Let's Get New: Kiel's Free Comic Book Day 2012

What it is! I'm surprised to say that this is the fourth year – yes one, two, three, FOUR – that I've written up my Free Comic Book Day experience here on the Cool Kids Table. As you're probably well aware, I'm a big proponent of the annual industry promotion both as outreach to new customers and a celebration of the old school ones (read more from me on this here).

Like last year, I threw together a video chronicling my stops for your viewing "enjoyment," but my goal for this year's event was to try and stop at as many different Chicago area locations that I HAVEN'T ever been to in order to expand my base of shops where I can pick up stuff and chat up all the amazing folks who dedicate their careers to feeding my funnybook addiction. With that in mind, I had a few other thoughts outside the clip reel above to share on what I was up to. Let's get crackin!

Sadly, my usually stalwart FCBD companion Kegmeister was out of commission this year for a very good reason (he was super, super, super, super, DUPER hung over and couldn't get up at 11:00). But it was still a blast to start my day at the grand opening of acclaimed kids cartoonist Art Baltazar's own comic shop – Aw Yeah, Comics – just north of my place in the suburb town of Skokie. I'd actually heard the store was opening a few weeks back when I traveled to the UPS store in downtown Skokie to mail back the video camera CBR used for C2E2 to Uncle Jonah in LA. As I was filling out the address label, the guy who worked there saw "Comic Book Resources" and just excitedly launched into a "You know they're opening a comic shop right across the street!" conversation. I'd made a mental note then to come back and investigate, but when I heard it was Art's store, that cemented it.

As you can tell by some of the crowd shots in the video and the two cosplayers who were in attendance, the grand opening of the shop had a really festive atmosphere (there was even cake and hot dogs!). But more than that, the great thing about Aw Yeah, Comics was how it was essentially built to be the kind of store parents will bring their kids to. Art painted bright, primary colored murals across the various walls of the store, and aside from a real killer kids comics section and the standard wall of new floppy releases, the shop also boasts a nice toy aisle with crazy amounts of action figures from Marvel, DC, Star Wars and the like. That's got to be a boon to a small business in a high-foot traffic area like the main street in Skokie.

As always, Art and his partner in crime Franco had a long line of parents, kids and fanboys waiting to get free sketches and signed copies of the pair's Superman Family Adventure books. I've got to admit, I was incredibly bummed to hear that DC was pulling the plug on their Tiny Titans effort – perhaps THE definitive kids comic of the past ten years with a lot of young fans – in favor of the Super book, but Art spoke with a lot of enthusiasm about the new project and the crazy guest stars that will appear (including the Tiny Titans).

Aside from getting to chat the guys up, I also nabbed a Kid Devil sketch, which has been a favorite character for my girlfriend Jami and I since meeting one of Art and Franco's young fans at the first C2E2.

But yeah, I definitely plan on heading back to Aw Yeah, Comics before too long.

My second stop on the FCBD tour was Evil Squirrel Comics in Rogers Park. I'd actually been to the shop once before as it was the closest Chicago store that carried my friend Sam Humphries self-published series Sacrifice (Where's issue #4, bro?), and I enjoyed the visit. Though, unsurprisingly, there were a lot more folks filling up the shop this time. Plenty of kids were in attendance, but this was the first time I'd gotten a feeling for Evil Squirrel's core customer base as a lot of dudes there seemed to know each other and were chilling in the all ages-esque reading lounge that makes up the store's bay window area. Tucked away next to an underground theater and some other kind of bohemian-looking shops and such, this seems like it'd be a fun store to go to each week if you were nearby.

Oh, and I should mention that I tried to buy some comics at the shops I hit up for the first/second time on this trip. Here, I got a copy of James Robinson and Nicola Scott's new Earth-2 series, which I think has some legs.

I've been hearing that Third Coast Comics in Edgewater was a really nice store for a few years now, so I was psyched to pencil it in on my tour this year. The place did not disappoint. In a way, this felt like a more established version of the store Evil Squirrel (which I believe has been open for a year) is working to be. Third Coast had a nice sitting area up front with a few local artists plying mini comics and prints and a big section of high-end art and hardcover comics (flipped through Womanthology for the first time in person here) as well as a deep local mini comics rack.

