Tag: Kieron Gillen

Comixology (at Amazon) Sales: Kieron Gillen’s Marvel Work (Eternals, Loki, X-Men); Original Sin; DC’s 2K Title Drop with Sandman, OMAC and Manhunter; Bloom County; Umbrella Academy

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, we’ve got discounts on Kieron Gillen’s Marvel work – Eternals / Uncanny X-Men / Journey Into Mystery / etc.; Marvel’s Original Sin Event; another big block of DC collections, including Sandman; IDW cuts the prices on some classic newspaper strip collections; and we couldn’t really have a new season of Umbrella Academy without a sale on the original material, could we?

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):

Journey into Gillen

The Marvel Kieron Gillen Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We find it really sad that a “Marvel” Gillen sale does not include our two favorite works of the bunch: Darth Vader and Doctor Aphra.  Yes, there will other Star Wars sales, but if you’re talking Gillen, that’s what we’d put at the top of the heap.

So let’s start out with a cleaner recap of the major items in this sale:

  • The Eternals with Eric Ribić.  $0.99 single issues only and the collected edition is NOT on sale for reasons known only to Amazon and/or Marvel.
  • War Hammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar with Jacen Burrows
  • Journey Into Mystery (i.e. Loki) with Doug Braithwaite and Richard Elson (among others) – omnibus editions
  • Uncanny X-Men – omnibus editions
  • Young Avengers with Jamie McKelvie – omnibus edition
  • Thor with Billy Tan / Richard Elson / Doug Braithwaite – omnibus edition
  • Iron Man with Greg Land / Dale Eaglesham / Joe Bennett / Luke Ross

What’s good?  This one’s going to be more personal preference than with many sales and to that end, we’d point out that we did read the War Hammer volume and it felt like that’s a book you’ll get a LOT more out of it if you’re a gamer.  (But if you’re already into War Hammer, you’ll probably love it.)  Past that, Journey Into Mystery is where Gillen really popped onto the Marvel radar, Young Avengers is the familiar team of Gillen/McKelvie and Gillen’s Mr. Sinister in Uncanny X-Men definitely has had influence.

Journey Into Mystery   Young Avengers   Uncanny X-Men

Casting the First Stone 

The Marvel Original Sin Sale runs through Monday, 6/27.

We’d probably call this a one book sale – Original Sin is a big Event by Jason Aaron and Mike Deodato. Someone’s killed the Watcher, dirty secrets are bubbling up from everyone’s past and… more would get into spoilers.  There are a few tie-in volumes also listed, but our recollection is that the tie-in volumes are not really necessary. While this is often the case with Events, it might be even more so here. Proceed with tie-ins only if they’re scratching an itch for you.

Original Sin

When they say “Multiverse,” they mean “Infinity”

The DC Multiverse and Beyond eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 7/4.

This is another entry in the new DC trend of dropping ~2000 collections without much noticeable curation, so you can pick through it at your leisure. Lowest prices are $4.99, but most non-YA doesn’t get below $5.99.

With the Netflix adaptation looming a little over a month away, they’re leading this sale off with Sandman.  And it’s certainly a classic series. The question is whether it will dip below $5.99 when the show drops and we don’t have an answer for that. DC’s been holding the line at $5.99 for most of their sales in the last couple months.

Of possible interest from the more recently published volumes (DC does wait awhile before applying discounts):

Jack Kirby’s OMAC: One Man Fighting Corps is listed at $5.99. If you’re not familiar with it, OMAC is a surprisingly subversive dystopian take on a future where billionaires/corporations are running amok. There are superhero trappings, but it’s really a science fiction adventure/satire.

And for something else out of left field in a good way, $5.99 will get Manhunter: The Deluxe Edition. This collects the Detective Comics serial by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson. An absolute classic run, it’s not as mainstream well-known because the Paul Kirk character wasn’t continued in his own title (for obvious reasons). It’s just an excellent stand-alone tale by two legends of the art form.

Sandman   OMAC   Manhunter

Where’s My Umbrella?

The Umbrella Academy Sale runs through Tuesday, 6/28.

Why yes, there’s a new season on Netflix and we might even start on that tonight. Funny how sales line up with such things…

This one’s a lot easier to define: it’s a series by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba about an extremely dysfunctional family of superhumans who are more than a little scarred by their adoptive upbringing.  One series link for the collected editions and no fuss.  Good comic, too. We enjoyed it.

Umbrella Academy

Those Things in the Newspaper

The IDW Newspaper Classics Sale runs through Thursday, 6/30.

