Archie Comics just added a new platform to their digital offerings—and they are celebrating with some bargains.
You can already get Archie comics via comiXology, Comics Plus, the Archie app, and the Nook store, and the graphic novels are available via Kindle and iBooks as well.
Now, both single-issue comics and graphic novels are available via Google Play. Archie launched with over 500 titles, and many of them are priced at just 99 cents until April 30.
The best deal, in terms of pages per dollar, is the Sabrina the Teenage Witch 50th anniversary compilation, 354 pages of classic and modern Sabrina stories, including one that has never been published before. That’s a lot of value for your buck. If you like the characters, Sonic Super Special Magazine and Jughead: Slacker University are also good deals, at 124 and 100 pages, respectively. The Sabrina and Jughead books are digital exclusives; the Archie folks are certainly making good use of their massive back catalogue. At the same time, they are making new comics available on the service the same day they come out, as they do on the other platforms.
The Google Play listings note that the Archie comics are scanned pages and not suitable for small devices. They looked pretty good on my Nexus 7, though, and when I enlarged them with a double-tap they still looked good. There doesn’t seem to be any panel-by-panel view available on this platform, though.
A former book editor and newspaper reporter, Brigid Alverson started MangaBlog to keep track of her daughters¹ reading habits and now covers comics and graphic novels for Comic Book Resources , School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly Comics World, Robot 6, and MTV Geek. She also edits the Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. Brigid was a judge for the 2012 Eisner Awards. Send her an email to wordballoons@gmail.com