In the second, "creator with a Free Comic in distribution" sighting of the day, DC inker Christian Alamy was on hand signing books for a few folks. He was having a very intense-sounding discussion with a fan. At least I think it was intense. They were speaking French, so maybe it just sounded that way to me. Either way, I chatted up a mom who was picking up free Sonic The Hedgehog and buying new Scooby-Doo for her son. Then I bought a copy of Saga #2 and headed out. Not to sound like a broken record on all these shops, but I'm totally coming back to Third Coast again.

I've had people I've told about my multi-shop FCBD excursions shocked there are so many stores I can hit up in one day. But what's really crazy is that if I only went to Graham Crackers comics locations, it'd still take me all day. This year, I hit a different Graham Crackers location than I'd ever been to: their Edgewater location.

While each location in the chain has its own particulars, all the Graham Crackers I've been to really do feel like part of a chain – similar set up and even shelves and what not. But they're always run by very friendly staff and seem to be full of folks. One thing I noted this year (and I think MAYBE you can tell this in the video above) is that for the DC New 52 FCBD special, Graham Crackers had special covers printed for their chain with the store logo on the cover rather than the traditional "White spot for mailing labels" that most shops get. Being a big account with Diamond has its perks, huh?

For the second half of my trip, I ended up hitting shops I'm more familiar with. Alley Cat Comics in Andersonville is a relatively new store (less than a year), though since I've got a friend in the area, I've been in a few times. As you can tell by the video, the store is situated off the main street in the very busy neighborhood by way of a long alley next to a Potbelly Sandwich shop. I'd often wondered whether being set off only by some (very classy) iron lattice sign work and a sandwich chalk board on the street meant that Alley Cat had trouble getting foot traffic. But it sure as hell didn't seem like that when I stopped by Saturday.

There were a ton of people in the store whose best fixture to my mind is a very well-curated kids comics section (only place in town I've found copies of Princeless), and the manager was saying to a regular that it was even crazier earlier in the day. Aside from picking up some free books, I also dipped into the $0.50 bin at the shop and got Stephen Platt's final issue of Moon Knight from the '90s (FACT: I am an unashamed fan of both that artist and that character). Solid!

Second to last for the day was foundational Chicago comic shop...um...Chicago Comics (sorry, I'm too tired to come up with a more clever transition). I've written about the pleasures of this very well stocked shop in the past, so I'll just add here that you should watch the video above to see how many people were coming in to ask the staff behind the counter for their three FCBD book picks. And the guys working were pretty hilarious in their calling out for comic requests.

Finally, I wrapped the day at my regular Wednesday stomping grounds of Challengers Comics + Conversation. As in year's past, Patrick and Dal tapped some of the local cartoonists with books available on the day to do a signing. This time out it was Chris Mitten signing Oni's Bad Medicine and half of the Four-Star Studios team in Tim Seeley and Mike Norton (each of whom had two upcoming series previewed in Images releases with Witchblade, The Atomics and their team-up series Revival. Early in the day, I saw on Twitter that Challengers had a line going out the door for people showing up, and surprisingly, they still had free books when I got there shortly before the signing ended around 6:00. I was witness to Seeley signing the last two copies of Witchblade in stock as Mitten had maybe just a dozen Bad Medicines left. So yeah, Challengers orders just the right amount of free books, it seems.

Crazily, there were a few more stores I wanted to hit on Saturday that I just couldn't get to including two of my regular shops in Dark Tower Comics and Variety Comics, and I'm pretty bummed I didn't get to check out G-Mart Comics for the first time. But there'll be plenty of time on FCBD 2013 to hit them up. Hell, I think I'll end up doing it before then.

Kiel & Kegmeister's Free Comic Book Day Video Extravaganza 2011

We've got a brief break in "Smallville Week" right now to bring you my annual Free Comic Book Day round up. As you guys may remember from my marathon shopping spree last year and the 2009 edition featuring my bro Kegmeister, I'm a big supporter of FCBD as an event and comics retail in general. This year, I thought I'd switch things up from the regular diary post and took a little video camera with me to try and capture some of the crowds and folks I saw along the way while hitting up seven Chicago comics retailers. I'm pretty much awful at camera work AND editing, but the song I used in this thing is pretty choice, so I hope you'll watch:

Big thanks to all the shops that were open and friendly and holding big events during the day including my own regular shop Challenger's, Dark Tower Comics, Comic Vault, Chicago Comics and Graham Crackers at Lincoln Park. Also props to creators Jonathan Hickman, Chris Burnham, Hilary Barta, Chris Mitten, Mike Norton and Matt Anderson for kicking it all day and making sketches for the kids and generally being rad.

