By Zack Quaintance — This weekend is going to be entirely dominated in the comics world by San Diego Comic Con at home, and, as such, many publishers are running digital comics sales to coincide with the big event. Basically, while you may not be able to go to the show and spend the money you usually do, you can make up for that by investing in digital comics. What’s most exciting, however, is that this has led to sale prices for some of the best comics of the year so far.

And you can find five of them below on our list of best comiXology sales: San Diego Comic Con 2021…enjoy!

Best comiXology Sales: San Diego Comic Con 2021

Barbalien: Red Planet — From the World of Black Hammer
Writer: Tate Brombal with Jeff Lemire
Artist: Gabriel Hernandez Walta
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Mark Markz has found his place on Earth as both a decorated police officer and as the beloved superhero, Barbalien. But in the midst of the AIDS crisis, hatred from all sides makes balancing these identities seem impossible-- especially when a Martian enemy from the past hunts him down to take him back, dead or alive. Collects issues #1–#5 of the series.
Why It’s Cool: Black Hammer has been one of our favorite new things in comics around here for quite some time, and we absolutely love the side series. Competition is fierce, but Barbalien: Red Planet is probably our favorite of those books to date, rich as it is with a moving story about the AIDS crisis and a tribute to Martian Manhunter.
Price: $5.99
Buy It Here: Barbalien - Red Planet - From the World of Black Hammer
Read our interview with the creators!

Chartwell Manor
Writer: Glenn Head
Artist: Glenn Head
Publisher: Fantagraphics
No one asks for the childhood they get, and no child ever deserved to go to Chartwell Manor. For Glenn Head, his two years spent at the now-defunct Mendham, NJ, boarding school ― run by a serial sexual and emotional abuser of young boys in the early 1970s ― left emotional scars in ways that he continues to process. This graphic memoir ― a book almost 50 years in the making ― tells the story of that experience, and then delves with even greater detail into the reverberations of that experience in adulthood, including addiction and other self-destructive behavior. Head tells his story with unsparing honesty, depicting himself as a deeply flawed human struggling to make sense of the childhood he was given.
Why It’s Cool: Chartwell Manor is one of our favorite graphic novels of 2021, as well as one of the best graphic memoirs of all time, combining as it does cartoonist Glenn Head’s indie comix style with his processing of major abuse and trauma from his childhood. It’s a rich, poignant, and utterly singular read.
Price: $9.99
Buy It Here: Chartwell Manor
Read our full Chartwell Manor review!

Monsters
Writer: Barry Windsor-Smith
Artist: Barry Windsor-Smith
Publisher: Fantagraphics
In this pen-and-ink graphic novel, in 1964, Bobby Bailey is recruited for a U.S. military experimental genetics program that was discovered in Nazi Germany 20 years prior. His only ally, Sergeant McFarland, intervenes to try to protect him, which sets off a chain of events that spin out of everyone’s control. As the titular monsters multiply, becoming real and metaphorical, literal and ironic, the story reaches its emotional and moral reckoning. Windsor-Smith has been working on this passion project for more than 35 years, and Monsters is part intergenerational family drama, part espionage thriller, and part metaphysical journey. Trauma, fate, conscience, and redemption are just a few of the themes that intersect in the most ambitious (and intense) graphic novel of Windsor-Smith's career.
Why It’s Cool: Monsters by Barry Windsor-Smith is another one of the best graphic novels of 2021. It’s the culmination of decades of work from one of the most towering talents in comics, an absolutely fascinating read that feels like it could just have easily remained lost. We’re lucky to have had it published.
Price: $13.99
Buy It Here: Monsters
Read our full review of Monsters by Barry Windsor-Smith!

Reckless by Brubaker and Phillips
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Publisher: Image Comics
Sex, drugs, and murder in 1980s Los Angeles, and the best new twist on paperback pulp heroes since The Punisher or Jack Reacher.
ED BRUBAKER and SEAN PHILLIPS, the modern masters of crime noir, bring us the last thing anyone expected from them—a good guy. A bold new series of original graphic novels, with three books releasing over the next year, each a full-length story that stands on its own.
Meet Ethan Reckless: Your trouble is his business, for the right price. But when a fugitive from his radical student days reaches out for help, Ethan must face the only thing he fears…his own past.
Why It’s Cool: The veteran crime comics team of writer Ed Brubaker and artist Sean Phillips have moved from monthly comics to serialized graphic novel releases, most prominently with this new set of Reckless stories. Both of them so far have been absolutely fantastic reads, and now you can catch up with them for $10 each.
Price: $9.99 each
Buy Them Here: Reckless Vol. 1; and Friend of the Devil: A Reckless Book

The Department of Truth: The End of the World
Writer: James Tynion IV
Artist: Martin Simmonds
Publisher: Image Comics
COLE TURNER has studied conspiracy theories all his life, but he isn’t prepared for what happens when he discovers that all of them are true, from the JFK Assassination to Flat Earth Theory and Reptilian Shapeshifters. One organization has been covering them up for generations. What is the deep, dark secret behind the Department of Truth?
Why It’s Cool: The Department of Truth is one of Image Comics’ biggest breakout hits in years, a stunningly-timely comic that plays on the increased global propensity to believe wholesale in utterly made-up conspiracy theories. It’s a fantastic book, and the first volume is on sale now for the price of one new monthly comic, making it a must-buy.
Price: $3.99
Buy It Here: The Department of Truth - The End of the World

See our past top comics to buy here, and check out our reviews archive here.

Zack Quaintance is a tech reporter by day and freelance writer by night/weekend. He Tweets compulsively about storytelling and comics as Comics Bookcase.