Rumor has it some of you are going through withdrawal because you haven’t been getting any 99¢ digital tpbs from Marvel.  Alas, we’re not seeing any of those right now, but there are a few sales going on right now, so why don’t we take the penny tour?  It’s also a good excuse to look at the truly odd ways in which Comixology and Amazon do and don’t overlap on these sales.

Vision & the Scarlet Witch sale.  This one is actually also featured on Amazon.  So much easier when Amazon has it’s own page.  (Note: this one ends on Sunday the 29th, so pay attention if it’s interesting to you.)

What’s good here?  King &Walta’s Vision series.  There’s some good Englehart material, as well.

Bitch PlanetPretty Deadly are on sale on Comixology, but not at Amazon.

Aliens (with a little Predators and Judge Dredd crossover) is on sale at Comixology, but not at Amazon.  And if you want bang for your buck, $2.99 for an Omnibus will get you a lot of material.

I’m not entire sure what the Food Wars manga is about, but this Viz title rates getting a sale page on both Comixology and Amazon.

Vertigo has a sale and this is a really strange one you should look at for yourselves.  Here’s the Comixology page and here’s the Amazon page sorted by lowest price.  As I’m typing this, the Amazon sale has higher prices than Comixology on a good chunk of those books.  That sure isn’t the case with the Marvel sales and sometimes the first volume in a series isn’t the volume on sale.  What does that mean?  I have no idea, but it sure is curious to behold — especially when they bothered to make up a special section for it and promote it on Amazon.

What’s good here?  A lot.  It’s too bad some of the under-appreciated material from just before the digital comics era isn’t available.  Our Army @Love, Air and Cairo are getting forgotten.  Yes, Fables, Preacher and Sandman are worth your time if you haven’t read them, but for some deeper cuts try Sandman Mystery Theater, Ex Machina (yes, that’s the same Brian K. Vaughan as Saga) or Sheriff of Babylon (same creative team as Mister Miracle).

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has a pretty deep sale on Comixology, but not on Amazon… HOWEVER, browsing through Amazon I noticed that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate B&W Collection Vol. 3 is normally $1 cheaper on Amazon than the Comixology sale price.  But only V. 3.  These are the sort of odd pricing differences you see when you compare the two sites.

Dynamite has an absurdly large (403 items) graphic novel sale at Comixology that seems to also have ported over to Amazon, though I haven’t seen a formal promotional page for it.  But when that much of the catalog is on sale, sorting by price will show it.  Some things to specifically browse?  Dreadstar by Jim (Thanos / Infinity Gauntlet) Starlin, Mark Waid’s Green Hornet run (both volumes), The Spider (particularly the first volume with David Colton on art duties).

There’s a Thor sale on both Comixology and Amazon.  You’ve heard us talk about the Walt Simonson run, which is a no-brainer, but to tell you the truth I still prefer the Matt Fraction run (particularly pre-Fear Itself) for post-Simonson Thor.  Fraction did a damn good job on Iron Man, too.

This is going to sound a little goofy, there are two Comixology sales that seem to have been combined into a single Amazon promotional page: Avengers: Blockbuster Sale + Infinity War Tie-In Sale on Comixology = “Avengers: Infinity War” related titles on Amazon.  The main thing you need to know about this sale is that all the Hickman Avengers-related titles are one big story.  It ends in Secret Wars.  In for a penny, in for a pound.  OK, in for five pounds.  There’s a pretty big scope to that arc.

Finally, there’s a big Valiant sale going on at Comixology, some of which seems to have mostly ported over to Amazon, even if there isn’t a specific page for it.  Here’s what you need to do with Valiant: start with the first volumes in the main titles offered here: X-O Manowar, Harbingers and Bloodshot.  For a more recent book here, I liked Secret Weapons quite a bit for something like a more offbeat version of New Mutants crossed with the Legion of Substitute Heroes.

The Amazon / Comixology pricing relationship remains consistently inconsistent.

Want to learn more about how comics publishing and digital comics work?  Try Todd’s book, Economics of Digital Comics

1 COMMENT

  1. Nice reviews. Almost enough for me to want to buy some digital. Instead I’ll try to read something from my mountain of unread physical comics. I appreciate the irony.

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