might not ever be. They are, however, on sale for 99 cents a pop.

All-Star Comics is the original home of the Justice Society of America. If you’d like some Golden Age material, this is a decent buy. The 70’s revival featuring folks like Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, Wally Wood and Joe Staton is also on sale.

All-Star Squadron is the Roy Thomas 1940s Justice Society-adjacent series where Johnny Quick, Liberty Belle, Robotman, The Shining Knight and Firebrand step up alongside the usual suspects. There were several artists on this one, but Jerry Ordway’s run was a particular highlight (which spun into Infinity, Inc.).

Legion of Super-Heroes is the “Baxter” run of the title, which is mostly out of print. This will likely eventually get collected. Paul Levitz is the writer with a rotation of artists that includes a bit of Keith Giffen at the beginning and end, with Steve Lightle and Greg Larocque

Plastic Man in this instance is the original Plastic Man by Jack Cole. If you haven’t seen the original, it’s well worth a dollar. There’s a reason it’s considered a classic and the character endures… those it’s very rare for it to equal Cole’s work.

The Question is one of those titles that really should have been collected a long time ago. An absolute classic from the late ’80s with Denny O’Neil, Denys Cowan and Rick Magyar on what’s essentially a hardboiled Zen kung fu romp.  Yes, it’s actually a very philosophical comic and we seldom see its like.

All-Star Comics   All-Star Squadron   Legion of Super Heroes   Plastic Man   The Question

Robot vs. Nazis and Dinosaurs

The Atomic Robo Sale runs through Thursday, 4/22.

This such a fun series, a thinking robot created by Tesla goes on adventures taking on mad scientists, dinosaurs, Nazi’s… you know, the usual suspects. Brian Clevenger and Scott Wegener do the honors.

Atomic Robo

Quack

The Fantagraphics Walt Disney Sale runs through Monday, 4/19.

Sure, there’s some Eurocomics and classic Mickey Mouse, but the class of the sale is the two Duck Masters: The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library  and The Don Rosa Library.

The Complete Carl Barks Disney Library   The Don Rosa Library

 

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: DC’s Vertigo (The Whole Thing), Alpha Flight, Hawkeye and Excellent Deals from TKO

This week’s Comixology sales include some big value in a surprising place as TKO takes a bow. DC puts Vertigo in the discount category for the week and Marvel goes for a wide thematic spread.

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

A Marvel Comics Variety Pack

Marvel’s Alpha Flight Sale runs through Sunday (1/24). For Alpha Flight, we recommend the original series, Alpha Flight “Classic”  as they’re calling it for the reprints.  That’s the John Byrne run currently available. There’s nothing wrong with the unreprinted Bill Mantlo/Mike Mignola run that this catches the tail end of, either.

Alpha Flight

Marvel’s Hawkeye Sale runs through Thursday (1/28).  And if you’re going to do Hawkeye, then you want the Matt Fraction/David Aja Hawkeye.  It’s an odd run that’s off in its own little corner of the Marvel universe and not necessarily consistent characterization with, say, Avengers… but it’s awfully entertaining. <insert Pizza Dog reference here>

Hawkeye

The Marvel Dark Reign Sale runs through Sunday (1/24). Dark Reign was an attempt to do a thematic event, as opposed to a mini-series and tie-in books.  This was effectively an event that was all tie-ins, without that central mini-series.  The premise is that after Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn manages to take over SHIELD, which he remakes in his own image and he starts to try and track down the various heroes  and expand his power base.

There is one Dark Reign sequence that stands high above the others.  Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca stopped their Iron Man storyline and moved over the “World’s Most Wanted” storyline.  Osborn wants the information in Tony Stark’s brain. Stark’s on the run and attempting to overwrite his brain so Osborn can’t get at everyone’s secret identity.  It’s a self-contained story within the Dark Reign framework and it’s available in two volumes: Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted V.1 and Iron Man: World’s Most Wanted V. 2

.Iron Man   Iron Man

Vertigo Lives On In Sales

DC’s Vertigo Sale runs through Monday (1/25).  DC cancelled Vertigo, but son of a gun if it doesn’t keep popping up as a dedicated category when things go on sale. It’s almost like people like Vertigo or something…

Since the whole thing is here, let’s highlight some of the foundational Vertigo comics.

