Comic Bento: July Box Review

The geek themed mystery box phenomenon continues to grow, and (to be honest) so does our intrigue. For every well know one there’s a lesser known box of goodies. And for every overpriced one, there’s an equally impressive fair priced one. You just have to know where to shop.

Luckily, we got our hands on another one of these monthly subscription services so we could tell you if it’s any good. This one is a bit different than most though; it’s all comic books.

Comic Bento sends out a box of themed graphic novels and comics for one low price determined by the length of your subscription. Right away, the value is apparent, as a single month subscription is the same cost as a single hardcover graphic novel–something which also happened to be in our July review box.

Comic Bento Intro Graphic

The theme for July from Comic Bento was The Little Guy. The box featured a softcover trade for Divinity (Valiant), The Life After (Oni Press), Project Superpowers: Chapter Two (Dynamite Entertainment), and a hardcover of Witch & Wizard: Battle for Shadowland (IDW). All of these were volume ones making each series easy to get into.

The top item of the box though was a much smaller release. The family friendly Ant-Man comic from Marvel was the perfect accompaniment considering the movie’s release and the theme of the box. The fact it was intended for all ages made this box not just an exciting delivery for me, but also for my son.

GET YOUR COMIC BENTO HERE

The value of sending these is clearly apparent to the publishers. Work with a monthly subscription service to guarantee a large quantity order at a discounted rate in hopes of exciting some of the readers into paying full price for future volumes. Well, if you are a comic fan, you know that formula works, because it takes just one good read to get most of us to buy the future volumes or even similar products from that same publisher.

This is my assumption on how Comic Bento gets all these great comics into a box at this price. I mentioned value earlier, and I mention it again, because if you were to look at suggested MSRP on these items, you are well over your monthly subscription price.

Comic Bento July Box

But as good as the price can be, unfair packaging and service can make one easily change their mind. Luckily, Comic Bento delivers on those fronts too. The box is well fortified and branded well to quickly excite the recipient. Inside, all the comics were shrinkwrapped together to prevent them from flying around and getting banged up. All six graphic novels arrived in perfect shape and were easily accessible with just one tear through the outer plastic.

Overall, the value of Comic Bento was intensely amazing. After looking through a couple of the trade paper backs in the box, I would even go so far as to say “intensely amazing” is an understatement. If you’re not up for a mystery read every once in a while, this service (or any mystery box service) is not for you. But if you are a comic fan, want great value while also being introduced to new titles, Comic Bento is a deal which you simply can’t pass up. And, since it’s so different from the other monthly mystery boxes, you can justify getting both.

Photos courtesy Comic Bento.

BRAND PARTNERS
Recent Posts