Comics, you guys!!!!

Comic Shop Stop: What I Bought The Last Few Weeks - Plus FCBD!

I've fallen behind a bit on the Comic Shop Stop postings! Here goes for the last few weeks!

Here's what I been buying, ya'll:



WILSON - I've only just started reading Daniel Clowes (Ghost World, Ice Haven) in the last year, so I showed up in his fan club just in time to grab this new standalone graphic novel (his first to not be a collection from an earlier work) from Drawn & Quarterly! And thanks to a sale at Jim Hanley's Universe, I was able to get it for 40% off, too!



GIRL FUCK - Guide to the sex lives of lesbians by Erika Moen. It caught my eye after I read about it over here.



TEN THOUSAND THINGS TO DO #6 - Finally found the sixth issue of Jesse Recklaw's diary comic after hunting for it the past 3 months!



WALKING DEAD #71 - Kirkman zombies!



INVINCIBLE #71 - The Viltrimite War begins!!!



FCHS - A fairly easy-going high school drama comic, FCHS has a major strength in its distinct art from Rachel Freire. I remember digging the AdHouse Free Comic Book Day single issue of this book in 2009, but after something fell through with AdHouse distributing the book (I'm not sure what happened there since the book is still on their site), FCHS fell off my radar until this morning when I found a digest-sized volume at Hanley's on the shelf published by "FCHS Comix."
Added bonus: While checking out, the nice girl ringing me up, who I recognized from past trips to the shop, politely revealed she was Rachel (!), offered to sign my copy, and said I was the first person she witnessed buying a copy who she didn't already know. I didn't tell her about how her slick, clean art with its impossibly simple sense of space was my favorite part. I'd have been embarrassed.



ORC STAIN #3 - Goblins! It's like someone dropped a rainbow Bomb Pop in the woods and a troop of ants moved in, evolved into humanoid creatures, and started having explosively rockin' adventures!



THE GUILD #2 - Jim Rugg Jim Rugg Jim Rugg!



HELLBOY IN MEXICO #1 - I almost skipped buying this issue and then I betrayed my waller and opened the thing up to see Hellboy fighting a demon Luchadore who looks like this. Sorry, wallet.

As for my Free Comic Book Day 2010 - IT WAS THE BEST EVER. I hit three NYC shops on May 5 (Hanley's, Cosmic Comics, and Forbidden Planet), and got all the FCBD issues I wanted. My girlfriend Sam even got all the ones SHE wanted! And I bought stuffs so as to show my support for the stores! I wish FCBD was quarterly. Yeah, I said it!



MOME 12 & 14 - Thanks to Hanley's month-long anniversary sale of 25% off everything in the store, I'm catching up on Fantagraphic's constantly entertaining anthology starting with vol. 12 and vol. 14.



BOOK OF GRICKLE - Graham Annable is one of my favorite comic creators and, I find, one of the best gateway drugs for bringing friends into comics. I already have the 2 collections this book collects, but having a hardcover that holds all the stories in one place (along with it being 30% off at Cosmic Comics) was too good a deal to pass up. I loaned it to a friend SECONDS after buying it. GO NOW AND GET THIS THING!

The FCBD books I'm most looking forward to sitting and reading (other than THIS, which I read already and loved) are right here:



G.I. JOE #155 1/2 - Oh fuck oh shit oh fuck! This IDW book takes place moments after the end of the original Marvel Joe series (hence the #155 1/2)!



YOW! - It's not so much the content of this issue from Drawn & Quarterly that has me so excited so much as the ad in the back for a collection I had no idea was coming! In Fall 2010, D&Q plans on publishing annuals of Doug Wright's Nipper comic strip series about mid-'60s Canadian middle-class suburban life! That's what I'm talking aboot!



