On The Cheap

I'm still holding out hope that one day, Cyber Monday will mark the day that we all transcended our human forms and uploaded our minds into new bodies with rocket fists and laser eyes instead of just sitting around refreshing online shopping sites all day, but until then, we might as well make the most of it. And folks, Comixology is making the most of it in a way that's downright overwhelming. Today, in honor of the Internet's biggest shopping day, there are several massive sales going on, from DC, Dark Horse, Viz, Kodansha and more. So if you want to take a break from shopping for everyone else and get yourself a little something --- or buy someone a nice digital gift, I suppose --- then read on for our guide!

Today is Black Friday across America, where the world of retail becomes a living nightmare not unlike the Hunger Games. If, however, you're holed up in a bunker waiting for things to blow over, you can still get in on some pretty great deals. Today at Comixology, Image has launched a gigantic 50% off sale with a ton of great single issues and collections that you can pick up now to read while you stand in line trying to buy a six-dollar BluRay player or make conversation with your relatives. It should be noted that it's not on everything --- there are a couple of notable absences, including Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting's Velvet, for instance --- but there's more than enough there to get going, and as always, we've got some recommendations!

I'm the kind of person who starts celebrating Christmas as soon as the clock hits midnight at the end of Halloween, but even I think it's weird that Black Friday has apparently extended to cover an entire week. Still, I'm not the kind of person to look a gift reindeer in the mouth, especially when it comes with some pretty solid deals on great comics that you can read on the way to grandmas or pop open whenever tomorrow's dinner conversation inevitably turns to politics. Case in point: Dark Horse has launched its digital Black Friday sale a few days early, dropping the price of every single issue to a slim $0.99 across all of its digital outlets. And obviously, we've got some recommendations.

If you like stories of paranoid mysteries and giving money to charity, good news: apparently someone in a position of power read your mind. Not literally. We were joking. Please take the tinfoil off your head. Humble Bundle has teamed up with IDW Publishing for their latest charity bundle featuring various X-Files comics, in advance of the hotly anticipated revival of the classic television series about a familiar pair of FBI agents investigating cases they’re not really supposed to solve, about things that shouldn’t exist.

As you've probably heard by now, everyone is really, really excited about Supergirl this week. That's something that DC and Comixology have set out to take advantage of with a big sale on Supergirl comics that's running through November 2, and there's a ton of great stuff in there. Silver Age classics, team-ups with the Legion of Super-Heroes, Bronze Age stories that rarely see reprints, they're all in there, and if digging through digital dollar boxes is your thing, there are plenty of pretty great issues to find in there among the 321 titles they've got on offer. But for the single best deal --- and the single best story --- you can get in the sale, there's one thing that stands out over everything else: Landry Q. Walker and Eric Jones's Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, which is on sale for $4.99, and worth a whole lot more.

If there's one thing you've probably gotten tired of reading about at ComicsAlliance, aside from endless essays that could best be summed up as "Batman is pretty cool," it's probably about how Yusuke Murata and ONE's One Punch Man might just be the single best superhero comic coming out right now. We've given it our prestigious awards, we've reviewed it extensively, and every chance I get, I talk about how its unique combination of hard-hitting action and hilarious comedy that manages to tweak a single joke over and over without ever getting old makes it a must read. And now, if you still haven't picked it up, there aren't a whole lot excuses left. Right now, Viz is offering up a digital bundle of the first five volumes --- over a thousand pages of one of the best comics on the stands --- for a thin twenty bucks.

This week, Comixology launched a pretty big sale on Vertigo books, and as you might expect, the usual suspects are really well represented. Classics like Preacher and Transmetropolitan, long runs like Y The Last Man and 100 Bullets, a pretty huge chunk of Hellblazer, and even more recent hits like American Vampire and Coffin Hill are all well represented, and really? If you don't have Preacher, then getting the entire series for under thirty bucks is a pretty solid deal. But way down at the bottom of the list, buried near the end of the "More Great Hits!" section, is an even better one: 32 darn-near perfect issues of Andy Diggle and Jock's The Losers, one of the best action adventure comics of this century, for ten bucks.

To kick off this weekend's New York Comic-Con, Comixology is currently hosting a pretty massive sale on Image books, and look. I realize that the entire point of the "On The Cheap" column is to help you narrow down your choices into the absolute best of the crop, but this time, I honestly don't know if I'm up to the task. I mean, there's just too much good stuff in there --- and what's more, it's almost all stuff that we've talked about a whole heck of a lot here at CA. Sex Criminals, The Wicked + The Divine, Southern Bastards, Criminal, and a whole lot more besides. It is, at last, too much to choose from. But I'll do my best.

Gather 'round, children, for Batman Day is once again upon us! Yes, it's that magical day in September (or sometimes June, and probably March) when we all put the teeth of criminals beneath our pillows so that Jolly St. Batman can drive down from the North Pole and leave Batarangs for the good children and severe beatings for the bad. Right? Is that how it works? Listen, I'll level with you: I have no idea what the mechanics of Batman Day are actually meant to be, but I do know that the folks over at Comixology has offered up a gigantic sale to mark the occasion, featuring over a thousand comics dropped down to a dollar each. If you've got Bruce Wayne money, that's no problem, but if you need a guide, well, read on!

If you don't have a chance to get to Bethesda, Maryland, this coming weekend, and you still want to keep the spirit of Small Press Expo in your heart, you're in luck! Comixology and SPX have teamed up to put 100 Comixology Submit titles on sale at 50% off, from now through to September 21, just by using the code 'SPX' at checkout. With so many great independent comics to choose from, we've selected some standouts that you might want to try.