China Meiville Archives

This week’s Comixology sales include a wide ranging DC graphic novel sale, Spider-Man’s married years, James Bond and the end of the Image Science Fiction blowout.

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DC Graphic Novels

DC is having their 2-Part “Road to Black Friday” graphic novel sale, so here’s DC Road to Black Friday Sale – Graphic Novels I. (We’ll come back for a closer look at Part 2 of the sale on Friday.) Part 1 is essentially Action Comics through Justice League and features a whole lot of Batman.

In fact, several of Part 1’s value buys involve Batman. As you may recall, James Tynion IV is the current Batman writer. When the “Rebirth” relaunch started, he was the writer for an extended run on Detective Comics and it was very much what I’d call a “Batman Family” affair. The “deluxe editions” of that run are $7.99 a pop for roughly 12 issues of material per volume. That’s a decent value and the volumes are linked below:

Even you’d like even more bang for your buck, Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin gets you 471 pages of Batman written by one of the best writers (and editors) in comics for $7.99. Tales of the Batman: Steve Englehart is a couple dollars more for roughly an issue less of material, but I believe it’s the complete collection of one of the most influential Batman scribes. Plenty of Batman to sift through if you go to the main sale page.

Stepping away from Batman, other titles of interest include: Boy Commandos V. 2 – That’s the second collection of the highly influential 1940’s Simon & Kirby comic about a kid gang that punches Nazis. It seems highly unlikely you’d ever see the print edition for $5.99. (85% off list)

Dial H is weird fiction legend China Miéville’s dark, quirky and surreal take on Dial H for Hero with Mateus Santolouco and Alberto Ponticelli on art. This was criminally overlooked by most people when it came out and 398 pages for $7.99 is a good buy, too.

Before he ever set foot at DC or Marvel, Brian Bendis did crime comics. He didn’t just write them, he drew them. Goldfish is the story of a con man returning to Cleveland looking for his son and it’s one of the tales that put Bendis on the map. You don’t hear about it much, these day, but it’s good one. There’s over 900 graphic novels in part 1 of the sale, which runs through Monday (11/23)

Spider-Man’s Married Life

Meanwhile, over at Marvel, the Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows Sale is running through Thursday (11/19). That would be the adventures of a married Peter and Mary Jane, along with their daughter, Annie. It started out as a Secret Wars spin-off mini by Dan Slott and Adam Kubert. Then it came back as a regular series, initially by Gerry Conway and Ryan Stegman.

Dynamite’s First Volumes

Also ending on Thursday (11/19) is the Dynamite Vol. 1’s Sale, which is Dynamite putting the first volumes in various series on sale. The Shadow, Vol. 1: Fire of Creation is Garth Ennis’s take on the pulp character with art by Aaron Campbell (who’s been killing on Hellblazer).

If you enjoy the original Ian Fleming novels, James Bond: Kill Chain by Andy Diggle and Luca Casalanguida will put you in a happy place – it brings SMERSH back into the Bond equation and it’s old school in all the best ways.

Red Sonja: Scorched Earth by Mark Russell and Mirko Colak is a very unusual Red Sonja tale. It works as a satire of the philosophy of kings and it also works as an adventure. Who knew Mark Russell would adapt so well to sword & sorcery? Worth a look.

Image’s Science Fiction

Thursday (11/19) is also last call for the Image Science Fiction Sale. Here are a couple more things of note from that sale.

Fear Agent is a SF series from Rick Remender, Tony Moore and Jerome Opena about a booze-soaked alien exterminator that was a critical darling when it was coming out.

Casanova by Matt Fraction, Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon is trippy, dimension hopping espionage caper that has a certain Jerry Cornelius vibe to it.