WEATHERCRAFT - I've never read a Jim Woodring comic before. NEVER EVER. I think I'm finally ready for his signature brand of cartoon dementia and absurdity and this free sample is PROBABLY about to set me on a path of Woodring fanaticism. Well played, Fantagraphics.



DOPE FLOUNDER - Sparkplug Comic Books, Teenage Dinosaur, and Tugboat Press team up again for the third in a series of free anthology mini-comics with dope production quality spotlighting up-and-coming talent. Right off the bat, contributors in this issue who caught my attention were Jesse Recklaw (whose mini-diaries I adore) Sean Chistensen (whose Miranda Baby mini-comic I adore), and Nicole Georges (whose diary mini-comic I adore)!

What've you guys been buying?

(Quick disclaimer: I borrow a LOT of stuff from Ben each week from Marvel, so I don't always buy single issues of the Marvel books. And I get everything from DC, WildStorm, Vertigo, and Zuda for free, so I never really buy anything from them unless I'm picking up for somebody else. So don't take my exclusion of DC stuff as a sign that the books aren't good enough to buy. They are. So there.)

I Got All The Comics: Kiel's FCBD 2010

Okay. So maybe I didn't get ALL of the comics literally, but on this year's Free Comic Book Day, I went all out and tried to do as much as I possibly could, and as a result I ended up nabbing 17 of the 33 issues published as part of the annual comics holiday. If you couldn't tell from my reminiscing last year or my outright promotion of previous FCBDs, I'm a big supporter of the event from all sorts of angles including the hopeful potential it holds for expanding awareness of both the medium and the Direct Market, the boring businessy way in a journo wank like me can watch publishers leverage their giveaways into awareness amongst comics core readers and the plain old school joy of hanging in a comic shop all day shooting the shit with fellow fans.

I ramped up for Saturday by lining up a mega-roundup of FCBD previews and events for CBR as well as writing a short feature on Arizona retailer Mike Malve's plans for the day and his participation in the "Kick-Ass" movie as a comics promotion tool (and I guess I did some sideline reporting as part of the site's CBR Live! coverage, which you should all scroll through), but I'm not beneath putting it out there that once the day actually came all I really cared about was seeing as many shops as I could and getting as many free comics as possible. Luckily, while Chicago may not be a comics creative community/publisher juggernaut in the way towns like New York, LA or Portland are, the city has got to be one of if not the very best comics retail towns in America, and in hitting five shops I only scratched the surface of what the Chi offers on FCBD or any Wednesday in the calendar.


I started my day off by heading to The Comic Vault, which I chose as my first stop because they were advertising free giveaway bags for the first 50 customers, and I'm a sucker for more free shit than I deserve. Getting there a half hour after opening, I was WAY behind my shot at a goodie bag, but I did happen to bump into my buddy and fellow CBR staffer Shaun Manning who was leaving with a handful of books (see up there?). Shaun said The Vault had a line out the door when he arrived, so bully for them on spreading the word.


I'm not 100% on this, but The Comic Vault may be the closest comic shop to my apartment, though I rarely get over to its Montrose and Clark location because traveling from 94 toward the lake on any Chicago street can be kind of a pain in the ass. Still, the few times I've stopped by the store for an event, the thing that's really struck me about the shop is the uncountable legion of teenage workers who man the store asking kindly if I know what the day's specials are. If there was a comic store in my area when I was in high school that would pay me in any way shape or form to hang out with a bunch of other nerds all day explaining the ins and outs of our hobby to strangers, my mother would have to call in a missing persons report because I would never have left. Good to see a such a young, dedicated crowd of readers.


The other really noteworthy thing about this store is how dedicated they seem to be towards single issues for a shop that's relatively new to the scene (they've been open about four years). There's a trade section at The Vault like in any other modern shop, but the wall space around the room is anchored on recent floppies which all come pre-bagged and boarded. You can tell that this place's bread and butter is the Wednesday warrior crowd, for sure. And as you can see above, that mentality extended to FCBD as The Vault was probably the only shop I went to that kept damn near every available book for the event well in stock, allowing me to get my hands on a few offerings I was interested in that I thought I might miss like Mike Raicht's new The Stuff of Legend/Mortal Instruments flipbook, Brandon Jerwa's Storm Lion (which I forgot he'd done until I saw his name on the cover and which you can download for your iPhone here) and Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt's superb new Oni series The Sixth Gun.


