Free and Cheap Comics

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Thad
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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sun Mar 05, 2017 10:10 pm

IDW Bundle has The Maxx, The Comic Book History of Comics, and some other good stuff.

Remember, if you want Locke and Key, Parker, or 30 Days of Night, hit me up; I've got extra copies from that Groupees bundle that I can gift.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Wed Apr 26, 2017 7:08 pm

Humble Bloom County Bundle! $15 will get you the complete Boom County, including Outland, Opus, and the new series. Plus Breathed's college strip, Academia Waltz.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby IGNORE ME » Wed Apr 26, 2017 8:00 pm

I feel like I have the complete Bloom County somewhere but God knows actually where, so I might as well put it in my Humble library so I can easily find it lose it all again in an unsorted pile of Peanuts and Archie stuff.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:09 am

...god dammit, IDW, I thought you'd fixed this "some of the CBZs are 60MB and some are 700MB" crap.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Wed Jul 12, 2017 10:44 pm

Eisner and Kirby bundle.

The bad news is, no DC or Marvel. So there are a bunch of Spirit comics that aren't actually by Eisner, a bunch of biographies and fan zines, and two different not-exactly-definitive versions of Silver Star (the Fantagraphics version with no inks or colors, and a hideous recolored version from Image).

On the other hand, there's some good shit in there, including Fagin the Jew and Young Romance. Let's be honest, I'm gonna buy this fuckin' thing.

Meanwhile, that Transformers sale I mentioned yesterday turns out not to have been a Prime Day thing after all; there are a bunch of (digital) IDW books still on sale at Amazon. I'm trying to remember some IDW books I want and don't already have. IDW publishes some good shit.

(All their TMNT books are DRM'ed. Dammit. Hey Nickelodeon, fuck you.)

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Lottel » Thu Jul 13, 2017 4:00 am

Comixology has a site wide sale on idw right now. 55% off.

So buy them Transformers.
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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Thu Jul 13, 2017 10:29 am

Yeah, I thought I saw that but I couldn't find it when I wrote that post so I didn't mention it. Needs a coupon code or something, right? I think the prices on Amazon are the same (or close to).

I think I've finally got all the Transformers comics I want; Chaos Theory was really the last one I was interested in. The stuff prior to the More than Meets the Eye/Robots in Disguise relaunch mostly didn't do it for me, and neither does anything that takes place on Earth; I'd been meaning to read Chaos Theory since it fleshes out Megatron's origin story and gets referenced all the time in MtMtE/LL.

Trying to think what else I'd been meaning to read from IDW. The Disney and Nickelodeon stuff is all DRM'ed, so none of that. Maybe Ghostbusters, but I'm so far behind on that that I should probably start catching up before I buy any more. I think I've already got all the Locke & Key one-shots, too.

I have mixed feelings about Dirk Gently. I liked A Spoon Too Short, but dropped The Salmon of Doubt after he stepped into the TV show universe.

(I still don't know what to make of the giant vertical two-page spread where he re-enacted the Gutterballs scene from Big Lebowski.)

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Lottel » Thu Jul 13, 2017 3:41 pm

The code is... idw17 I believe. I unfortunately have only one "just for daddy" expense this month and it's Splatoon 2 so no comics for me.
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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sat Aug 19, 2017 1:43 am

Humble Transformers/GI Joe bundle on.

I can't speak for GI Joe, but the best Transformers stuff in the set is Phase Two, which is at the $20 and $25 tiers. (Phase One is pretty hit-or-miss but has some good stuff in it, Autocracy's good, Windblade and Till All Are One follow after Phase Two. Regeneration One continues the '80s Marvel series, Evolutions and Transformers vs. GI Joe are non-canonical and standalone, and Nefarious is apparently a movie tie-in?) Phase Two is really, really good, though. Aside from the crossovers and the part where they go back to Earth. (And even that has Thundercracker trying to read everyone his terrible screenplay and an issue that is narrated by a drone and a dog, so it's not all bad.)

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sun Feb 25, 2018 1:02 am

Time for another Image bundle. Lots of good shit in there. Saga, Rat Queens, Manhattan Projects, Bitch Planet, Chew, Wicket + Divine, Southern Bastards, Sex Criminals, Royal City -- the only complaint I have about this bundle is that it's got so many books that I've already got. (Many of them from previous bundles.)

And in case anybody didn't see me say this in the movies thread:
Thad wrote:Anyway, if anybody wants to read some Black Panther comics and doesn't know where to start, I can't recommend a better starting point than the place I started with myself: the Priest run (affiliate link). The digital version of the first volume is free if you've got Amazon Prime.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Mongrel » Wed Apr 04, 2018 9:19 pm

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sat Apr 07, 2018 12:37 am

Amazon's been putting up each week's new Marvel trades for a buck.

I wouldn't buy them (DRM plus at that price they're seriously undercutting local independent comic shops), but if you guys are into that I won't judge.

(Though, y'know, if you want some good comics for a price of absolutely nothing, go back a page; nobody ever took me up on the extras I got in that Groupees bundle back in 2016.)

