Buying Comics at Retail, Part 2

Posted on July 9, 2005 by Brigid Alverson

Half our order came in today from Overstock.com. The good news is that was pretty quick considering we placed the order on the Friday evening before a three-day weekend. The bad news is that because overstock.com doesn’t give the volume number as part of the item descriptions, I ordered volume 1 of Gals! instead of volume 2.
What I have learned from this is to check the ISBN, which I could have gotten from the CMX website. (As a former book editor, I can’t plead ignorance as an excuse, just laziness.) However, at seven bucks, this came cheaper than most life lessons.
Are the savings worth it? Yes, actually. As I write this, Ultra Maniac 1 lists at $9.99 and is $6.43 on overstock.com, plus $1.40 shipping, for a total cost of $7.83. The lowest price on Amazon.com’s Amazon Marketplace is $6.25, but shipping is $3.49, for a total of $9.76. Barnes and Noble’s website has it for $8.09 plus $3.99 shipping, or a total of $12.08, although they offer free shipping if you buy $25 or more.
So yes, overstock.com is a good deal. I’d use it again, but next time, I’ll be more careful.
That doesn’t mean I’m giving up the instant gratification of going to the bricks-and-mortar store and getting the book right away, along with a nice latte. I’ll be doing that this afternoon, by the way. I still owe my daughter Gals! volume 2.

About Brigid Alverson

Brigid Alverson has been reading comics since she was 4. After earning an MFA in printmaking, she headed to New York to become a famous artist but ended up working with words instead of pictures, first as a book editor and later as a newspaper reporter. She started MangaBlog to keep track of her daughters’ reading habits and now covers manga, comics and graphic novels as a freelancer for School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly Comics Week, Comic Book Resources, the Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, and Robot 6. She also edits the Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. Now settled in the outskirts of Boston, Brigid is married to a physicist and has two daughters.
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