After stopping by to chat up my FCBD compadre Kegmeister (who couldn't do much shopping with me this year because he had to bartend his way through a brutal Cubs homestand), I made my way downtown to Chicago's Magnificent Mile and the city's longstanding retail anchor Graham Cracker Comics. I chose that stop on the expansive chain of Graham stores because they had Mouse Guard creator (and fellow Flint, Michigan native) David Petersen signing books. Best moment of the stop? While I chatted up Petersen for a minute about C2E2 (which I never got to blog about because my computer melted down during the show), a guy asked him to sign an issue of Iron Man. Rather than merely turn the comics neophyte away because he didn't want to autograph a book he didn't work on, David drew a rad little mustache on Tony Stark's alter ego. It was really pretty cute.

You know, even though I had the pleasure of attending two FCBD events featuring artists who actually had books out as part of the promotion, it really has to be said that having any creator sign at your store (The Vault had a massive lineup of local cartoonists with mini comics) is the basic promotion I'd recommend for any shop that has a local creator who can sit for a few hours with pen in hand and smile on face. Beyond the pull of getting your regulars out to meet someone whose work they admire in the way any signing does, I expect that having a creator on hand for FCBD adds that little extra zing of excitement for first time comic shoppers who beyond getting a free taste of the medium get to marvel at someone drawing something and ask questions like, "So do you make all the little bubble for the words too?"


Speaking of signings, I made it to my third stop – Dark Tower Comics – just in time to see one with Chicago-area artists Tim Seeley and Skottie Young wrap up. Seeley was on his way to another signing in the norther 'burbs, but I got to hang out for a while and talk about comics retail with Young, Jose Capetillo and the store's owner Mark. That's a really nice, old school comic shop, by the way. I'd been there once before when I did a guest spot on the late, great Around Comics podcast, but I'd never had a chance to really look through it until Saturday. A LOT of dollar comics (I got this one and this one), but Mark stocks up strong with as many varieties of trades and OGNs as you can imagine as well as all sorts of comic shoppy ancilary products. While we were standing there, some guy bought one of those hella expensive Marvel Bowen busts (a Green Goblin one), which always shocks me because I can't imagine paying 50 or 75 bucks or whatever for a superhero statue.

Oh, and just like The Comic Vault had its take on FCBD with its massive wall of everything, I should note that both Dark Tower and Graham Crackers took their own track for what comics to get and how to distribute them. Dark Tower did what I've seen a lot of bigger shops do, setting up a free comics table on your way out the door where a staff member would help you pick out a few choices to get with whatever you got while shopping. And for what it's worth, their selection seemed more focused on the kid-friendliest comics of the bunch while Graham's was a mix of the DM staples from Marvel, DC and the other big publishers while also having a metric ton of Mouse Guard for Petersen to sign. While it's great that there are 33 comics available for distribution, I always find it telling what specific kinds of free comics the stores put in for and how they arrange those titles on day of. Says a lot about who they think the days is for or who they find comes in.


That afternoon, I made my way over to what I thought would be my last stop of the day: my regular Wednesday home of Challenger's Comics. Store owners Pat and Dale looked a little harried, and by the looks of the free comic rack right out front, they'd had a lot of foot traffic coming through. I like the store's general approach to comics retail a lot as Challenger's is a clean, friendly space anchored by book shelves that run DEEP in the variety of material without skimping on the week-in, week-out single issue stuff. This was my second year stopping by the store for Free Comic Book Day, and like last year, their selection seemed heavily focused on stuff that would be good for newer, younger readers...including the DC Comics kids offering featuring a story drawn by neighborhood artist Mike Norton who was signing books and leading a small dance party while I was there.


In addition, Challenger's event served as (I believe) the debut for kid fantasy series Verum Corpus by writer Josh Emmons and artist Katie Cook. The first issue had been printed up just for the day, and both Emmons and Cook were on hand to sign and sketch for the kids along with Norton. I may be totally wrong about this, but I could easily see that kind of "comic created just for one shop on FCBD" launch becoming a regular thing for web cartoonists and other small press folks. Certainly got me to check the book out, and it looks like really fun stuff. I didn't get to chat up at all because she were talking to Petersen (who apparently followed me over), but Emmons seemed super excited about everything.


