Free Comic Book Day 2017

[TageRyche]

The first Saturday in May once again played host to the international Free Comic Book Day event and as has been the case with each celebratory day since the beginning, I was an enthusiastic participant.


With Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 playing in the theater and lots of free comics for eager fans to get their hands on, this was a weekend to celebrate the comic book medium. And that doesn't even take into account the stores that go all out by bring in writers and artists to do signings and sketches.


My tradition for the last few years has been to do something different each year. Usually that takes the form of going to a store that I've never been to before, but the options can vary. However, this year was indeed a first time visit to a new store. Okay, it was actually just a different branch of my regular comic store but I've never been there so it is definitely something new. The decision to head off to that particular store as my first stop of the day was made easy because they had one of my favorite creators/people as one of their guests.


What follows is the episodic recap (complete with chapter titles) of my Free Comic Book Day adventure.


THE BALLAD OF JENNIE


My day started out at the Norwood, MA branch of New England Comics. Their New Bedford store is my Local Comic Shop, but I had to go to the Norwood store because they had the Flutter graphic novel series creator/writer Jennie Wood as one of the guests. If you've seen my previous FCBD or Comic Con articles, you know that I am a huge fan of hers, so when she makes an appearance that I can go to, I make a point of doing so.


Given the weather, I didn't want to be stuck outside waiting in the rain, so I timed my arrival so that the store would already be open when I got there. The store was filled with people, but it wasn't overwhelmed so moving around was pretty easy. There were a couple of people in costume and the store was hosting a live podcast broadcast as well.


After going over to say hello to Jennie, I let her be as she was finishing setting up and I wandered the store. I ended up getting a phone call from a friend who asked me to pick him up a certain comic that he didn't realize was available as a freebie. This led to a humorous exchange between him and I, but in the end I grabbed up the Star Trek The Next Generation comic he was looking for, and threw in the Doctor Who comic for good measure.


Now usually I try to pick up something from any store I visit as a kind of way to pay back for the stuff that they are giving away. I was really on the look out for a graphic novel that might just capture my interest enough to make me want to slap down some money for it. Unfortunately, I didn't really see anything that really screamed "Buy Me!" while I was there.


After that look around the store I went back to Jennie's table (with an unfortunate "Jenny" spelling mistake on the sign printed up by the store) and spent the rest of my time at the shop catching up with her. We talked about Flutter related news (she's finished the script for Volume 3), a possible new project she may be taking on, as well as an update on a project based on the music of Lana Del Rey called Baroque Pop: A Comic Anthology that is due out this month from Red Stylo Media. Jennie's story with Chris Goodwin is called "Religion".


When I saw Jennie at her FCBD last year, I picked up a few things of hers that I hadn't purchased yet. But I was so busy talking to her then, I forgot to have her sign them. So this year, I brought the books back and she graciously signed them for me. She also had Jeff McClelland (another of the store's guests on the day) sign the Flutter Vol. 2 book because he did the lettering work on it.


We both have had kind of a crazy and not always in a good way kind of time over the last year so we chatted a little about topics related to stuff on a personal level (which I obviously won't go into here) but it was nice to be able to commiserate with someone who has had similar experiences lately.


There was talk about the different conventions that Jennie will be doing over the course of the rest of the year, including the Boston Comic Con, Flame Con in New York and possibly even Rhode Island Comic Con (though that is just a thought at this point). A little bit of our love of David Ortiz and the Boston Red Sox made its way into the conversation as well.


Of course, this was all done in between the shop's customers that came over and showed interest in her books. When this happened, I stepped back and watched her work. She was giving away free copies of the first two volumes of Flutter and people were genuinely interested in the book as Jennie explained the plot of the series to them. I left the store before her time was up there, but she was getting so many people interested in them, there was a chance she would run out of the free copies before she even got to the second appearance she had booked for the day.




As a big fan of both Jennie's work, I was really quite pleased to see people showing such a keen interest in the books as Jennie gave them the 30-second breakdown of the story. And it wasn't just for the sake of getting the free copies either. A few of the people ended up talking to her both about the book and the creation process.


Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that Jennie handed me a copy of a graphic novel I had been interested in. She was at the C2E2 convention in Chicago a couple weeks back and she was sharing a table with a writer named Eric Palicki. He has a graphic novel out called Fake Empire. Because we are connected on Facebook and Twitter, I asked her if she'd do me the favor of picking me up the book when she saw him. She said she would and thus I was on the receiving end of the book. How cool is that? Of course, the price was very steep...I have to buy her a beer the next time I see her! Oh, the horror!


So much like last year, I had a blast getting to catch up (in person, I mean because we do chat on Facebook on occasion) with Jennie. And if you are wondering how much of a fan of hers I am, keep in mind that I helped back her Kickstarter fundraiser for Flutter Volume 3. Normally, backing a Kickstarter isn't something I would do, but the quality of Jennie's work and the fact I want to support it in some small way made backing the project a point of honor for me.


And who knows, there's a chance I might be able to pay back the beer for the graphic novel later this summer...

YOU SNOOZE, YOU LOSE


After leaving Norwood, I drove back to North Dartmouth. I had to run a couple of regular errands there but I also wanted to stop at the Newbury Comics location there.


When I got there, I was kind of glad that I wasn't expecting to pick up any of the free books because when I walked in the door I saw that pretty much all the freebies were gone. There were a few copies left of a couple of titles, but that was it.


I had actually gone in there to check out the new music releases of the week, but nothing struck my fancy. But I chatted briefly with the manager Mike and picked up a copies of the newly released Jungle Fantasy Annual 2017 and Issue #2 of The Courier: From The Ashes for a little extra reading material.



THE LOCAL TRADITION


My last stop on the day was my local shop, the New Bedford branch of New England Comics, where I even picked up pizza for the staff when I stopped to get some lunch for myself along the way.


When I got there, while the store was still filled with people, I was told by the staff that it was actually the slowest point of the day since they opened the doors that morning. The customers were looking through the free books, but also waiting in line for sketches being done throughout the day by guest artist Mike Lilly.


I met Mike last year when he was at the store and I've seen him at a convention as well. He does great work and the sketch cover I got from him last year was set aside for my nephew as his first piece of original art . Because he was jam packed with people waiting for sketches, I didn't get one from him this time around, but I still got to spend some time chatting with him towards the end of the day along with the store employees Palmer and Marguerite.


Now I didn't really need to go through the freebie books on offer at the shop because as with years past, I ordered a bunch of copies of certain titles so that I could give them out on Halloween. I cut down on the number I ordered this year but still have a lot to give away once again.

However, I took a quick peek in the boxes anyway and came away with a couple of comics I hadn't ordered that caught my eye. I also picked up the first issue of a comic called Eternal Empire as my offset purchase of the day. The store was running the chain-wide sale, but other than that one extra book, I again just didn't find something that made me want to spend the extra cash.




THE BONUS CREDITS SCENES


As I said in the opening of this article, I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 on Sunday afternoon. While it should be apparent to anyone with a lick of common sense that I'm not going to spoil anything about the movie (EVERYONE DIES!), let me just say that I thought the movie was really quite fantastic. It had action, adventure, humor and special effects that accomplished something and was pretty much everything I could've hoped for.

There was one little casting decision that I didn't much like because it really took me out of the movie for the scenes this particular actor showed up in. But an amusing cameo from another actor and the inclusion of one of my favorite Guardians characters from the group's original incarnation made up for that little nitpick.



So, another Free Comic Book Day event is in the books and while I certainly didn't spend as much money as I might have done in previous years, I still had a really good time for myself.

So thank you to the stores and both Mike Lilly and Jennie Wood for making the day both very entertaining and exciting. See you all next year for FCBD '18!

[verslibre]

Cool blog. I didn't make it to FCBD because of other pressing matters, but I support my LCS all year long. (Same thing with RSD.)