  • Saga of the Swamp Thing – Alan Moore lit the inspirational fuse with Swamp Thing and took him on a tour of America and to the stars. Along the way, a certain Mr. Constantine was introduced.
  • Hellblazer – The Swamp Thing spin-off has been through a LOT of hands and it was the longest lived Vertigo title. Sometimes the de facto flagship, sometimes not. You can dive into pretty much any era and enjoy it.
  • Sandman – Neil Gaiman’s breakthrough project started out being grounded in the DC superhero universe and horror anthologies, then broke out into it’s own mythologies. We’ll see on TV soon enough.  This was probably the most influential title.  Sandman: The Dream Hunters with P. Craig Russel is listed separately.

If you want to throw in Doom Patrol and Shade as OG Vertigo titles, I’m probably not going to argue with those, either.  Lots of history with the imprint.

Saga of the Swamp Thing   Hellblazer   Sandman   Sandman: The Dream Hunters

TKO Has the Best Value of the Week

The TKO Linewide Sale runs through (Sunday 1/31).  You may not be familiar with TKO.  That’s OK, here at the Tower of Cheap, we hadn’t really read of their titles until last week… but we came away impressed and at $1.99/$2.99 for full graphic novels, there are great values here.

Sentient by Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta is the best value of the week! The solicitation is about a ship’s AI having to raise the children left on the ship after the adults perish.  You might read this and expect it to be some kind of sweet, kindly YA story. And you’d be wrong. This is a DARK, blunt and brutal science fiction tale that still fits the same description. It’s also excellent all the way around. Sentient earned it’s Eisner nomination.  Just don’t go into when you’re craving a light fluffy read.  It’s almost trigger-warning level dark.  Highly recommended.

The Fearsome Doctor Fang is written by TV writer Tze Chun and Mike Weiss with art by Dan McDaid, who’s done some Judge Dredd work over at IDW. This one is a steampunk adventure that takes the old Fu Manchu trope and inverts its it. Our mysterious science villain is actually a hero. Tech suits, missing siblings and deadly ancient treasures. Something of a steampunk Indiana Jones romp, it’s a fun comic.

Sara is by Garth Ennis and Steve Epting. While we haven’t read this one yet, it’s not really being flip when we say that you’ll already know whether or not you’ll like Ennis & Epting on a book about Russian women snipers in World War II.  Ennis WWII books are a known quantity.

Sentient   The Fearsome Doctor Fang   Sara

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Spider-Man, Vision & The Scarlet Witch, DC’s Rebirth and Fantagraphics Goes Linewide

The Comixology sales this week include Marvel slashing prices on Dan Slott’s lengthy run on Spider-Man, The Vision & the Scarlet Witch as their show drops, DC revisits Rebirth, Dark Horse has Neil Gaiman at a discount and Fantagraphics has their digital catalog on sale.

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

Spidey Gets Slotted Ahead of WandaVision

Running through Sunday (1/17) is the  Spider-Man by Dan Slott Sale.  This is not the easiest sale to navigate because Marvel has relaunched Spidey several times and during the “Brand New Day” era, weren’t even sequentially numbering all the collected editions.  Seriously, it’s a mess.  The rule of thumb is it’s easier to read the omnibus editions, which tend to be slightly better deals anyway.

We’d tell you to start at the beginning with the Spider-Man: Brand New Day omnibuses. For context, this starts back when Marvel decided to publish Amazing Spider-Man three times each month and cancel the secondary titles, so you’ve got a rotating cast of creators including Slott, Mark Waid, Joe Kelly and Zeb Wells (among others) as writers and the likes of John Romita, Jr., Barry Kitson, Phil Jimenez,  and Marcos Martin (among a wide cast) as artists.  It’s a fun era and Slott eventually ends up helming Spidey.  It also ends with a certain Doctor Octopus storyline that sets up what might be Slott’s pinnacle: Superior Spider-Man. That’s the run where Doc Ock takes over Peter’s body.  It sure sounded strange when first announced, but Slott made it work very well.

