Comic Bento Subscription Box
Hello, Richard here. I’m Mr. Elyse and Dewey’s Morning Food Servant. I’m here to tell you about Comic Bento, a graphic novel subscription box.
Years ago if someone would have told that I could get a surprise box of graphic novels shipped to me monthly, I would have been overjoyed. I have had an on-again, off-again love affair with graphic novels for decades. The off-again part generally involves my bank account. So when I was a having bad day a little over a month ago, my wife told me that she had signed me up for Comic Bento. I was like, “Awesome! What’s that?”
Each month I get a box of graphic novels based around a theme. July’s theme was robots. Depending on the plan, Comic Bento runs $20 to $17.50 a month and promises at least $50 worth of graphic novels. There was a small part of me that was giddy with joy and another part that wondered why we haven’t invented a time machine to allow me to skip to the end of the month, when the box ships.
When the box ships you get an email along with a tracking number. This brought me back to the days when we used to listen to newscasters tell us about a mythic old man in a sleigh being spotted on radar, moving slowly toward your house. Each day, I would check to see it’s progress moving through the distribution centers, slowly working it’s way towards my house. This month because of a vacation I was taking, I was afraid the box was going to show up after I departed. A day before I left, the package showed up on my doorstep, totally and completely sidetracking my planning and preparation for vacation.
Inside the box were three graphic novels as well as a web comic treasury. The books came vacuumed sealed for safety, with (sadly) two giant air pillows rather than a soul satisfying wad of bubble wrap.
The first graphic novel was Bubble Gun Volume One by Aspen Comics with a Comic Bento exclusive variant cover. So this book (while technically not robots) featured cyborgs. In this world, thieves steal data rather than art or valuables. The main character is Caprice, the younger sister of the woman who runs a gang of thieves. The title comes from the fact that Caprice hasn’t proven herself worthy of having an actual gun, so her gun shoots bubbles of sticky goo. The plot involves a mammoth heist, a double cross, and general mayhem.
The second book in the box was Voltron Volume One: The Sixth Pilot by Dynamite Entertainment. So Voltron has had a resurgence, and while the book is wonderful, hearing the lion’s roar on Netflix is a thrill. True story: while my wife went to bed early one night, Dewey and I sat on the couch and went through the entire series. Seeing a Voltron comic brought on a wonderful wave of nostalgia, and it has much more depth than the cartoon series can get into. Plus large robots beating the stuffing out of each other!
Next was It Came! by Dan Boultwood and Titan Comics. It Came! is a basically a parody of all the awesome 50’s, early 60’s sci-fi movies like The Day The Earth Stood Still, The War of the Worlds, and Forbidden Planet. Like these movies, the intrepid hero is a scientist. It doesn’t matter what his field is; he’s a scientist, so he clearly knows what’s going on. Except he doesn’t. He’s more of a stereotype of the 50’s hero, but is in reality a pipe-chomping idiot. His girlfriend is the real brains of the operation, and when a giant space robot attacks earth, it’s up to her to save the day. The other thing I really like about this book is that it’s set up like you’re watching a film in a theater. There’s trailers in the beginning and end (some that I would love to see made into books). There’s also advertisements for things like nylons, gum, and, my all time favorite, an old-timey snarky ad about the awesomeness of cigarettes (“I like my men like I like my bacon–smoky!”). It Came! is wonderfully campy and corny.
The last book I got was There’s a Cat on the Internet: A Meticulously Groomed Diesel Sweeties Treasury. This is a collection of strips, not a graphic novel, and they are all 8-bit comics dealing with things as complicated as virtual reality and cats. I liked this book because you could pick it up and read a little bit, then put it down. Each four panel page is its own enclosed story.
The list prices for the books were as follows: Bubble Gun retails for $12.99, Voltron for $19.99, It Came! for $14.99 and There’s a Cat on the Internet for $19.99. So I got $67.96 worth of graphic novels for $17.50.
One of the things I really like about Comic Bento is that you don’t know exactly what you’re getting. You know the theme but not exactly what the books are. This allows you to end up with things you might not have picked up off the shelf in the store, but are quite delighted to read. I don’t think I would have bought Bubble Gun but it turned out to be really cool. The other thing I liked (for this box at least), is that you get volume one of most things, leading you down the comic rabbit hole.
I’m keeping up my subscription. The joy of having comics show up at your door and the fun of opening the box to find out what new and wonderful things you get to read is like mini Christmases each month without family drama. Anybody who really likes comics (I’m not talking about someone who likes just Ironman or likes just Batman) but someone who likes browsing the shelves and trying new things will really get their money’s worth out of this. It’s like walking down the aisle in a book store randomly pulling off three books and not seeing what you have until you reach the checkout counter. The four books kept with the theme, but had diverse content and tone. So even if one of the books doesn’t strike your fancy, the likelihood of all of them missing is low.
