It’s time for another look at which digital comics Comixology has on sale right now. What are the good reads and what are the good buys? We’ll be taking a look mostly at the Comixology sales that are ending by Thursday and what an eclectic set of digital comics it is.
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Halloween is very much the flavor of the day right now with DC, Marvel and Fantagraphics all heading in a trick or treat direction.
Let’s start out with the DC Halloween Sale, which has 666 items in it. (That must be a coincidence.) It runs until Monday (11/2). This one has a pretty wide variety of material, including a few things like American Vampire and Fables that have also been on sale recently. Have you tried DCeased by Tom Taylor and (primarily) Trevor Hairsine? As is often the case with Tom Taylor comics, it’s surprisingly good. In this case, something goes wrong as Darkseid cracks the Anti-Life Equation, unleashing a technovirus on the Earth that turns people into zombies. And in many cases, super zombies. It’s NOT played for laughs and it really works. Worth a look if you like superheroes mixed with horror.
For something a little more old school, there’s the ’88-’95 run of Animal Man. Yup, one of the titles drafted into Vertigo. You’re probably most familiar with the Grant Morrison run and it gets darker as Tom Veitch and Jamie Delano (yes, from Hellblazer) tag in.
Older school, still? How’s about Deadman? That’s the classic series about the ghost of an acrobat who possesses the living as he looks for his killer. Books 1 and 2 are the famous Neal Adams run from Strange Adventures and the titles in it’s wake. Book 3 is mid-70s appearances in things like Phantom Stranger and World’s Finest. Book 4 is built around the Adventure Comics sequence, which is Len Wein with Jim Aparo and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez. Book 5 is split between the Andrew Helfer/Jose Luis Garcia Lopez mini-series and a Challengers of the Unknown sequence by Gerry Conway and Keith Giffen.
Or, since the (slightly different) TV series is still running on Netflix, there’s always Lucifer by Mike Carey and (primarily) Peter Gross. The Lucifer volumes also tend to be 350+ pages for your $5.99, which is decent bang for your buck.
Now if you were thinking “DCeased kinda sounds like Marvel Zombies,” which it isn’t precisely, there’s always the Marvel Zombies Sale. Remember, Marvel Zombies actually started in a Mark Millar / Greg Land Ultimate Fantastic Four arc. Then the series of mini-series begins and it gets progressively – and wonderfully – more over the top as it rolls on. And yes, Marvel Zombies and Marvel Zombies 2 are by Robert “Walking Dead” Kirkman and Sean “Criminal / Pulp” Phillips.
Even older school horror? Yes, that’s definitely available. The Fantagraphics Horror Sale has you covered there until Monday (11/2). You don’t get much more classic in horror comics than the EC Comics Library. Now, these are the black & versions and they’re not the cheapest digital comics you’re going to see… but it’s EC at Halloween. Also along those lines is The Steve Ditko Archives which starts out with Ditko’s early 50s pre-code horror work.
Something not horror? There’s always Marvel’s Astonishing X-Men Sale, which runs through Thursday (10/29). The highlight here would be the first four volumes of Joss Whedon/John Cassaday stories.
Also running though Thursday (10/29) is Terry Moore’s Rachel Rising sale, a supernatural tale of a woman who rises from the dead and the mystery of who killed her.
Still on sale:
There’s just a ton of good material in that Image Graphic Novel Sale that ends Monday (11/02). There’s Curse Words by Charles Soule and Ryan Browne, an over the top/absurdist dark fantasy about a Wizard popping into our dimension to raze Earth, but deciding he likes it and wants to stay. Midnight Nation by JMS and Gary Frank is about a Los Angeles policeman who awakes from an attack to discover he’s lost his soul and must travel to New York City on foot to get it back as he travels through a sort of shadow version of reality. It’s a philosophical horror tale. Remember when Brian Bendis wrote the Spawn spin-off Sam and Twitch as a weird detective comic? It was a thing back in the day with art by Angel Medina and Alex Maleev.
Marvel’s Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman Sale is also ending on Thursday (10/29).
