Looting A Dead Corpse

I’m not really a strong proponent of supporting the big corporate overlords (especially considering the dubious business practices of Borders) in lieu of your regional LCS, but when prices get this good in this economy, you’ve got to look out for yourself and spend your dollars wisely. I’ve been patiently monitoring how things have been going at the Borders closing nearest me, which has a fairly healthy Graphic Novel section. The prices have been dropping from 20% to 30% and beyond. I’ve been comparing these falling prices to discounts available to me at my LCS or those at Amazon (where I have tons of credit), and measuring all that against how quickly things are disappearing at the Borders and their limited supplies on hand of the stuff I’m actually interested in. Most of it is fairly middling superhero stuff, with a healhty dose of The Walking Dead thrown into the mix. When prices recently dipped into 40% off and I saw material starting to move, I decided it was time to act and picked up the following this weekend;

Wednesday Comics HC (DC): It’s a big beautiful oversized hardcover regularly priced at $49.99. Now, Amazon offers this typically at around 30% off, which puts the price at $35. With the Border’s price at 40% off, it comes out to $30. They had 3 left last week, and this week were down to 2, so I picked one of them up still in the shrink wrap.

Green Lantern Omnibus HC: Volume 01 (DC): This beauty contains high quality reprints of GL’s first appearances in Showcase #22-24 and the Gardner Fox and Gil Kane stuff in regular series issues #1-21. Regular price is $75, Amazon offers it around 37% off at $47.25, but with a 40% discount it was only $45. I got the last one.

The Marvelous Land of Oz HC (Marvel): You can’t go wrong with Eric Shanower and Skottie Young in this oversized hardcover. Regular price is $29.99, Amazon is offering it at about $20 with their standard 30% off, but at a 40% savings, mine at Borders was $18. I probably could have waited even longer on this because there were 4 left.

James Patterson’s The Murder of King Tut HC (IDW): I don’t know much about this novel adaptation, expect that regular price is $24.99, Amazon has it for around $18 with their discount, yet I paid just $15, which is well worth it to see Christopher Mitten’s art in full color.

Vietnamerica HC (Villard): I met creator GB Tran at Comic-Con four years ago and was impressed with his style. It was great to see him launch this full length HC as an autobiographical family saga, which mixes the lush styles of Craig Thompson and Matt Kindt to great effect. Regular price is $30, Amazon offers a whopping 42% discount (which I was unaware of) so you can get it for $17.55. That said, at 40% off through Borders, I slightly “overpaid” by purchasing at $18. I guess I panicked because it was the only one there. This is a great book though and will probably make one of my “Best Of” lists for 2011!

X’ed Out HC (Pantheon): For the Charles Burns fanatics, this might be up your alley. It didn’t do much for me after reading it, but since I only paid $12 for a book that’s $14 at Amazon, and regularly priced at $20, I didn’t feel so bad about it.

Incognito (Marvel): This is the first softcover volume of the Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips title, which regularly goes for $18.99, is approximately $13 with the Amazon mark down, and I bought for $11 at the Borders Dead Corpse Sale.

So, overall regular price woulda’ hit you for $249, but I walked out for $149. Proof again there are some deals out there if you’re patient enough and scrutinize the options hard enough.