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Wed Jul 18, 2018 11:53 am

Comixology sales for Comic-Con week.

I bought Witzend, Wally Wood's seminal anthology of creator-owned comics by a murderer's row of the best American comics artists of the 1960s, which may be best known as the series where Mr. A first appeared. Witzend was collected in its entirety a few years ago but the hardcover is out of print and goes for astronomical prices used; the digital version usually goes for $50 but is currently $18. And it's DRM-free.

(ETA: But uh it is a '60s underground comic so you probably want to be careful where you read it. There are plenty of individual stories in there, like Ditko's, that are SFW, but there are also plenty that aren't. It takes exactly 3 pages into the CBZ before there's full frontal nudity.)

I didn't buy Humbug, another DRM-free collection of a 1960s anthology created by one of the founding artists of Mad (this one by creator Harvey Kurtzman, with contributions from other founding Mad artists Will Elder and Jack Davis, as well as Al Jaffee, who's still working on Mad today), because it is still in print and I own it in print. However, if you don't want to pay hardback prices, you can get the digital version for $18.

There's a lot of other stuff out there that I haven't had much time to look into. IDW has a big sale on. If you're concerned about DRM, make sure you see a download icon before you buy; most IDW books (including some licensed titles like Transformers) are DRM-free, but some (like TMNT) have DRM. If you want to check out IDW's Transformers line, I haven't had time to do an in-depth price comparison but I think the big Phase Two collections are probably the best bang for your buck. (Skip phase one.)

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Fri Aug 17, 2018 1:39 am

Another Humble Valiant Bundle.

Frankly it's all a little confusing. I think most of these Deluxe Editions are just collections of comics I already bought in previous bundles. And I don't know where the new volumes of Bloodshot, X-O, Harbinger, and Shadowman fit in relation to the Bloodshot, X-O, Harbinger, and Shadowman comics I already have.

But $8 for Faith and the Future Force seems like a pretty good deal.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Niku » Sun Mar 10, 2019 7:38 pm

Did we ever talk about Shonen Jump in here?

No, I don't think we did. So I think it's important to point out that Shonen Jump is right now one of the absolute best digital "streaming" storefronts for comics. For $2 a month, you get access to a massive library of their most popular stuff to read in browser or in their app. It's not perfect (both reading formats could use some work, and are missing some quality of life features like bookmarking what chapter you're on in a given series) but for that price it's pretty much a no brainer if you're interested in any of their titles. Not only that, but their most popular (i.e most pirated) series have the three most recent chapters available for free, officially translated the same weekend that they come out in Japan. So if you just want to see if you can deal with their reader or whatnot, there's plenty of stuff to poke at. They're also adding to the library over time (One Punch Man was just added) to fill in things that aren't currently available. It's just a ridiculously good deal and I'd probably pay that per month just to support the official One Piece releases. And now I'm catching up on that Hero Academia stuff all the kids are crazy about. If Marvel Unlimited was this cheap I probably would have gone past my free month trial for it as well.

.. oh hey there's an annual deal right now that makes MU $5 a month. Hm.
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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sat Apr 06, 2019 1:34 am

Another Humble Transformers Bundle is upon us.

Again, I can't stress enough that More than Meets the Eye/Lost Light is the single best Transformers anything ever. If I've got a gripe about this set, it's that the order doesn't make sense; Lost Light volumes 1-3 are at the $8 tier while MtMtE volumes 7-10 are at the $15 tier. Do not read Lost Light before finishing MtMtE. Lost Light is a continuation of MtMtE.

How much do I love these books? I'm probably going to throw down $15 even though I already have most of them. Because I want to read the ones I missed.

(Suggested reading order: Read Megatron Origin, then Last Stand of the Wreckers, then jump ahead to Transformers vol 5, then farther ahead to Transformers: More than Meets the Eye vol 1; you'll miss some backstory but that shit doesn't really matter, it'll catch you up. Alternate between More than Meets the Eye and Robots in Disguise until you get to the crossover, Dark Cybertron; you'll know it when you get there. You can read the Autocracy Trilogy anywhere in there; it's pretty good but not vital. Then go back to alternating MtMtE/RiD (and in case you are confused, note that Megatron and Galvatron are not the same guy in this universe), and also read Windblade. Combiner Wars fits in there somewhere too but I forget exactly where. I quit reading RiD shortly after they went to Earth, because Earth is boring, though everything with Thundercracker in it is fucking gold.

RiD ends with volume 10 and then continues as Optimus Prime; MtMtE ends with volume 10 and then continues as Lost Light. I'd dropped off RiD by that point but presumably you can keep alternating between Lost Light and Optimus Prime, and also work Till All Are One into the rotation at that point. (I haven't read Optimus Prime, but Till All Are One is good stuff; it continues the Starscream/Windblade/Cybertron arc. In some ways it's more of a continuation of RiD than Optimus Prime is, because it continues the Cybertron storyline while Optimus Prime moves to Earth.)

The Unicron series goes at the end and I believe it's concurrent with the final arc of Optimus Prime; you might want to read the Dinobot trilogy before that as some of that stuff ties back in too.