And by classics they mean comic strips.  In this case, we’re looking at:

Academia Waltz   Bloom County   For Better or For Worse

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Comixology (at Amazon) Sales – Rock Bottom “May the Forth” Star Wars Prices, Plus: Spider-Man, Batman, Doctor Fate and The Witchfinder

This week in Comixology (at Amazon) sales: Star Wars gets nice and cheap for the “May the Fourth” holiday, plus Spider-Man and his friends (OK, acquaintances), Batman, Doctor Fate and The Witchfinder (but not the Witchfinder General, that’s different).

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

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):

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars May the Fourth Sale runs through Monday, 5/16.

Let’s break this down by key series first (since Amazon can’t be bothered to organize things this way).  There are a lot more shorter runs included, too and the prices are GOOD. Lots of $0.99 first volumes and $1.99 after that.  This is the time of the year to go hog wild on Star Wars.

  • Darth Vader (’15-’16) – The AMAZING Kieron Gillen / Salvador Larroca run
    Vader Down – the Darth Vader / Star Wars crossover sequence that is KEY to this run.
  • Darth Vader (’17 – ’18) – The also great Charles Soule / Giuseppe Camuncoli run
  • Doctor Aphra (’16-’19) – Sort of an evil Indiana Jones in the Star Wars universe, spinning off from Darth Vader. The first three volumes are especially entertaining
    The Screaming Citadel – Star Wars/Aphra crossover with key plot points to the early sequence
  • Kanan: The Last Padawan – Star Wars Rebels prequel by by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz
  • Star Wars (’15-’19) – The Marvel flagship title amazingly went 4 years without a relaunch!
  • Star Wars: The High Republic ($0.99 for Vol. 1)

Recommendations? For whatever reason, Darth Vader seems to bring out the best in Marvel. Get both series first. Is is a coincidence Lucasfilm recently hired Charles Soule as a creative consultant?

Your under the radar title is Kanan. A very solid series from one the animated show’s producers and Pepe Larraz has since been promoted to X-Men.

Vader   Vader Series 2   Kanan - The Last Padawan

Team-Up

The Marvel Spider-Man and Friends Sale runs through Sunday, 5/1.

There have been a few Spidey team-up books over the years and the listed here include:

The OG title, however, was Marvel Team-Up. While we like the value of Masterworks editions in general, the standout sequence of this title is the too-short Chris Claremont/John Byrne run. Yes, the classic X-Men team did a Spidey run here. Masterworks V.6 catches the beginning of that, but Marvel also has Spider-Man: Marvel Team-Up by Claremont and Byrne that catches it all in one place.  And yes, that business with the Soul Catcher from issues 60-62 is a follow up to a Tigra story line.  (The more you know…)

Marvel Team-Up

Some of the Discounts Are Decent…

The DC Epic eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 5/9.

The usual DC disclaimers apply – Amazon and/or DC seem to screw up the sale prices, initially pricing many books at bizarre numbers like $9.32 or $24.87 before settling down to something like $5.99 or $7.99.  So if the price doesn’t end in $*.99, be aware it might not be the final sale price.  Then again, they might not get around to fixing it.  We wish we were making it up, but that’s the cold, hard reality of the situation.

Anyway, some things we saw and thought the “real” sale price was active for:

WE3 is a unusual and downright disturbing self-contained story by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely about about three house pets – a dog, a cat and a rabbit – who have been converted into cybernetically enhanced weapons systems by a government agency. They make a break for it and all hell breaks loose. Seriously, this is not The Secret of N.I.H.M. This is bloody. $5.99 is a good price, here.

Brave and the Bold: Batman and Wonder Woman is Liam Sharp’s tale of Batman & Wonder Woman investigating the murder of a Celtic god. $4.99 for a proper discount.

Doctor Fate in this case is the 2015-16 revival by Paul Levitz, with the amazing Sonny Liew as the primary artist. We don’t always like updates, but Levitz and Liew nailed this one. The helmet of Fate falls into the possession of an Egyptian American medical student for a series of adventures tied into Egyptian mythology and history.  An underappreciated gem that blends a sliver of classic Peter Parker into the Fate mythos.

There’s a LOT of collections to sort through here, we just wish it were easier to find a series that had ALL the volumes priced consistently.

WE3   The Brave and the Bold   Doctor Fate

Lost and Found

The Dark Horse Witchfinder Sale runs through Monday, 5/2.

This is another entry in the extended Mignolaverse, a staple of Dark Horse’s horror efforts. Sir Edward Grey is a witchfinder in Victorian England, who hunts things that go bump in the night while in the service of the Queen. And yes, of course Saucy Jack eventually turns up.  Mike Mignola with John Arcudi and Chris Robeson. Ben Stenbeck is the primary artist, but the some of other artists popping include John Severin, Tyler Crook, D’Israeli and Christopher Mitten.