If those two runs didn’t keep you busy, they’re followed by The Amazing Spider-Man by Dan Slott and Spider-Man: Worldwide.  Yes, Slott wrote a lot of Spidey AND Marvel can’t help themselves when it comes to relaunches.  Those last two series are really separate because the monthly relaunched.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day   Superior Spider-Man

Probably because there’s a TV show debuting, Marvel also has a Vision & The Scarlet Witch Sale running through Thursday (1/21).

If you want the actual couple, the Steve Englehart/Richard Howell Vision & The Scarlet Witch: A Year in the Life, which sets up a lot of mythology, include the birth of their children.

If you’d like to see where the suburban setting reared it’s head, there’s the superb Tom King/Gabriel Walta Vision series, which is paced a lot like a horror tale as The Vision experiments with having a wife and children. (What could go wrong?  Plenty.)

Vision and the Scarlet Witch   The Vision

DC Gets Born Again (and again)

DC has their Rebirth Sale  running through Monday (1/18), which is to say a big chunk of the titles from the previous relaunch.

We’re firm in the pick of the litter being Deathstroke. (You’ll also need The Lazarus Contract, which crossed over with Titans.) At first glance, that’s an unlikely pick, but Priest and a rotating cast of artists including Carlo Pagulayan, Denys Cowan, Joe Bennett and Larry Hama.  Yes, it’s a comic about an assassin, but Deathstroke has intricate plotting, emotional depth and one of the best treatments of Damian Wayne.

After that, we’d direct you to Greg Rucka’s return to Wonder Woman conveniently collected as Volume 1 and Volume 2. With Liam Sharp, Nicola Scott and Bilquis Evely sharing art duties, this is where Rucka resets Wonder Woman after the New 52 era and has Wonder Woman and The Cheetah searching for the truth behind what’s happened to Paradise Island and Diana’s past.

Deathstroke  Titans: The Lazarus Contract  Wonder Woman x Wonder Woman

Dark Horse Gets The Bends

The Dark Horse Mind Benders Sale runs through Monday (1/18) and is dominated by two titles.

American Gods is the Neil Gaiman/P. Craig Russell/Scott Hampton adaption of the the novel of the same name.  Yes, that IS an interesting creative cast and yes, we’ve been to the House on the Rock — it’s real.

Mind MGMT is Matt Kindt’s psychic espionage tale that got quite a bit of critical acclaim back in ’12-’15.  The omnibuses are the best deal for Mind MGMT.

American Gods   Mind MGMT

 

The Fantagraphics Linewide Sale runs through Thursday (1/28).  Fantagraphics doesn’t do sales quite this wide vary often, so it’s well worth giving this an extended browse.  There’s everything from EC to imports to classic comic strips.  Here are a few highlights:

Remember Harold & The Purple Crayon? Before switching to children’s books, Crockett Johnson wrote Barnaby, a delightful strip about a boy, his talking dog and his fairy godfather.  Even Dorothy Parker was a big fan.

You could make a case for calling Love & Rockets by Gilbert and Jaime Hernendez the flagship title of Fantagraphics and few comics have been been as critically acclaimed over the years.

And if you really want to go classic, there’s the Carl Barks Library.  Barks set the gold standard for Disney ducks (and arguably for all Disney comics) with his Donald Duck work and especially Uncle Scrooge McDuck.

Barnaby   Love & Rockets  Uncle Scrooge

 

 

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Comixology Sales Roundup: Darth Vader, Miracleman, Punisher, Metal, Astro Boy, Umbrella Academy and Imports

This week in Comixology sales finds Marvel opening some slightly different vaults, DC venturing to dark place, Dark Horse being media-friendly and the joy of Jazz Maynard.

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

Darth Vader = Good Comics

Let’s start with the good stuff: the Marvel  Darth Vader Sale.  Darth Vader has been the best Star Wars title.  We’re mainly looking at two runs here: the all-caps EXCELLENT Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run and the very good Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run.

