Tag: Dark Horse

Comixology Sales: Archie Vs. Predator! Deadpool! Spawn! and DC’s Crisis of Events on Sale!

This week’s Comixology Sales include Deadpool, DC’s Events over the years, Spawn and Dark Horse put the Aliens and Predator lines on sale ahead of Marvel’s versions.

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

Crisis on Infinite Sales

The DC Event & Mini Series Sale  runs through Monday (12/14).  It’s a little heavier on Events.  For a somewhat recent title, Event Leviathan has made its to the discount zone. The Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev  tale of a mysterious criminal conspiracy moving on DC’s spy organizations in preparation for a takeover was supposed to have a sequel, Event Leviathan: Checkmate that hasn’t been rescheduled yet.

DC’s best event in recent(ish) memory is probably Multiversity.  Grant Morrison went about exploring the multiverse with Frank Quitely and a posse of A-list artists in tow.  Not that the multiverse might suddenly be relevant at DC again or anything… This is a nice thick 450 page package, too.

Going back a hair further to the Before New 52 Times, Sinestro Corps War is probably the pinnacle of the celebrated Geoff Johns era on Green Lantern. This first GL event kept it tightly in the family with just Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps and an Event special.

Event Leviathan   Multiversity   Green Lantern - Sinestro Corps War

The Merc with the Discount

The Deadpool Vs.  The Marvel Universe Sale (Amazon link) runs through Sunday (11/13). The first thing you’re thinking when you read that sale name is probably Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe  by Cullen Bunn and Dalibor Talajic. And you’d be right to think that. It’s the first thing listed on sale.  There are several volumes of Cullen Bunn’s various Deadpool titles, as it happens.

The sale is made up of several of the “side” series Deadpool has had over the years… and that’s a fairly long list.  For a couple alternate ideas, Deadpool Vs. X-Force is written by Duane Swierczynski with some relatively early Marvel art by Pepe Larraz, who’s certainly on the A-list today.

And if you’d like a bit of high concept snark, Deadpool’s Art of War by Peter David and Scott Koblish has the Merc with the Mouth in a get rich quick scheme involving translating Sun Tzü’ venerable tome and… things don’t go quite as planned.

Deadpool Kills the Marvel Universe   Deadpool vs. X-Force   Deadpool's Art of War

Lots of Marvel still on sale in the bottom section.

Spawn

Image lines up with a Spawn sale (Amazon link) through Thursday, 12/17. This is one very long series.  The 20 volumes of Spawn Origins takes you through #122, then the titled volumes pick up a bit later in the series. Spawn#312 shipped a couple weeks ago, so Spawn has outlasted Cerebus.

Spawn

Aliens and Predators on the Way Out the Door

Running until 12/31, Dark Horse has an Aliens Predator Sale (Amazon link). Since Marvel already has their first Aliens comic scheduled, its possible some of this material is going to be out of circulation for awhile.  If you want bang for your buck, go with the Aliens Omnibus and Predator Omnibus lines. If you want something different… Archie vs. Predator by Alex de Campi and Fernando Ruiz. Yes, that’s real.

Aliens Omnibus   Predator   Archie Vs. Predator

Still on sale

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Comixology Sales: Batman/Catwoman, Vision and the Scarlet Witch, Frank Miller, John Allison and more

With Cyber Monday over, it’s time to see what Comixology sales are percolating in between the start of buying season and the start of unwrapping season. A bit of Batman, the source material for a Marvel / Disney+ show, Dark Horse’s noir offerings and we dig through the small press sale for you.

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

Batman / Catwoman

DC leads off our post-Cyber Monday parade with the “Batman Catwoman Sale.”  (Hint: there’s a whole lot more Batman than Catwoman in this sale.)

If you’re looking for actual Batman/Catwoman comics, we can recommend Prey, which collects two Doug Moench/Paul Gulacy (yes, the Master of Kung Fu creative team) arcs from Legends of the Dark Knight. These are Hugo Strange arcs, but Catwoman figures prominently in them.

If you’re looking for solo Batman, here’s something off the beaten path: Batman: Haunted Knight collects the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale Batman Halloween specials that led to The Long Halloween being commissioned. These came completely out of nowhere when they dropped, but are now less famous than the follow up series.

