May 05, 2015 Free Comic Book Day 2015
I distinctly remember when my parents took my brother Greg and me to a comic book store for the first time. We were second graders, and I took home Fantastic Four 183. That day changed my life, as we proceeded to go down the path of comic books, Dungeons & Dragons, and then punk rock instead of organized sports and stuff like that.
Who knew that 40 years later, superhero movies would be huge, Game of Thrones would dominate cable, and the Ramones would be in a Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame? Yet comics themselves are still uncool and shops struggle to survive. Hence, Free Comic Book Day, which happened on Saturday.
I made a point to observe the occasion with my daughter, stopping at not one but two stores. Meltdown Comics in West Hollywood (home of The Nerdist Podcast and other events) had photo ops, signings, and a velvet rope. Secret Headquarters in Silver Lake (which looks more like a fancy cigar shop) was comparatively sedate, but visitors were equally amped.
Different shops carry different titles, and I was saddened to miss out on offerings from Drawn & Quarterly, 2000 AD, and Bongo. But how can I complain since all the comics are totally free? I grabbed some killer stuff from Fantagraphics (Hip Hop Family Tree but also some Cosplayers stories), Dark Horse (names like Chuck Palahniuk, David Mack, and Guillermo Del Toro attached), and a zine-style companion to Bryan Lee O’Malley‘s Seconds by his assistant Jason Fischer. And the low-budget, newsprint underground samplers from Retrofit/Big Planet and Free Stooges are as anarchic as they are schizophrenic as they are awesome.
Eloise picked up a Boom! sampler (with her favorites, Peanuts and Garfield) as well as the crowd-pleasing Bob’s Burgers and Teen Titans, but will also get her mind blown by the Toronto Comics Arts Festival compilation. And if she happens to sneak into my stash she might get a little freaked out by those, too.
How cool (uncool?) is it to sit around and read comics with my daughter now that she’s close to the age I was when I started collecting. Especially now, as summer approaches and so does Comic-Con. She’s going to be the dork who actually reads comics and doesn’t simply watch the star-studded adaptations on the big screen. One with favorite writers, artists, and characters–and not some jock disguised in fake frames like Clark Kent. Wait, what?
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