Two things to pay attention to:

1)Vader Down is the real V. 3 of the Gillen/Larroca run, you’ll need it.
2)We’d say the Soule/Camuncoli doesn’t really hit it’s stride until V.2 and the Jedi librarian.  Remember, you want the 6-issue original tpbs of this run, much cheaper than the 12 issue collections.

This sale runs through Sunday (1/10).

Vader  Vader Series 2  Vader Down

“The Original Writer” and Marvel Max Titles

Then you’ve got the Marvel Max sale that runs through Thursday (1/14).  Marvel Max being theoretically for grownups and usually is more violent (although you have your odd adult situations and a childbirth scene).

Let’s start off with Miracleman – Parental Advisory Edition. Yeah, there’s a childbirth scene in there.  Sense 8 wasn’t the first to have one of those, even if they were, perhaps, a bit more fixated on it.  The “Original Writer” in the credits is Alan Moore. He doesn’t have the best relations with Marvel.  Artists on this include Gary Leach, Alan Davis, John Ridgeway, Rick Veitch and John Totleben. It’s an early more post-modern deconstruction where Miracleman (originally Marvelman, a UK knock-off of Captain Marvel after it Fawcett lost the DC lawsuit and ceased publication) awakens after a time… away and all sorts of unpleasantness follows.  Hugely influential comic that was out of circulation for quite some time.

This sequence is followed by Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham, Vol 1.: The Golden Age. Yes, that would be Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham. One day, there might be another volume in this series. It’s been talked about for a very long time.

Miracleman   Miracleman by Gaiman & Buckingham

The Garth Ennis Punisher runs have always been a big part of Marvel Max.  You can still get his excellent and hilarious “Welcome Back Frank” sequence with Steve Dillon in this sale, but we’d point out the more serious Punisher run Ennis did with Leandro Fernandez, Darick Robertson, Doug Braithwaite and Goran Parlov, among others.  It’s a quality, hard as nails run that doesn’t always get the fanfare of the lighter version.  Punisher Max: The Complete Collection V. 1-4 covers the Ennis run.

Punisher Max

A Trail of Infinity Events

The Infinity Gauntlet sale runs through Thursday (1/14). We say go back to the originals.  Avengers Vs. Thanos collects the original Captain Marvel and Warlock sequences by Jim Starlin, the father of this saga.  Infinity Gauntlet started the current cycle, written by Starlin with art by George Perez and Ron Lim.

If you’re looking at the Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers sequence – and it’s a true epic – know that you can’t do into it halfway.  It’s all or nothing.  Avengers, New Avengers, Infinity, Time Runs Out AND Secret Wars.  That’s one long, complex story.

Avengers Vs. Thanos   Infinity Gauntlet

DC Goes Dark

DC’s Darkest Hour Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s a fairly small sale.  DCeased and the Dark Night: Metal titles.  It’s quick to browse, but we feel obliged to point out you can save a little money getting the DCeased and Dark Nights: Metal (the main book) as $0.99 single issues.

Dark Nights: Metal

Import Goodness

The Magnetic Press New Year’s Linewide Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and it’s filled with some absolutely lovely European imports.  Seriously, browse some of those books.  Top flight art.  What we’d really like to draw your attention to here is Jazz Maynard by Raule and Roger Ibanez Ugena.  Formally, it’s about an ex-con getting dragged back into his old world, but this comic is more about how the story is told.  A noir-ish tale of a rogue, it reminded us of a modern setting for Corto Maltese and we’re not ones to invoke a Corto Maltese vibe lightly.

Jazz Maynard

DH Transmedia Options

The  Dark Horse Screen to Comics Sale runs through Monday (1/11) and has a fair amount of comics to screen. It’s comics based on TV & movies AND comics that have been adapted.  Things like Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy manga.  (Note: the first bundle is really V.1 & 2 in the same package. $3.99 for 424 pages is good deal.)  Hellboy is one of Dark Horse’s flagship properties. Your best value there is the Omnibus editions, some of which have pretty generous page counts. Umbrella Academy is the current Dark Horse media adaption star over at Netflix.