Two other things of note from Challenger's:

1 - The two-piece nerd rock outfit Wednesday Heroes was on hand and recording personalized songs about any comic of your choice which they'd then burn to disc for you to take home with your free comics. I actually think one of the guys wasn't super into comics as much as he was into rocking, but everyone seemed happy with the tunes they were pumping out.

2 - Challenger's employee Ashley was rocking the same new Scott Pilgrim shirt as me because apparently we're the two raddest people in Chicago, and somewhere on the interwebs there's probably a fun picture of the pair of us showing off the full Bryan Lee O'Malley bass spread, but Lord knows I don't have it.


I swear to God I was more than satisfied with my Free Comic Book Day at that point and after saying goodbye to the gang at Challengers, I took off for home. But after I decided to take a detour on the East side of the city while heading north both to avoid the traffic on 94 and check out some neighborhoods for a possible move, I totally drove by Chicago Comics on accident. As Alex Ross once told me, Chicago Comics is the store worth going to because "they just have everything" and holy shit, it's so hard to walk around that place without spending obscene amounts of money (Rickey, you'd die there, bro). I fought hard and won the battle not to buy that Russell Davies book about writing "Doctor Who" I hear is so good, but I may go back and get it once I finish watching all his episodes of the series. Anyway, the store ended up being the perfect spot to end my day as the staff had taped up copies of the FCBD offerings in front of their checkout counter, and by the day's end I was lucky enough that out of the books they had left were two that I really wanted just to read for fun and not for work: Drawn & Quarterly's John Stanley sampler and the totally sick Jim Woodring Weathercraft book from Fantagraphics. How many totally unsuspecting people do you think nabbed copies of these completely different yet completely brilliant comics this weekend? It blows my mind a little.


Wow. Writing that all out made me almost as tired as living it. After this long, rambly rundown of what I did, I'm not sure there's a real takeaway I can give for Free Comic Book Day except that it's still a great day for the medium and it's main sales outlet and that one of the things I enjoy the most about how the holiday works is how pliable it is in providing readers with experiences unique to comic shop shopping. Ultimately, there are thousands of different ways to celebrate FCBD, and at least in my neighborhood, the retailers seems to be doing their best to give people a reason to come out.

How'd your day go?

Kiel & Kegmeister's Excellent Free Comic Book Day

So I don't think there's really much more for me to say about Free Comic Book Day past that little rant I wrote the other day. BUT...I did have a great day and took a few photos that I had meant to post on CBR's Live! blog, and since my ability to login and post there didn't work out, I thought I'd throw them up here on a Sunday. [Although, you really should check the blog out for cool photos from tons of folks like Jonah Weiland, Remy Minnick, Image's Joe Keatinge, IDW's Chris Ryall and newly minted Archaia PR man and the most lovable man in comics: Mel Caylo.]


I started the day out at Dreamland Comics, what has been my local comic shop for the past few months. It's a nice shop and very well run by some friendly dudes. They don't always carry as many independent titles as I'd like or stock the ones they do have very deep. But hey...most stores don't. Overall, it's a great place to scratch the serial comics itch.

Highlights of the stop: I nabbed Blackest Night #0 which I really dug and IDW's G.I. Joe/Transformers flipbook thingy, which I think reprints older material but it was mostly stuff I hadn't read. On top of that, I dove into the two for a dollar bin at Dreamland looking for some dopey Wolverine comics since I realized with the movie I hadn't read one in a long time. I ended up getting one by Archie Goodwin and John Byrne and one by Larry Hama and Mark Texria that featured all the weirdo Weapon X characters in the movie. That qualifies as a dollar's worth of entertainment, me thinks.

Lowlights of the stop: There was this poor woman at the store who was having quite a hard time finding what she wanted. After first thinking that Free Comic Book Day meant she could have any one comic in the store for free, she relented and expressed interest in buying a recent Spider-Man comic she'd read about online but could remember the exact name or details of. The poor guy behind the counter tried his best to help her, but they couldn't figure it out (after taking her notes and googling once I got home, I think she was looking for this). When I left, she was perusing the actual display of FCBD one-shots Dreamland had in stock. I hope she found something she liked.