If you’re looking for solo Catwoman, you could a lot worse than the Ed Brubaker run, which starts out with Darwyn Cooke providing the art.

This sale runs until Monday (12/7).

Batman - Prey   Batman - Haunted Knight   Catwoman

Vision and the Scarlet Witch

Marvel follows up Black Friday with a Vison and the Scarlet Witch Sale, which runs through Sunday, 12/13.

This might have the single best comic on sale this week in it: the Tom King / Gabriel Hernandez Walta Vision series. If it’s not the best thing Tom King’s written, then it’s #2. It’s a masterclass in descent into madness as The Vision builds a family and moves to the suburbs, only to have his perfect Norman Rockwell life slowly fall to pieces.  Get both volumes and bunker down for a ride.

Vision and the Scarlet Witch by Steve Englehart and Richard Howell was launched in parallel with Englehart’s West Coast Avengers run and starts with a crossover. This is the series where Wanda conjures herself into a pregnancy, which has so many repercussions down the road.

The Vision   Vision and the Scarlet Witch

AKA Comixology Submit’s Hidden Gems

Running through Thursday (12/3) is the Small Press Mystery and Suspense Sale. This is a fairly large sale that’s not particularly organized, so we’ll give it the once over for you!

Watson & Holmes: A Study in Black by Karl Bollers, Rick Leonardi and Larry Stroman might be more popular in libraries than the Direct Market, where it never got its footing. Which is too bad, as this reimagining of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in present day Harlem is a solid comic and worth your discounted $4.49.

John Allison’s pre-Giant Days series Scary Go Round: The Continuing Adventures clocks in at 99 cents/volumes.  Also, both issues of Scary Go Round: Expecting to Fly are $0.99.

We have mentioned before that Kyle Baker is a genius.  Two of his works on in this sale and both of them even won an Eisner.  What more do you really want from the man? You Are Here also one a Harvey Award. I Die at Midnight was merely on the 2000 Eisner slate.

Watson and Holmes   Scary Go Round   You Are Here

Dark Horse Crime Comics

The Dark Horse Noir Sale runs through Monday (12/7).

Frank Miller is sort of the grandfather of Dark Horse Noir with Sin City. It’s a hugely influential series beyond the films, winning multiple Eisners and Harveys.

Grandville by Bryan Talbot is an anthropomorphic steampunk detective thriller.  Yes, it checks an awful lot of boxes and the third installment has a Hugo nomination to it’s credit.  And yes, that’s the same Talbot from Alice in Sunderland and Luther Arkwright. Highly recommended.

It’s also hard to go wrong with EC’s Crime SuspenStories.

Sin City   Grandville   EC Crime SuspenStories

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Black Friday $4.99 Graphic Novels from DC; Image and Dark Horse have extra wide 50% off sales

The Black Friday Comixology sales are heating up. Joining Marvel in the fray is a $4.99 graphic novel sale at DC and deep rosters of half-off books from Dark Horse and Image.

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

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.

Unwritten   Prez   Batman - Gothic

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.

Blacksad   Joe Kubert's Tarzan  Finder

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.

Die    Kane   Kick-Ass

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: Ant-Man, Hellboy & The BPRD, Saga & Image Science Fiction, Miles Morales: Spider-man and More

Marvel’s so excited about their Ant-Man sale on Comixology, they renamed Tales to Astonish! Plus Hellboy & the B.P.R.D., Saga, Outer Darkness, Elephantmen, Miles Morales: Spider-Man and a bunch more digital comics at deep discounts.

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

Marvel leads the weekend with its Ant-Man Sale.  Ant-Man comes in primarily two flavors: Hank Pym and Scott Lang.  (We’re going to ignore O’Grady.)  For Hank Pym’s original Tales to Astonish run, your best deal is picking up the two Marvel Masterworks volumes.  You should, regardless, click that link and see how Marvel has rebranded those Tales to Astonish issues as “Ant-Man.”  Even the ones after Pym had switched his identity to Giant Man.  It’s a hoot.  Those pre-Hulk Tales of Astonish are also available in the original format (i.e., as Tales to Astonish), but those versions aren’t on sale. This sale runs until Sunday (11/15).