Astro Boy   Hellboy   Umbrella Academy

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Comixology Sales: Holiday Sale Roundup – even more Marvel, Image, BOOM!, Dark Horse and Archie

If you thought the holiday Comixology sales were over, think again.  Those sales don’t *start* ending until Sunday.  Joining our last batch are even more Marvel titles, wide sales from Image and BOOM!

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

Remember, a lot of publisher listed sales before Christmas that are still going on, including that ridiculously good $0.99 Marvel Masterworks sale – everything we covered last time is still on sale.

Even More Marvel Sales

The “Marvel 2020 Instant Classics Sale” is perhaps a bit overstating what’s in it, but there a bit of interesting material… even if some of it looks like random volumes of ongoing series.

Black Bolt by Saladin Ahmed/Christian Ward/Frazier Irving/Stephanie Hans is the real deal.  It won an Eisner and was a Hugo finalist.  It opens as Black Bolt’s trying to figure out exactly how he got into this space prison and what happened to his powers.  That prison sequence is something else.

Doctor Doom by Christopher Cantwell and Salvador Larroca was another delightful title that seemingly came out of nowhere. Doom’s been framed, he’s on the run and his enemies are moving on Latveria.

As with all the Marvel sales right now, this one expires on Sunday 1/3.

Black Bolt   Doctor Doom

Image digital Graphic Novels are 1/2 off

Image has a graphic novel sale that’s broken up into two parts: A-N and O-Z. For the most part, this is 50% off the Image graphic novel catalog.  So if you were waiting on something, there’s a good chance it’s among the 1,473 items offered.

If you want some special deals, though… that’s where the omnibuses come into play.  Specifically the Robert Kirkman “Compendium” editions. (A lot of Image omnibuses are more expensive than getting the individual volumes, but Kirkman does it right.)  The Invincible Compendium 3 volume set is ~1000 pages/9 TPB per volume. And it’s the same story with The Walking Dead Compendium set.  Gets it down to roughly ~$2.25 per digital TPB.  Best bang for your buck at Image.

Invincible   Walking Dead

Invisible at Dark Horse

For the Dark Horse Best of 2020 Sale, we’d draw your attention to Invisible Kingdom,  which won a couple Eisner Awards. This G. Willow Wilson/Christian Ward SF vehicle concerns a the crew of a space freighter and a religious acolyte on the run from her order after discovering that said religious order has some very commercial interests. Suffice to say, the commercial interests aren’t particularly happy about being discovered and the tendrils reach to high places.  This is also where we feign shock that Berger Books has a winner. (Some of us occasionally miss Vertigo.)  This sale runs through Monday, 1/4.

Invisible Kingdom

Sabrina’s Slasher

The Sabrina and the Women of Archie Sale runs through Thursday (1/7) and we absolutely thing that the Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa/Robert Hack Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and it’s 70s horror take on Ms. Spellman is worth your time. We’re not holding our breath for this version to return with the Netflix version wrapping up, but we’d sure welcome it.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Their whole line goes BOOM!

Boom’s linewide sale is broken into 3 parts, all of which run through Thursday, 1/7.  You’ve got the graphic novels, single issues I and single issues II.  You’ll want to pay attention that the $0.99 single issues aren’t less expensive than the collected edition, too.

For something that’s often overlooked, we really enjoyed the Planet of the Apes series by Daryl Gregory, Carlos Magno and Diego Barreto.  Yes, the same Carlos Magno Marvel has since snapped up. This series leads up to the events of the original film and also does a good job of reconciling the original Pierre Boulle novel with the film continuity. We’d elaborate, but… spoilers. The whole run in conveniently in a single omnibus.

So, we were talking about Carlos Magno? He was BOOM!’s secret weapon for awhile.  Deathmatch is a 12-parter written by Paul Jenkins and drawn by Magno.  You know the old trope about superheroes getting kidnapped and forced to fight to the death?  Well, this time Jenkins and Magno create their own cast of characters, so they can actually play out that concept. No backing off at the last minute.  It’s also nice to see Jenkins with the gloves off, not worried about tying into an Event.