[TageRyche]

verslibre,

Thanks for reading the post. I support my LCS all year as well.

I usually go to RSD as well, though I ended up mostly missing it this year because I had to take the car in for work. Though to be fair, there wasn't a whole lot that interested me this year.

[verslibre]

Ditto on RSD. I only wanted the ELP Brain Salad Surgery 7" clear vinyl for the sleeve art. I got it after RSD...for peanuts! I don't even want to know what I would've paid had I been there on Saturday.

You have three LCS's within driving distance? I have three, but I only support one (the one that's currently been there the longest) because the owner's a cool guy and his back issue selection is righteous. Of the other two shops, one deals only newer titles (and recent back issues) and toys, and the other one blows (it's run by a really young guy who doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't know shit when it comes to customer service, so I hear).

[TageRyche]

Ditto on RSD. I only wanted the ELP Brain Salad Surgery 7" clear vinyl for the sleeve art. I got it after RSD...for peanuts! I don't even want to know what I would've paid had I been there on Saturday.

You have three LCS's within driving distance? I have three, but I only support one (the one that's currently been there the longest) because the owner's a cool guy and his back issue selection is righteous. Of the other two shops, one deals only newer titles (and recent back issues) and toys, and the other one blows (it's run by a really young guy who doesn't know what he's doing and doesn't know shit when it comes to customer service, so I hear).

I have two main shops near me. The New Bedford one in the article is my main shop. The one where I didn't get any FCBD books is more of a music and pop culture store now. The other one was a visit that I made because of the writer that was there. It's about 1 hour away so it isn't one that I'll visit again unless they have someone I want to meet on a FCBD.

There's another store that is about 35-45 minutes away from me, but after two visits I probably won't go there. There was one in my town but I didn't care for the guy running it so I didn't go to it beyond 1 visit.

There are others within an hour's drive that I could visit but I just don't go.

[verslibre]

Same here. If I head up the freeway not even an hour, I could hit another six shops! But the one I go to is really cool because the owner's got great back issues. A lot of them came from his personal collection when he opened it, which is why I like the '70s-80s stuff he's got. I don't see as much of it in one place without going to a con, and he's given me some great deals, especially on some Treasury editions.

[TageRyche]

The treasury stuff is cool.

I like the DC Showcase Presents black and white reprints, but the company doesn't do those anymore.

Marvel's Essentials black and white reprints were good too.

[verslibre]

The treasury stuff is cool.

I like the DC Showcase Presents black and white reprints, but the company doesn't do those anymore.

Marvel's Essentials black and white reprints were good too.

I LOVE those sets. I got all the horror stuff: House of Mystery 1-3, House of Secrets, Sinister House, Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, Godzilla, Marvel Horror and Silver Surfer Vol. 1. Also picked up a few Savage Sword of Conan and Solomon Kane sets. I need more.

I recently picked up the two FC Man-Thing: The Complete Collection volumes, too...for half-price. I prefer originals, but I'm missing quite a few and the pricing was too good to pass up.

I still have some of the DC digests and those cool FC DC/Marvel paperback collections from the '80s: Conan, Incredible Hulk, the Byrne run of Captain America, The Untold Story of the Batman, Titans, etc.

[TageRyche]

I LOVE those sets. I got all the horror stuff: House of Mystery 1-3, House of Secrets, Sinister House, Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, Godzilla, Marvel Horror and Silver Surfer Vol. 1. Also picked up a few Savage Sword of Conan and Solomon Kane sets. I need more.

I recently picked up the two FC Man-Thing: The Complete Collection volumes, too...for half-price. I prefer originals, but I'm missing quite a few and the pricing was too good to pass up.

I still have some of the DC digests and those cool FC DC/Marvel paperback collections from the '80s: Conan, Incredible Hulk, the Byrne run of Captain America, The Untold Story of the Batman, Titans, etc.

I just sold off the Moon Knight collections last week. They've been sitting around and I was never going to get around to reading them again. I'm actually paring down my collection of comics.

But I do have all of the Savage Sword of Conan collections.