On Sunday, I heard rumblings of a wondrous event from my comics-loving friends. Amazon had marked lots of great graphic novels and other goodness from Marvel and independent publishers down to impossibly low prices. Lower than wholesale prices. Think $15 for a book that normally costs $125. Was it a clearance? A fire sale? A database error? Who cares? Time to go shopping.

As Rich Johnston put it at Bleeding Cool, the blog that broke the news of the “sale”:

When they’re gone, they’re gone, but this is an incredible opportunity for retailers and customers alike.I’ve just placed a $500 order and that’s the bare minimum I could get away with.

To no one’s surprise, it was a glitch that applied to books from a particular distributor. Amazon’s handling of that glitch in the last 48 hours has elicited mixed reactions …mostly dependent on whether the person you’re talking to was lucky enough to get the comics they ordered or not.

Reader Matt wrote on Tuesday afternoon:

They canceled this morning, feeding me BS about being sold out (they aren’t, not of all of what I ordered). I’m complaining b/c they lied.

Around the same time, Nick wrote in:

Two days I wait, no “being shipped” emails , nothing, just the “Order Confirmed” emails, I look at the orders in Amazon “NOT YET SHIPPED” still shows.

I looked today…and yea the orders are no longer there.

The problem? No email notification was sent of the deleted orders, while others actually got notified apparently via email and while some ACTUALLY got their orders under the glitch prices.

Don’t know if anybody has sent this to you all yet but, just saying….seems kinda crappy. I mean, least send me a damn email letting me know you canceled my orders or you know, apologizing and explaining it was all a glitch and EVERYBODY’S orders were gettin canceled, not just a portion of us.

TechCrunch now reports that some customers who aren’t receiving their fantastically cheap comics are instead receiving $25 Amazon gift certificates.

If you managed to place an order during the glitch, let us know whether you were successful.

The Great Amazon $14.99 Graphic Novel Sell Off Of 2010 [Bleeding Cool]
Amazon Wields $25 Gift Certificates To Pacify Frustrated Comic Book Fans [TechCrunch]

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