The Mask Archives - Comics.Cheap

In this week’s Comixology (at Amazon) sales, it’s TV sale time: Sandman and Paper Girls get solo sales as the Netflix/Prime hype builds. Marvel may or may not have a Daredevil sale. DC goes “Deluxe” and Dark Horse points out they have some superheroes, too.

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):

We’re Going To Find Who Made That Pun

DC’s Sandman: The Streaming Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

The Streaming? Oh, somebody thinks they’re funny. Good grief.

Anyway, Sandman is finally coming to Netflix and it’s slated to drop on 8/5. There’s a sale, although it’s really been on sale for about a month. If you’re looking to read it, there is a slight difference in reading order between the two formats. Since they’re doing an OK job separating out the options on the sale page, we’ll go through it that way… and then point out the important detail that page layout is hiding.

The Deluxe Format is reprinting straight through as it was published.

The “Graphic Novels,” the original collections, aren’t *quite* straight through. The short stories that sometimes pop up between arcs get their own volume.

There’s not _much_ price difference between the two, but the graphic novels will save you a couple bucks. Also, the Deluxe run – and there’s a reason they don’t link you to the series page on this – does not have the final, 5th volume on sale.

So, pick your poison.

Where’s Their Two Dollars?

The Paper Girls Sale runs through Monday, 8/15.

Seems like we gave you the heads up on this a little earlier, but now there’s a solo sale. Paper Girls is time-hopping science fiction romp by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang that finds some newspaper delivery girls stumbling into a very strange and recursive conflict. We enjoyed it and the Amazon Prime adaption drops today (if you’re reading this on 7/29). The best buy here is the all-in-one Omnibus.

We’re Holding Out For Chips Deluxe

The DC Deluxe eBooks Sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

This Deluxe eBook thing… higher page count, but based on print HC pricing, so you only want to approach during a sale. The whole HC pricing for digital model is problematic at its core, but let’s see if we can find some value buys.

Dial H is the reimagining of “Dial H for Hero” by weird fiction icon China Miéville, Mateus Santolouco and Alberto Ponticelli. And a gloriously weird and offbeat thing it is, particularly as our heroes probe the topic of where the powers that get dialed up actually come from. A highly entertaining book that flew under the radar during the New 52 era and probably would have been more at home at Vertigo in the early ’90s. (That was not an insult.) #0-15 for $9.99, so under a buck per issue.

Marshal Law by Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neil is roughly what you’d get if you crossed a meaner Judge Dredd with The Boys, although it precedes The Boys by over a decade. We’d forgotten DC still had the rights to this, but we’re probably within 10 feet of the HC while typing this. The premise is a more fanatical lawman in the Judge Dredd mold stalking his prey in a future populated by superheroes. And he HATES superheroes. Possibly more than Billy Butcher. So when one goes bad, it’s his pleasure to handle the situation. Very funny, very dark and not for kids. Not cheap, per se, but you get 450+ pages and it’s quality material.

A good budget buy would be JSA: The Golden Age by James Robinson and Paul Smith. $5.99 will get you the Elseworlds story of what happened to the Justice Society after WWII, featuring the McCarthy Committee and a conspiracy. To say more would be spoilers, but this was effectively Robinson’s warm-up for Starman and Paul Smith is… well, Paul Smith.

The Man Without Discounts

In theory, Marvel has a Daredevil: The Man Without Fear sale running through Thursday, 8/11.

BEWARE. As of this writing, it does not look like these comics are actually discounted. It’s largely the Marvel Knights run – and we have no problem recommending that whole run, particularly the Bendis/Brubaker eras.

We’ll revisit this next week – if there are discounts by then. (We’ve seen the discounts arrive after a few days for DC sales in the past, but this is the first time we recall seeing one for Marvel.) Maybe these will turn into good deals.

In the meantime, we’ll say that Daredevil: Love’s Labor Lost is the only thing currently reprinted from the Denny O’Neil run the bridged that gap between Frank Miller’s two stints. The rest of it isn’t even on Marvel Unlimited. This is the tale end of that run, featuring art by David Mazzucchelli, who’d started 9 issues earlier. It’s worth a look, if the discounts show up (and we don’t know why the rest of this era is buried).

Non-Big 2 Capes

The Dark Horse Superhero sale runs through Monday, 8/8.

OK, maybe this is a little shorter on literal capes. The usual suspects: Umbrella Academy, Black Hammer, Grendel and Nexus, we’ve talked about in recent weeks, but are here if you want to look them up. We’ll look a little further afield for this sale.

The Mask is better known for the Jim Carey / Cameron Diaz film, but it was originally a comic. Primarily a John Arcudi (yes, also of B.P.R.D fame) and Doug Mahnke comic for the first few series (and following an incarnation as “The Masque,”) you can get a couple omnibuses of this particular flavor of mayhem. And yes, that includes the Arcudi/Mahnke version debuting in the comic Mayhem.

If you want really off the beaten path, there’s The Flaming Carrot. Bob Burden’s 80’s creation is… hard to describe. Surreal is perhaps the word most often used. We’d probably add eccentric and absurdist. It’s also hard to compare to other comics. Perhaps a stranger predecessor to The Tick with fewer powers floating around? Look, there’s a pretty good sized preview available if you click on the cover on the listing page. It might be easier to just read a bit yourself. Know that it’s considered a cult classic.

For something a bit more recent (at least the DH edition is from June), there’s the Brian Bendis/Alex Maleev Scarlet. This edition collects both of the previous series about a young woman who sparks a revolution while fighting back against corrupt police. It’s not what we’d call a superhero story. It’s more along the lines of the old school Bendis Caliber catalog… except with Maleev’s art and frankly we were happy to see the throwback. Frankly, this book is a lot more topical than when either series originally came out.

And if you’d like to explore the $0.99 single issue, this link will sort them to the top. (Still a bit of a mess, but easier access.)