This series of mini-series is now conveniently collected in  two omnibus editions on sale for $6.99 each and that’s a lot of bang for your buck.

Witchfinder

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Comixology Sales: Star Wars, Y: The Last Man, Garth Ennis, Killadelphia, Red Sonja, Hercules and a LOT of Image

Highlights of this week’s Comixology Sales include a Star Wars sale, discounts on a wide range of Image’s crime-related comics, Hercules, Red Sonja… and you might have heard a Y: The Last Man TV show is approaching, so of course that’s on say.

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

Nothing But Star Wars

The Marvel Star Wars by Aaron & Gillen Sale runs through 9/16.

In one of the most straight forward sales we’ve ever seen at Comixology, this is simply the Marvel Star Wars run that begins with Jason Aaron/John Cassady and ends with Kieron Gillen/Andrea Broccardo, with Salvador Larroca handling much of the art in the middle of the run.  Let’s face it, you already know if you want this or not.

Star Wars

Prince of Power

The Marvel Hercules Sale runs through Sunday, 9/12.

Hercules: Price of Power by Bob Layton is pretty much where Herc starts as a solo character.  It’s something of a space opera centuries in the future and has gained something of a cult following over the years.

For something a hair more recent, we thought the Dan Abnett/Luke Ross Hercules never really got a fair shake.  It was fun and creative with the character.

Now speaking of cult runs, The Thing: Project Pegasus shows up in this sale.  Arguably the best arc from Marvel Two-in-One, Ben Grimm finds himself embroiled in suspicious dealing at Project Pegasus, an alternate energy research facility. (Or is it something more sinister?)  A classic from Gruenwald & Macchio on the writing side, with art by Sal Buscema, John Byrne and George Perez.

Hercules: Prince of Power   Hercules   Project Pegasus

Crime Time

The Image Crime Sale runs through Thursday, 9/16 and comes in two flavors: Graphic Novels and Single Issues.  The single issues are mostly $0.99 and there are a few older titles in there that don’t have their collected editions in digital, so worth a browse. We’ll be looking a bit more at the graphic novels.

To start out with a bit of an oddity, we hadn’t realized Bloody Mary had resurfaced at Image. If that sounds familiar, but you can’t place it, that’s because it’s a Garth Ennis/Carlos Ezquerra dystopian assassin comic that originally saw print at Helix.  Helix?  Yes, Helix – DC’s short lived attempt to create a science fiction-centric version of Vertigo.

Joshua Williamson is having a turn as the focus of attention at DC and will be taking over Batman soon. We always liked Nailbiter, a series he did with Mike Henderson about a small town that produces a highly suspicious number of serial killers and the secret behind it. [Note: it’s slightly less expensive to get the regular collections than the omnibus/deluxe editions.]

Bloody Mary   Nailbiter

About a month back, we finally got around to cracking open Killadelphia and it would be hard to be happier about the first two volumes.  This Rodney Barnes/Jason Shawn Alexander vehicle is a neo-noir detective thriller about a vampire conspiracy over-running Philly. There’s a historical twist we won’t spoil and some VERY good one-liners pop up.  Very highly recommended.

It’s  been just long enough since Criminal wrapped up, not everyone remembers that’s where Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips used to put their crime stories. All sorts of thoroughly enjoyable mayhem in these, but if you have to choose just one, that’s an easy choice. V. 6, “The Last of the Innocent” is a film noir pastiche of the Archie comics and it is straight up brilliant.

Killadelphia  Criminal

We’ve liked Chew for a long time and consider the first issue an absolute textbook on how to launch a series. This John Layman / Rob Guillory series concerns Tony Chu. In a world where an avian flu has outlawed the consumption of chicken, Chu is an agent of the FDA. He also has the strange ability to know the past of anything he eats. Want to know who killed that corpse? Chomp. Oh, yes… this is beyond absurd and has it all — chicken speakeasies, rogue chefs, aliens, vampires, criminal conspiracies and a death-dealing secret agent rooster named Poyo.

Recently, Chew spawned a spin-off.  Chu is the story of Tony’s sister Saffron, who operates on the opposite side of the law. And their mysterious grandfather. If you like Chew, Chu basically an old friend coming back to visit. John Layman returns and Dan Boultwood handles the art.

Chew   Chu

Y: The Last Sale

The DC Spotlight: Y The Last Man Sale runs through Monday, 9/13.