Later, I drove into Chicago and picked up Kegs at his place in Roscoe Village. Seeing as we both had appointments to keep later in the day, we decided that there was time for one shop only if we were going to take in the full experience, and agreed on Challengers Comics as the place to hit because neither of us had ever been and because Erik Larsen was doing a signing. Totally the right call on both accounts.

If you've never seen Challengers, the store has one of the sharpest exteriors I've seen on a comic shop, with multiple window murals featuring a wide range of characters including a few totally rad doors painted by Colleen Coover, like the above Mary Marvel. You can see a few better exterior shots of the whole store and Larsen's signing earlier in the day by checking out my bud Shaun Manning's entries on CBR Live! (Shaun and I ended up being proverbial ships in the...sunny Chicago streets for the day. Turns out he takes better, more comprehensive pics than me). Still, I snapped this pic of Aztek the Ultimate Man, so cool for me.


Highlights of the stop: Larsen, as expected, was a total hoot. I did an interview with the creator a few months back announcing that Image Comics' FCBD offering would be a regular issue of Larsen's Savage Dragon (#148) featuring the Golden Age Daredevil, so it was a treat to see the book come out and chat the artist up about it. Apparently, due to the long lead time needed to print and ship the FCBD editions, Larsen had to finish #148 before he did #147, which made getting the April issue completed and to the printer in time vital. Luckily, he did not have to pull a Wolverine.

I also picked up a bunch of great books I'd been missing out on of late, including Madman Atomic Comics #14, RASL #4, Jersey Gods #3 and, most importantly, the first issue of Chynna Clugston's new Blue Monday: Thieves Like Us mini, which I've been waiting for for seriously five years. To top it all off, as we were checking out, Larsen started adding a Savage Dragon sketch to Challengers' wall mural, a step by step of which I sloppily photographed:





I remember meeting Larsen at a con sometime early in high school and standing at his table with my friend Tony marveling at how he actually drew while holding his pencil the way he does. I don't even know how to describe his hand, but click on the above photo to get an idea. Does anyone else draw like that?


When the final product was complete, one of the shop employees commented that it looked like Larsen's rendition of the Dragon was staring down a version of the character drawn previously by a local artist. "Yeah," said Larsen. "He's kind of givin' him the dick eye."

Lowlights of the stop: Unfortunately, by that late in the day, whatever other FCBD options Challengers had besides the Dragon book were out. Obviously, no one can get all of the free comics offered on Free Comic Book Day, but I would have loved to check out some stuff like the Love & Rockets book or the John Stanley samplers Drawn & Quarterly put out. Ditto issue #60 of Invincible which has been sold out everywhere I go of late (Kegs can't find it either). Then again, the nice thing about good comics is that these days, there are multiple ways to check them out, and I'm sure I'll see all that material again soon. Plus, nothing could ruin the fun me and Kegmeister had, as evidenced by this snap I got of him and the comics he picked up:


So, how did your day go?

Some Ideas For Free Comic Book Day

So tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day, the day when comic shops across the country (and in Canada!) dish out sampler issues from a lot of the big publishers and probably have other fun stuff going on for the uninitiated. I'm sure if you read this blog you knew that already and knew also which books you were planning on pilfering given the chance. If not, read up on it here.

So, since I've got almost a dozen members of the Wednesday shopping crowd possibly reading what I write on this blog, I thought I'd make some recommendations for ways to enhance your FCBD experience beyond just nabbing up that cool Love & Rockets sampler or Blackest Night #0 or whatever. They are, as follows:

1. Take a kid to the comic shop with you.

Now look, I've been to plenty of comic conventions for work, and at almost each and every one of those shows I see at least one super fanboy dad who has dressed up his son or daughter as Green Lantern or Phoenix or some other ridiculous fucking thing, and the kids just hates it. They cry and moan and itch the foam rubber and cannot understand for their life why in the hell their dad subjugates them to this awkward embarrassment when they clearly do not want to be there. But these dads (and sometimes even mom accomplices) remain stubbornly set on making their kids grow up getting picked on and laughed at for like Spider-Man too much the same way other parents pressure their kids into little league baseball or go-cart racing or whatever. It is horrid to watch and super embarrassing for everyone involved, and if you are one of these people please get a fucking clue and let your kid be into what they're into regardless of whether or not it's what you liked at that age.