Or just read MtMtE/Lost Light. It stands well enough on its own, though you'll probably still want to work in the Dark Cybertron crossover because it kicks off Megatron's redemption arc, which is a major element of the remainder of the series.)

Anyway, this looks like it's a nearly complete set of the recently-concluded IDW Transformers universe. It's missing the Spotlight series, and I think there was a Bumblebee miniseries, but I can't think of anything else it's missing off the top of my head.

You can skip most of the early issues. Infiltration/Escalation/Devastation are a pretty disappointing human-focused slow burn, and I barely remember Maximum Dinobots and Stormbringer. (Spotlight is great -- at least, until it starts getting bogged down in the Galvatron/Nemesis Prime/Dark Universe arc --, but again, not included in this bundle.) They all introduce elements that come back later, but they're unnecessary. All Hail Megatron gets off to a promising start but really falls apart at the end. And I haven't read any of the series that's just called Transformers, except for vol 5, which is important because it's kind of the backdoor pilot for MtMtE.

I haven't read Ironhide, Drift, Titans Return, the last few volumes of RiD, Optimus Prime, the last two Wrecker books, or any of the crossovers with the other Hasbro toy lines. (I've read the Scioli/Barber GI Joe/Transformers and it is amazing, but I'm not counting it because it's not canon and it's not part of this bundle.) I figure now's as good a time as any to read those, because there's not going to be any more Lost Light and finishing up the rest of the books in that universe is the closest I can get.

Also I know there are some comics with Thundercracker that I haven't read yet, and Thundercracker is just the best, you guys. He retires from the war and moves to a secluded place on Earth and writes screenplays, and he doesn't understand that they are terrible, and I love it so much.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Wed Apr 10, 2019 12:09 am

Also note that in the bundle, the EPUBs have the highest-quality images in many cases but there is some stupid fuckery where they are hardcoded to a smaller size in the HTML. If I try to view them in an ebook reader on my tablet, they display in the corner at like a quarter of the screen size.

I'm sure with a little time I could either cut out all the hardcoded sizes in the HTML files or just extract the images and reencode them as CBZs, but it's probably just better to download the PDF versions. (For some reason the CBZ files in this set are much lower-quality than the EPUBs and PDFs.)

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sat Apr 27, 2019 2:23 pm

Jeff Lemire bundle.

I already have a lot of these, but I don't have Underwater Welder, and for $15 that makes the bundle a must-buy.

I've talked about Essex County ($8 tier) and Royal City (a volume in each tier) before. Lemire wrote and drew them and they're wonderful. AD (written by Scott Snyder, drawn by Lemire; an issue in each tier) is very good as well.

Most of the rest of the books in the set are books Lemire wrote but didn't draw. I'm more a fan of his art than his writing, so I've only read a few of them. The Valiant is good but pretty continuity-heavy and a less-than-ideal place to jump into the Valiant Universe. Bloodshot Reborn is a much friendlier jumping-on point (though note that it takes place after The Valiant, so it's got some major spoilers for that book in it). I read the first issue of Black Hammer and it had potential but didn't grab me. And that's it; I haven't read the rest of the books in this set.

But again, I highly recommend Essex County, Royal City, and AD, and I've been meaning to pick up Underwater Welder for...jeez, seven years, apparently. So I'm all over this.

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sun May 05, 2019 12:37 pm

Forgot to talk about Free Comic Book Day this year, but it was yesterday. If you didn't make it into a shop, you can probably find most of the freebies digitally.

I picked up The Tick, The Goon, Doctor Who, and Defending Comics; haven't read any of them yet.

(Also got The Frank Book and Black Panther: The Complete Collection by Christopher Priest vol 1 since the store had a 25% off everything sale for FCBD. I already have both of these -- a complete run of Priest's BP in single issues, and a digital version of The Frank Book I got in a Humble Bundle -- but these are books worth buying twice. BP because it's a lot easier to have all this stuff in one book than have to haul out 17 individual issues, and Frank because while Woodring's art looks great on a 10" tablet, it looks a damn sight better in an oversized book.)

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Re: Free and Cheap Comics

Postby Thad » Sat Jun 01, 2019 2:22 pm

Humble Bundle's got Godzilla comics.

I've only read the James Stokoe ones, Half Century War and the first issue of Godzilla in Hell, both of which are at the $15 tier. HCW is fantastic; it's basically Marvels in the Godzilla franchise, following the series of films through the eyes of a soldier who watches it all over a period of years.

I don't remember Godzilla in Hell as well; seems like it was just a big fight issue. But Stokoe's art is always gorgeous. (The rest of the series rotates through different writers and artists.)

HCW goes for $10 on Comixology, and the first issue of Godzilla in Hell goes for $2. They're worth that. So if you buy the $15 tier, you get those and a bunch of other comics, at least some of which are bound to give you an additional $3 worth of enjoyment. (Again, I haven't read the rest, but there are some good names on them, like Cullen Bunn, Eric Powell, and John Layman.)

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