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So, yesterday was Free Comic Book Day, so I ventured into the city with a friend to see what free comics we could lay our hands on, and we were not disappointed. Similar to Supanova, I had friends that had done this every year in high school, but this year, when I was going to go, they couldn’t find time/money to come. So I went with someone who was new to this too. In fact, they had never gone to any of the comic book stores we visited before yesterday. I had only visited most of them as reconnaissance for the day. I first heard they existed at Supanova, so was keen to see what these stores and their prices were like. Free Comic Book Day is an international day, and comics are released by all the big publishers and distributors specifically for it. They are easily identifiable because they all have the banner saying “FREE COMIC BOOK DAY” on them. Each are listed out on the official website, and are separated into two lists, the Gold list and the Silver list. My expectations were that you’d go to each store, there’s be a bit of a line, you’d collect your two comics off the set lists, and then you’d rush off to the next store to try and grab another one. I was happy enough with that, but the reality of it was much better again. We started at Classic Comics, arriving just after they’d opened. It wasn’t too busy but there was definitely some activity already. A small group had gathered in the store and they were browsing through. There were also two sketch artist there. Laid out around the front of the store was all the comics you could choose from. You were allowed to pick up to five for free, and then a few more if you bought some stuff. That’s an awesome deal! The comics on offer, although not explicitly stated, were a mixture of this year’s free comics, free comic left over from previous years, and comics you’d usually pay for. I got a mixture of each, particularly grabbing the usually sold ones when I realised because I knew it was unlikely that I’d be able to pick up any of them at the other stores without paying for them. Next we went to Comics ‘R’ Us, which I’ve been to many times before, but they’ve gotten a bit more expensive in recent times. We were greeted by a line which ran all the way out the door. They were only letting you have two comics each, however their system of having a board where you could see all the covers, and then packing the comics into a bag for you was pretty good even though it slowed everything down a bit. There were quite a few people in costumes from various comic books, including a number of little kids. Other than that, though, there wasn’t that much going on. After a detour through Minotaur, who were, of course, not participating in Free Comic Book Day, we went to All Star Comics. It was very busy by this time and totally packed with people. We were warned that we shouldn’t even bother going up there, but we did. I don’t think the elevator was use to taking the weight of so many people, and would make the whole building creak as it moved. There were a lot of people in costumes here, and it was quite entertaining to see. The staff were also handing out comics in the same sort of fashion as Comics ‘R’ Us, but they were much more generous. We jumped in the line straight away, and although it took about two hours, it was worth it. They had broken up the available comics into four categories. You could get four from the first category, two from the second, one from the third, and as many as you wanted (within reason) from the leftovers from last year. That meant that you would get seven as a minimum, but most people were getting around nine or ten. This was the awesomest deal of all! They also had artist drawing and signing, but we didn’t know any of them so we didn’t bother with that. After All Star Comics, we were done. We had gotten enough comics, and there was nowhere else to go. I had a great time, even though I spent a lot of it waiting in lines. Now I have to find the time to read all those comics! You can see al, of the comics in the picture above, but the ones I’m most happy about would have to be The Guild/Buffy flipbook, the three Spiderman comics and the hardcover Mouse Guard (just because it’s a hardcover). Did you go to Free Comic Book Day? What did you pack up? What would you really like to see in a free comic? DFTBA,

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