That said, if you're a relatively well-adjusted person who digs comics and there's a kid between the ages of 5 and 15 in your family, please take them to free comic book day. This has nothing to do with infecting them with the spirit of comic books or growing in them a love of this great medium or whatever other excuses people make. I'm suggesting this one totally because being a kid can be real shitty and boring most of the time, especially in this time of the year when summer is showing up in temperature but there are still two depressingly long months of school ahead. Kids never get to go anywhere any fun unless it's a birthday because they can't drive and have no money. Therefore, kids love free stuff of almost any kind. Take any little kid you know and say, "Here, this is yours" and hand them a super bouncy ball or one of those cheap paper airplanes that makes loopy loops or a stale Snickers bar, and I guarantee they will get pumped for it. So free comic books? Why not, right?

Take your nephew or niece or cousin or neighbor or whatever out to a comic shop, let them dig the thrill of getting free stuff at a store for no reason, whether they ever read the things or not, and then take them out for MacDonald's or ice cream or whatever food they want that mom and dad rarely let them eat. It will make them happy, and it'll make you happy.

2. Take a friend who kind of digs superhero movies.

OK, so after that whole diatribe about not forcing your tastes in nerdy stuff on the young children in your life, I'm going to do a 180 and suggest you force them on you drinking buddies instead. Think of it this way: one of the unique pleasures that comes with buying your comics at a local shop (which FCBD is trying to promote, duh) is the act of sitting around and jawing about useless continuity, story points and lame industry gossip cribbed off websites. And if you've got a really nice shop in your area with people you know and trust, you're probably covered there. But if my experience is any indication, there are plenty of you out there who shuffle into a comic shop near where you live each Wednesday, quietly pick up a book or three, have the guy at the counter make a joke about how that "Batman & Robin" movie makes no sense because Mr. Freeze can't smoke cigars and then go home to read comics alone over a microwavable corndog and some instant mash. Likely, the only interaction you get when it comes to comic books is with faceless d-bags on message boards, and I'm sorry, but that just isn't the same as talking to a real human.

So, because it's Saturday and because you know they have nothing else to do, ask a few of your friends who saw "The Dark Knight" three times on IMAX if they want to come along for some free comics. Maybe some of them even used to read Spawn of whatever in middle school but dropped out of it. There's a good chance that your buds won't become hardcore fanboys overnight or anything, but at least for an afternoon or maybe a little while longer you can spout off on comics to someone actually interested in what you have to say. And if you're lucky, they'll ask you for some more recommendations and you get to play expert for a while longer, which (admit it) makes all us nerds feel good about ourselves. I got my buddy Kegmeister reading comics a few years ago while living at home after college wrapped, and he's still way into it and will be attending with me tomorrow. I can't explain to y'all how weirdly proud I am of that.

3. Take a family member who doesn't really get you.

When you grow up reading comics, probably most of your family from your parents to your aunts and uncles think it's pretty cute, and they buy you a Superman t-shirt on your birthday or whatever. But once you get past high school and your house is full of oblong boxes and you're still walking around explaining that your wardrobe isn't just a superhero T but "a screen print of some really cool John Byrne heads"...well, your family probably looks at you a little differently. Not that they dislike you, but maybe for them comic books are that kid thing you should've given up a long time ago in the same way my mom thought Magic cards might be about Satan when I was in the sixth grade. And it's tough to try and describe what you dig about what you dig without coming off even more awkward and nerdy, but Free Comic Book Day can be a boon for this.

Ask your mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or whoever if they want to tag along. Ask you brother who's into NASCAR or your sister who still watches "Sex And The City" compulsively if they want to grab lunch and swing by the comic store with you. You know they chances of them reading comics too and getting way into it are zero at this stage, but that's totally not the point. The point is that your family wants to know what's up with you. They want to understand why you like what you like and why you're like what you're like, and it's going to be way more fun when you have some shared memories surrounding the things you do every week anyway. And maybe later you can change out of your Byrne shirt and take your mom to see a play or go see minor league baseball game with your cousin or whatever it is they do and the thing will reciprocate.

Trust me on this one. Saturday is going to be awesome, y'all.