Do you like comics? Do you like cheap comics? If so, have you tried Thrillbent? Thrillbent is a digital comic portal created by Mark Waid and John Rogers. Some of the comics are free, but as of April, 2014, the site offered subscription-based access. For the price of current monthly comic book, you get access to all the comics on the Thrillbent site. That’s right, $3.99 for a whole lot of comics: 17 series and 7 short stories as of October, 2014.
I originally came to Thrillbent because of Mark Waid. He is one of my favorite comic book writers and I wanted to see what he and the artists he was working with would come up with as far as digital comic presentation because he thought that the digital comics of that time were doing it wrong (or at least not doing enough). He launched, along with Peter Krause, Insufferable, a superhero comic–imagine if Batman and Robin were father and son, and the son was a total dick who was only interested in money and fame. It was a good story, and the digital techniques used to present the story made it interesting. This was no mere guided view or bordering on animation motion comic stuff, but fade ins and outs and overlapping elements to enhance the story presentation. When the subscription model was announced, I joined. I thought for $3.99 that I could continue to read Insufferable and maybe find something else that interested me. Plus, as incentive, Mark Waid announced that the sequel to his and Barry Kitson’s series Empire would be launched under the Thrillbent banner, AND early subscribers would get to download a DRM-free PDF of the original series collection (which I already have in tpb form). So I would get to read Insufferable and the Empire sequel for the price of a monthly comic. Sold!
Since April, I have been reading more comics at Thrillbent. There’s The Eighth Seal, which is about an American First Lady who appears to be possessed by a blood hungry demon. Valentine is about a French soldier during the Napoleonic wars caught up in a struggle between other-worldly forces. Most recently, I read Prodigal, which is about two retrieval experts with interesting personalities who are hired to return a stolen cosmic egg (I think I liked it and them because it reminded me of the adventure and humor in Archer and Armstrong). And next I will be reading The House in the Wall.
Give the site a try, and I recommend the subscription. The hard part for me is remembering to visit the site regularly so that I’m getting my money’s worth.
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