You may recall that a pre-Saga Brian K. Vaughan teamed with Pia Guerra for Y: The Last Man about the sole male survivor of a mysterious plague. It’s got a TV adaptation that drops on 9/13.  The first 5 items in the sale, “Book One” through “Book Five” are the omnibus editions and better deal for this classic series.

Y the Last Man

Paint the Sale Red

The  Dynamite Red Sonja Sale runs through Thursday, 9/16.

When it comes to Red Sonja, come people want Gail Simone. Some people want Frank Thorne.  And both are on sale, but the Mark Russell / Mirko Colak / Bob Q run is the one that really floored us.  Equal parts military adventure and a satire of pretentious sword & sorcery narratives, the two sides blend together incredibly well for a unique experience.

Red Sonja

Still on Sale

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Comixology Sales: DC’s Odd Valentine’s Day Selections, Hellboy, Nova, Jeff Lemire and Kieron Gillen

This week’s Comixology Sales are highlighted by DC’s… unusual sense of romance, the many incarnations of Nova over at Marvel, Image’s 2020 highlights and delicate embrace of Hellboy.

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

Not the Nova from Planet of the Apes

Marvel’s Nova Sale runs through Sunday (2/14).

Starting at the beginning, Nova  Classic is the original Marv Wolfman series that’s probably most associated artistically with Sal Buscema and Carmine Infantino.  And yes, volume 3 does include the wrap up in Fantastic Four.

Nova by Abnett & Lanning is the series that the Annihilation event series spun out of. That would be Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with a rotating roster of artists. This one had some pretty wild concepts, like a city made out of the corpse of a Celestial, long before Avengers Mountain was a thing.

New Warriors was team book that had a definite moment in the sun in the 90s. Nova was a member, as were Namorita, Vance Astro/Marvel Boy, Speedball and their leader, Night Thrasher.  This is a fun title most people associate with Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley.

Nova Classic   Nova by Abnett & Lanning  New Warriors

Image celebrates 2020 so you don’t have to

The Image Best of 2020 Sale runs through Thursday (2/25).

Descender / Ascender  are two titles by Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen.  Descender is the tale of a robot cast in the form a little boy and a robot rebellion.  It is a wonderful series that earns it hype.  Ascender is the sequel series that takes things in a fantasy direction.

Die by Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans is the extra dark tale of a group of gamers who thought they’d seen the last of a fantasy realm they’d entered and escaped from. They were wrong.  If you wanted to look at this as a nightmare mirror of the old 1980s Saturday morning Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, that’s not a bad point of reference.  Good series.

Gideon Falls is also by that Lemire guy, with time with Andrea Sorrentino for an excellent time hopping, body possessing horror tale of which we’d rather not say more for fear of spoilers.

Descender   Ascender   Die   Gideon Falls

DC has a strange take on Valentine’s Day

The DC’s Heroes in Love Sale runs through Monday (2/15). We have to say, Birth of the Demon and Longbow Hunters miiiiiiiight not be what we’d push for a romantic theme, but your mileage may vary… we’ll forge ahead with that in mind.

Aquaman: The Search for Mera  is the beginning  of the Steve Skeates/ Jim Aparo run on Aquaman that’s gotten a lot of love over the years. In this arc (and DC didn’t have so many arcs like this in ’68) Mera has been abducted and Aquaman goes on a quest to find her that involves some fantasy tropes, the mob, Black Manta and an insurrection. It covers a lot of ground.  Since this is currently matching the print hardcover price, the sale has it at a heftier discount than most.

Mad Love is Paul Dini and Bruce Timm telling the origin story of Harley Quinn in the Batman: The Animated Series continuity. A very, very influential tale by the two best people to tell it.  Worth a look and yes, Harley’s in love.  Not in a healthy relationship, but in love.

Mister Miracle #18 is the wedding issue for Scott Free and Big Barda. After the Batman non-wedding, we thought maybe it was worth highlighting an actual wedding for Valentine’s Day? It’s Jack Kirby, after all!

Aquaman   Mad Love   Mister Miracle

Go straight to Hellboy

The Hellboy Sale runs through Monday (2/21).

Hellboy (proper) is the regular series you’re most familiar. Do we really have to say anything about something that’s widely considered a classic and has spawned a couple films, among other things?  Didn’t think so.  The Omnibus editions of this are by far your best value.  We also love when Richard Corben popped in.

Hellboy and the BPRD is a companion of series of miniseries filling in the backstory. You’ll find most of these are titled by the year and they’re working their way through the 1950s.  Tip – if the digital collected edition only has 5 issues in it, as is usually the case here, you can save a buck by getting the $0.99 single issues.

Hellboy   Hellboy and the BPRD

Still on Sale

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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: 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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