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COMICS! |OT| July 2016. Everyone Loves A Hero, Everyone Loves You

B

Brianimaniac

Banned
Okay, so here's the exploit I discovered during a Marvel BOGO sale.

The way it happened was that I had a mix of books in my cart, and when I went to check out, the price seemed off. I tinkered around a little and figured out why.

When you buy a book with the BOGO promo, you get a book of equal or lesser value for free. The trick is understanding how the value of a book is determined. With most books, it's obvious. If they're selling it for $1.99, the value is $1.99. If they're selling it for $3.99, the value is $3.99.

But what happens if there's another Marvel sale going on at the same time as the BOGO sale? That changes things, and since Marvel runs a bajillion sales on CMX, they were running multiple other sales the last two times they did a BOGO sale.

What happens is that the value of a book on sale is not the 99¢ they're charging for it. The value is based on the pre-sale price.

What this means is that let's say they have a sale on Miles Morales books, then a BOGO sale starts. I look through the Miles Morales issues and see that they have some newer ones that are normally $3.99, but they're on sale for 99¢. What I can do is add that issue to my cart, and then get any Marvel book that is $3.99 or cheaper for free, because the sale code is looking at that base price and not the sale price. So for 99¢, I get two issues, and one of those issues can be any Marvel book I want, even a brand new book that's full cover price.

What you have to watch for is that only so many of the books (if any) will have a pre-sale price of $3.99, so you have to make each one count. If they have a pre-sale price of $1.99, then those books you're getting free will have to be $1.99 or less. You're saving less money on those, but you're still coming away with comics for 50¢ each.

The other thing is that you can't do big batches of books in one order, otherwise it gets confused and doesn't give you the maximum discount. I've even tried it by being very careful about the specific order I added the books to the cart, and it didn't make a difference. So for the best results, you want to do a lot of orders of only two issues each -- one sale book, and the one you want free with it.

So this would be technically possible during the DC BOGO sale, but it doesn't work because the BOGO sale is the only DC sale running.

I've exploited this for the last two Marvel BOGO sales. The second time, I couldn't believe it still worked. I figured they would have fixed their code or had the sense to not have other Marvel sales running at the same time as the BOGO sale.
 
L

LordOfLore

Banned
Brianimaniac said:
Okay, so here's the exploit I discovered during a Marvel BOGO sale.

The way it happened was that I had a mix of books in my cart, and when I went to check out, the price seemed off. I tinkered around a little and figured out why.

When you buy a book with the BOGO promo, you get a book of equal or lesser value for free. The trick is understanding how the value of a book is determined. With most books, it's obvious. If they're selling it for $1.99, the value is $1.99. If they're selling it for $3.99, the value is $3.99.

But what happens if there's another Marvel sale going on at the same time as the BOGO sale? That changes things, and since Marvel runs a bajillion sales on CMX, they were running multiple other sales the last two times they did a BOGO sale.

What happens is that the value of a book on sale is not the 99¢ they're charging for it. The value is based on the pre-sale price.

What this means is that let's say they have a sale on Miles Morales books, then a BOGO sale starts. I look through the Miles Morales issues and see that they have some newer ones that are normally $3.99, but they're on sale for 99¢. What I can do is add that issue to my cart, and then get any Marvel book that is $3.99 or cheaper for free, because the sale code is looking at that base price and not the sale price. So for 99¢, I get two issues, and one of those issues can be any Marvel book I want, even a brand new book that's full cover price.

What you have to watch for is that only so many of the books (if any) will have a pre-sale price of $3.99, so you have to make each one count. If they have a pre-sale price of $1.99, then those books you're getting free will have to be $1.99 or less. You're saving less money on those, but you're still coming away with comics for 50¢ each.

The other thing is that you can't do big batches of books in one order, otherwise it gets confused and doesn't give you the maximum discount. I've even tried it by being very careful about the specific order I added the books to the cart, and it didn't make a difference. So for the best results, you want to do a lot of orders of only two issues each -- one sale book, and the one you want free with it.