Comic Bento is a wonderful treat and I’m looking forward to next month.
Special Note for Smart Bitches Readers from Comics Bento:
Our current theme is ANIMAL PLANETS: “In the Jungles, The Oceans and everywhere in between, Animals are some of Man’s best friends on the planet… even when they ARE man… and it’s not this planet!”
You have until August 22nd to get this Animalistic assortment of graphic novels.
If you sign up using code ANIMALS they can get 25% off a 1-, 3-, or 6-Month subscription!
NB: for those who were having trouble with the coupon – typo error! I’m so sorry about that.
The Code is ANIMALS – with an “S” at the end. And if you’re having trouble, you can email them for support!
Thanks for the writeup, Richard! I agree that the service is a very good value and their customer service is great.
I do want to note that while I love the Comic Bento setup, they’ve really disappointed me in the diversity of their choices. Several months in a row they had no female creatives on any of the chosen comics, and the majority of their picks have been from all white male teams. This is a recurring problem with most of the comics subscription box services, so far (BlindBox is a similar service to Bento).
This may not be a dealbreaker for some readers, but I thought I’d mention it for people considering a subscription.
ooh I think I’ve found my daughter’s birthday present this year. A subscription to this might just be the ticket.
This sounds great! My husband has been especially into graphic novels lately.
I’d love to sign up for a subscription for him as a gift but the coupon code wouldn’t work for me.
Started to read this, and blame it on lack of sleep and not wearing my glasses, but I thought it was Dewey doing a review of the box the subscription came in. I had to stop, slow down, and read those first two sentences over again.
Though I’m sure he’d be a great reviewer.
This sounds terrific! I love comics. In fact, I have a question – has anyone seen any romance comics around? I was looking through my old comic stash the other day and ran across the Sherrilyn Kenyon “Lords of Avalon” books that were made into graphic novels: Sword of Darkness and Knight of Darkness. They were middling books, but it was neat to see them in comic form.
@Ceruelan, “Fresh Romance” vol 1 from Oni Press should be out soon, and I adore “Sunstone” (surprisingly sweet and romantic BDSM f/f couple with a heaping helping of nerdiness). They did graphic novels for at least the first Anita Blake book, and there are always the Harlequin manga books.
This is really neat, unfortunately I tried signing up using the coupon code and it says it’s Invalid.
I second what Sita says. Just tried signing up and the coupon code was invalid.
@Bev Dewey Cat has been trying to pitch a review of the actual boxes that the various boxes his human servants are getting. So no worries about the confusion.
May I just give my approval of the TARDIS blanket? <3
Let me find out what’s up – I’m sorry about that!!
OK! Coupon Code Problem Solved! The code is ANIMALS – silly typo. And, per Jeff at ComicBento, “anyone with trouble can contact me at support@comicbento.com!”
Hey all! I made a typo in the code, so my fault! ANIMALS is the correct code to get the 25% off!
In response to Kay, Diversity in the comics world in general is an issue. It’s something that’s slowly moving in right direction with a much more diverse line of characters and creators popping up at Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, Valiant and so on. I wish it would move faster, but I think positive steps are being made. I just want to say that while Kay’s point is valid, I feel that implying that we at Comic Bento aren’t concerned with diversity is inaccurate.
Since Jan of 2015, we have featured 20+ books with female leads, from superheroes to detective stories. We have had boxes guest-curated by Gail Simone, one of the top writers (not just female, but all over) in comics. We have featured books starring people of different ethnicities like Captain Midnight and the new Ms Marvel (Kamala Kahn). Our most “expensive” book was The Fifth Beatle, a gorgeous $50 hardcover about Brian Epstein, a gay man. We have been supporters of Valiant’s hit “Faith” since her inception and many of our boxes contain books written, or drawn or lettered, edited, etc, by people of different orientations and ethnic backgrounds.
I don’t bring this up to be defensive or because I feel that Kay is making a bad point. She’s right, there should be more people represented of all stripes in comics, at creator, publishing and character levels. Growing diversity in comics is something that I hope my daughter doesn’t even have to think about when she’s older. But for now, all I can do is speak for us at Comic Bento and say that we work hard to bring you books that are inclusive, entertaining and that we fell you will enjoy. Every box may not meet everyone’s tastes or criteria, but we listen and are constantly working to make each box better than the next.
Thanks!
FYI – I ordered and their system said September would be my first box. I emailed them and Jeff said that it would be August – they have to manually adjust for the code. Just a heads up and thanks for the review!
THERE’S A FIFTH BEATLE COMIC? Now I wish I read comics! A little hard when you actually have problems with your eyes though.
Thanks @Heather S! I’ll check those out. I do have the first volume of Saga, which everyone says is amazing.