Oh, you wanted something current?  Once & Future by Kierron Gillen and Dan Mora is a very fun series. Someone’s looking to resurrect King Arthur and… how to put this… Arthur never took kindly to foreigners.  Arthur might want to do a little ethnic housekeeping if it were.  A monster hunter must come out of retirement and coerce her grandson into the family business.  It’s actually a breezy page turner.

This sale ends on Thursday, 1/7.

Planet of the Apes   Deathmatch  Once & Future

 

 

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Comixology Sales: $0.99 Marvel Masterworks and Holiday Sales from DC, Dynamite and IDW

Looking for some Comixology sales?  Welcome to the holiday sale season.  All these new sales are running into January, too.  $0.99 Marvel Masterworks are good and Cheap. DC, IDW and Dynamite are also catering to your discount needs.  Many of these sales are “linewide,” which means pretty much everything is on sale from those publishers.  Been waiting for something to go on sale? It’s probably there.

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

Marvel gets CHEAP

Do you like classic Marvel?  If so you will LOVE the Marvel Masterworks sale (Amazon link) and might not get any further than this.  Volume 1’s are $0.99 and the rest are $1.99.  The page counts are always good and sometimes GREAT and you can’t beat the price.

The best buy here, and maybe the best buy on all of Comixology, is probably Black Panther Masterworks V. 1. That’s the entire Jungle Action run written by Don McGregor with art by Billy Graham, Rich Buckler and Gil Kane.  A truly excellent run that established a LOT of the character’s cast, especially Killmonger.  330 pages of excellence for $0.99?  If you haven’t tried it, this is the time.

You want a LOT of pages for your 99 cents?  Check out  Killraven (AKA War of the Worlds).  This post-apocalyptic band of freedom fighters throwing off the Martian yoke clocks in at 471 pages.  A lot of creators were involved with this, but it’s fondly remembered as a Don McGregor/P. Craig Russell feature.  And yes, it includes the graphic novel.

For something a little more off the radar, everyone remembers Jim Starlin’s Captain Marvel run. It was the first round with Thanos.  Hardly anyone remembers that Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom had an enjoyable run right after Starlin. That would be Captain Marvel Masterworks V. 4 and can be yours for a lousy $1.99 (V. 3 is the main Starlin run and grab that one if you haven’t read it.)

Black Panther Masterworks   Killraven  Captain Marvel

Head to the main link for an extended browse.  There’s a lot of very cheap classic comics and you don’t need me to tell you about Avengers and X-Men.  I will say that Doctor Strange is pretty solid the whole way through and if you like Golden Age Marvel and Atlas-era Marvel, pay close attention to the final two sections on the page.

Next up, we have the Marvel “Greatest Runs” sale.  Yes, it sounds like they need more fiber, but there are some superior deals here, too.

We’ve always been big fans of the Matt Fraction / Salvador Larroca run of Invincible Iron Man and the whole run is alternating $2.99 and $1.99 per volume.  Great prices.

Mark Waid’s superlative Daredevil run gets the omnibus treatment at $3.99 a pop.  This one starts out with Marcos Martin and Paolo Rivera as the main artists and then settles into Chris Samnee as the lead for the duration. It probably falls into the modern classic category.

Immortal Iron Fist is an incredibly fun series that’s collected in 2 omnibuses.  Volume 1 (482 pages) is primarily written by Ed Brubaker & Matt Fraction and primarily drawn by David Aja. Volume 2 (474 pages) is primarily written by Duane Swierczynski and drawn by the criminally under-rated Travel Foreman. Yes, you’ll want both volumes and you’ll probably want more Fat Cobra, too.

Iron Man  Daredevil  Iron Fist V. 1 Iron Fist V. 2

DC’s Holiday Sales

DC has a couple different sales conveniently located on one page.  And really, this one looks a lot like the Black Friday sale.