So this would be technically possible during the DC BOGO sale, but it doesn't work because the BOGO sale is the only DC sale running.

I've exploited this for the last two Marvel BOGO sales. The second time, I couldn't believe it still worked. I figured they would have fixed their code or had the sense to not have other Marvel sales running at the same time as the BOGO sale.
Click to expand...
So DC probably figured it out since there wasn't a Rebirth sale for the books like Batgirl, Black Canary etc this week and instead they did just BOGO.
 
B

Bii

Member
Had a nice chit-chat with Rick Remender at SDCC. He's very passionate about his books and was definitely open to talking about the good and bad reactions that readers have had with his most recent Image series'. Told him my favorite was Low.

I'm excited to see Seven to Eternity when that comes out.
 
T

TropicalFish

Member
Ross61 said:
Justice League Dark, Teen Titans: Judas Contract, and Harley Quinn animated movies confirmed.
Click to expand...

giphy.gif
 
T

TheDarkKnight774

Member
There! I think I'm now all done on all the sales. Easily CMXs biggest set of sales ever at the same time that I can recall. Marvel with some, Dark Horse single sales, Image big sale and the line wide DC BOGO.

DC has only done a BOGO once before and it was for one day on cyber Monday. So I got a decent chunk then but with this extended duration I was able to clear out the wishlist. Also with the recent trend of Dc collections released less than cover price, they are good to pair up for getting comics under the $1 per issue threshold.

Now to start doing OT at work to make up this expensive week!
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Bii said:
Had a nice chit-chat with Rick Remender at SDCC. He's very passionate about his books and was definitely open to talking about the good and bad reactions that readers have had with his most recent Image series'. Told him my favorite was Low.

I'm excited to see Seven to Eternity when that comes out.
Click to expand...

Your conversation with him should have this:

You: "Hey Rick?"
Remender: "Yes?"
You: "Fuck AXIS"

If he was offended he would confirm his hack status, if he nodded aprovingly in a "yup that was a editorial mandate shitshow alright" way, he would be cool again.
 
S

Sandfox

Member
Tizoc said:
Little bummed my man James Roberts didn't get the honor, but still congrats to Aaron. Southern bastards is great.
Click to expand...

Jason Aaron has just been on a tear with a ton of well received books in the past year.

Silver Surfer #11 won best issue and I'm happy to see that book get recognition.

PaperGirls won best new series and that's the right choice IMO.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
Sandfox said:
Jason Aaron has just been on a tear with a ton of well received books in the past year.

Silver Surfer #11 won best issue and I'm happy to see that book get recognition.

PaperGirls won best new series and that's the right choice IMO.
Click to expand...

I lost count of the books I really liked, see it discussed and find out it was a Aaron book.

My reaction is always "of course it was"
 
E

echoshifting

Banned
Sandfox said:
According to Image's website the previous issue came out in June and the next one comes out in August.
Click to expand...

Oh man I completely missed the June issue. I hate when that happens.

I thought the last issue was in February. Still, I wish it would come out faster. Velvet too.
 
T

Tragicomedy

Member
Flying across the country early tomorrow morning, so I'm downloading my recent Comixology haul. Time to crush the backlog. I'm thinking the second half of Snyder Batman followed by all of Deadly Class. Maybe she Monstress if I have time.
 
E

ElBoxyBrown

Banned
SArcher said:
What was the problem with the film? The
Batman/Batgirl sex
scene?
Click to expand...

The added Batgirl/Barbara stuff makes it worse and It changes the entire narrative despite the movie being faithful to the comic from what I'm hearing. That scene was just the tipping point.
 
B

BKatastrophe

Member
Ross61 said:
Justice League Dark, Teen Titans: Judas Contract, and Harley Quinn animated movies confirmed.
Click to expand...
I am extremely hyped for one of those, I already saw one of thoss, and I don't care about the other
Rhaknar said:
Your conversation with him should have this:

You: "Hey Rick?"
Remender: "Yes?"
You: "Fuck AXIS"

If he was offended he would confirm his hack status, if he nodded aprovingly in a "yup that was a editorial mandate shitshow alright" way, he would be cool again.
Click to expand...
He already basically did that in a Reddit AMA

ElBoxyBrown said:
The added Batgirl/Barbara stuff makes it worse and It changes the entire narrative despite the movie being faithful to the comic from what I'm hearing. That scene was just the tipping point.
Click to expand...
IT WAS JUST SEX FOR GOD'S SAKE
 
E

ElNarez

Banned
Einchy said:
Thanks.