Ant-Man Masterworks

For Scott Lang, there have been a few recent titles and they’ve tended towards tongue-in-cheek.  There were two Nick Spencer/Ramon Rosanas runs: Second Chance Man sets up the new status quo as the bumbling hard luck father seeking approval.  Astonishing Ant-Man then continues that arc.

Ant-Man: Second Chance Man  Astonishing Ant-Man

Ant-Man & The Wasp: Lost and Found by Mark Waid and Javier Garron finds Scott Lang and Nadia Pym lost in subatomic space.  Ant-Man: World Hive by Zeb Wells and Dylan Burnett finds Scott Lang wearing out his welcome as a house guest in an ant hill while encountering an insect conspiracy and is forced to team up with Swarm.  Yes, that would be the Swarm whose body is made of bees.

Ant-Man and the Wasp  Ant-Man: World Hive

Then there’s the Dark Horse Hellboy & BPRD Sale  through Monday (11/16). I had occasion to go back and re-read most of these a few months ago and it’s high quality work.  BPRD is also very much an ongoing saga told in large acts.  There are a lot creators involved in the saga, with Mike Mignola and John Arcudi being the primary writers through Hell on Earth.  Guy Davis is the primary artist for most of  Plague of Frogs and Hell on Earth.

The prequel is B.P.R.D. 1946 – 1948 featuring Prof. Bruttenholm and his original agents running down Nazi vampire experiments.  That’s a 469 page volume with three series in it.

The BPRD sequence really starts with The Plague of Frogs. Specifically, it starts picking up about halfway through the first omnibus as the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense investigates the increasing appearances of frog-like monsters and slowly come to realize something very bad is on the way.  This leads into the next sequence, Hell on Earth, which is accurately named.  Ancient powers get unleashed and the world is just trying to survive.  You know how with a lot comics, you can be pretty sure they’re not going to that dark, disaster-ridden place?  Well, BPRD goes there.  And does it well.  The best value for these titles is the omnibus editions, which are all 400+ pages (i.e., 3 of the regular collected editions).  There’s a bit more in the series, but those three sequences are the backbone and everything I’ve ever read of the series has been high quality.

BPRD - Plague of Frogs  BPRD - Hell on Earth

Let’s also talk a little more about the ongoing Image Science Fiction Sale that runs through Thursday (11/19).  So much good stuff in this one. Farmhand by Rob  Guillory is about a farm that grows replacement organs instead of corn and the strange things that are starting to happen to the transplants. You may remember Rob as the artist of Chew.  If you liked Chew, you should like Farmhand. It might be a little darker, but the two are very much compatible.  Speaking of Chew, Outer Darkness  by Chew writer John Layman and Afu Chan is also on sale.  Outer Darkness is about ghosts and demonic possessions in the outer reaches of space and it’s fantastic.  It also ends with a Chew crossover.  Saga  is also on sale.  What else really needs to be said about the Brian K. Vaughan/Fiona Staples classic, other than we’re all impatiently waiting for new issues to resume?  Note: as is often the case with Image, it’s slightly less expensive to get the “Collected Editions” than the “Omnibuses” in digital.  It usually works the other way with Dark Horse digital sales.

Farmhand   Outer Darkness  Saga

The Elephantmen Sale contains the Image run of Richard Starking’s long-running Elephantmen series.  Comixology scooped this series up as an exclusive title, post-Image.  The “elephantmen” are genetically engineered human/animal hybrids bred and trained to be mercenaries by a company the sought to own them and rent them out.  Eventually, things changed and the survivors seek to integrate back into society with a lot of baggage from their wars and old scores that pop up wanting to be settled.  Starking assembled a wonderful set of artists like Moritat and Ladronn for the series and it’s definitely worth a look.

Elephantmen

Still on sale

The Miles Morales: Spider-Man Sale through Sunday 11/22.
The DC Back in the 90s Sale through Monday 11/16.

Miles Morales - Spider-Man  

The Eternals through Sunday 11/15
The Image Donny Cates Sale  through Monday 11/16

Eternals by Jack Kirby  Redneck by Donny Cates

The IDW Judge Dredd Sale through Monday 11/16
Resident Alien through Monday, 11/16

Judge Dredd   Resident Alien

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