First up is a Wonder Woman sale… with 69 items!  <eye roll> Yes, DC… we see what you did there.  </eye roll>

For Wonder Woman, you can  click here and two classic runs begin and end the Omnibus section.  Wonder Woman by George Perez is the post-Crisis rebirth and actually wraps up with the War of the Gods volume.  Towards the end of the Perez run, you get some early Jill Thompson art, too.  That run really set the table for modern Wonder Woman.  At the end of the section is Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka, which is also an absolutely fantastic run.

Wonder Woman by George Perez Wonder Woman by Greg Rucka

For the general graphic novel sale — and this is linewide, so while almost everything is there, here are a some ideas of things that might not immediately jump out:

Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra is getting a TV show pretty soon and it’s a great series.  Make sure you scroll to the Omnibus section — they’re same price as the “regular” collections, so double up the page count!

Swamp Thing: The Bronze Age Vol. 1 is the original Len Wein/Bernie Wrightson run.  There’s a reason it’s a classic and it’s well worth your time.

We were always fans of Paul Levitz’s Doctor Fate and it sure didn’t hurt our feelings that Sonny Liew drew most of it.  Killer creators and an interesting way to get back to Fate’s Egyptian roots.

Y the Last Man   Swamp Thing  Doctor Fate

DC’s sales are running through Monday, 1/4.

Dynamite’s Holiday Sale

The Dynamite Linewide Sale comes in three parts: Graphic Novels and then single issues broken up into A-P, P-W and W-Z.  (Amazon link) It pretty much is the entire line.  When you’re looking at the graphic novels, remember that the majority of single issues are $0.99, so 6 single issues = $5.94. Be pure, be vigilant, be cheap!

As for what we’d draw your eye to, three things come to mind as we flip through the pages.  Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! is a hugely influential science fiction series with liberal does of satire.

The Shadow Masters Series is the absurdist and subversive take on The Shadow from the late ’80s by Andy Helfer, Bill Sienkiewicz and Kyle Baker (with a an extra special appearance by Marshall Rogers that almost defies description… old vendettas, children acting out and a nurse who used to be a professional wrestler.  It’s really something else.

Here at the Tower of Cheap, we’ve been waiting… and waiting… on the collected edition of the Christopher Priest/Ergün Gündüz Vampirella run and it keeps getting pushed back.  We keep hearing good things and the ever-reliable Priest on Vampi is so counter-intuitive, it’s probably worth it.  Guess what?  The single issues are (mostly) $0.99 if you want to get a jump on the collections.

This sale runs through Monday 1/4.

American Flagg!    The Shadow   Vampirella

IDW Holiday Sale

The IDW Linewide Sale is broken into SIX parts: Graphic Novels I, Graphic Novels II and then single issues I, II, III and IV.  (Amazon link) Which is to say, a whole lot o’ stuff.  What might we point you at the might otherwise slip your mind?

Bloom County: The Complete Library – A classic comic strip by a classic cartoonist.  Essentially, the whole archive is on sale.

Like Walt Simonson’s Thor? Then you need to check out Ragnarok. Valhalla has fallen and the survivors of the realm are picking up the pieces.  Although not everyone who survived is necessarily alive. Walt returns to the Norse mythos and it’s some of his best work.  Possibly the best thing IDW’s published.

Richard Stark’s Parker is another contender for the best thing IDW’s published. Darwyn Cooke adapts the crime novels about a professional thief who takes double-crosses extra personal. You might know the source material from the films like Point Blank and Payback.

This sale runs until Tuesday, 1/5.

Bloom County   Ragnarok Richard Stark's Parker

Still on sale

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Comixology Sales: Immortal Hulk, Billionaire Island, Avengers: The Initiative, Pat Mills has a new anthology, Lady Mechanika

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!
Immortal Hulk

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.
Avengers: The Initiative

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…


The Wrong Earth   Edgar Allan Poe's Snifter of Terror   Billionaire Island

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. ”

Requiem Vampire Knight   Spacewarp

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.
Lady Mechanika

Still on sale

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