[edit]

So why is this movie so misogynistic? They're throwing that word around a lot but not really saying what the movie did that warrants that label.
Click to expand...

Okay, so, first, there's the matter of the original story, in which Barbara is a victim of sexualized violence. Specifically, and I'm putting this behind a spoiler bar to enforce a trigger warning of sorts just in case because of the subject matter,
she gets shot, and then it's implied the Joker undresses her and takes pictures of her naked body.
That sexualized violence is unfortunate on its own, but, in the narrative of the book, excluding everything outside of it, the purpose of is only to be the motivation of two men, Batman and Gordon.

But that's just the original story. The movie seemingly makes it worse, because, in adding the sex scene, and in presenting it the way they do, they further the sexualization of Batgirl, which, as mentioned above, was a problem in the book. When you add to that the symbolic connotation Batgirl has taken as a character as of late, as a demonstration that the comic book medium was working to be a more welcoming environment for women, it paints pretty much the worst picture you could want to paint.

I have not been perfectly clear, so, look up "fridging", the work Gail Simone did at Women in Refrigerators, and you'll get a much better idea of the notions in play.
 
S

Sagroth

Member
Jason Aaron hangs out at my local comic shop sometimes(Elite Comics in Overland Park Kansas). Cool guy, and definitely deserving of the Eisner.
 
B

Brianimaniac

Banned
I've never understood the complaint about "fridging".

I know that it comes from a place of women seeing this happen over and over to female characters, but that's a symptom, not a root problem. If your heroes are all straight men, then all of their closest loved ones are going to be women. The root problem is the lack of diversity of heroes. The reason it's women getting hurt or killed this way isn't misogyny, it's that it can't happen to men when the heroes are all straight men. The problem that needs to be fixed is higher up than the part people are complaining about.

I don't find anything wrong with the idea of villainous characters going after the loved ones of the hero in order to inflict emotional damage on them. It's criticized as a lazy trope, but I like things that are played straight just as much as I like things that are subversive. Variety is good, and traditional, tropey things can be very satisfying. Superhero comics are probably not for you if you don't like tropes.

Hell, the entire reason secret identities are a thing is that if your villains know who you are, your loved ones are in danger. That threat is a part of the fabric of the superhero genre, but it's a problem if the threat is acted upon?

As for sexual violence being inherently problematic, I will never ever tell someone else that they should be okay with something that makes them uncomfortable, but at the same time, I want some villains to be truly monstrous, not just inept bank robbers or time-traveling schemers. I don't want ten rape plots a year, but I also don't want it to never come up and be treated like it doesn't exist.
 
T

TheDarkKnight774

Member
You have to take into consideration when "fridging" came to be. I haven't looked too closely into it but the main sentiment was too many comics, especially in the 90s were going to that well way too often for either shock treatment, or for quick shorthand to make emotional stakes that weren't really earned. Using poorly characterized women as props and easily discarded as such. It was a really good movement to get people to stop and say "hey think carefully before you go down this path". And to treat these characters with respect and not cheap plot devices. And in the 90s it was more that then the Gwen Stacey's in comics (specifically cape comics)

And yes more diversity in the leads will help spread who a hero will have to save in the love/close friend department. (I.e Ms Marvel)

I do think I've seen this term in recent times expand out a bit too wide to where it seems for some it's something that should never be used or ever happen which I think can have other averse affects if they become "too protected". Hell even Gail Simone. One of the founders of the term and website doesn't even go that far.

It's a similar problem I have with people obsessed in looking for and calling out tropes. (IMO one of the laziest forms of critiques people use to make themselves sound intellectually smart) But that's a rant for another day
 
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