FREE Comic Book Day & HUGE SALE!

This Saturday, May 2nd is the 9th annual Free Comic Book Day that is an industry event the first Saturday of May that exists to promote how wonderful comics are to the public at large, who may not have read a comic in a long time and or don't know how much they've changed.

At my store, Alternate Reality Comics, Free Comic Day is all day Saturday (May 2nd) from 11-7pm. In addition to the great selection the various companies produced this year, I'm having a HUGE .25 cents back issue sale! When was the last time you bought a comic for a quarter (ever?)!? With the help of my friend, Rob, the past month or so, I've finally been getting all of the boxes out of this storage unit I've had for way too long and we've been updating the dollar back issue boxes here at the store. Well the boxes are now full and there's still a number of comics that haven't seen the light of day in years so I'm going to put them out Saturday on two large tables to see if anyone wants to give them homes for a mere quarter.

I just want to emphasize that no purchase is required for Free Comic Book Day, but if you have some loose quarters just laying around, I'll have some comic gems for only .25 cents! And if you're ever in the Bay area, specifically Concord, California, visit Flying Colors Comics and say hello and thank you to owner Joe Field for creating Free Comic Book Day!

Why I Killed Peter

Why I Killed Peter is an autobiographical graphic novel that came out last year that somehow fell below my radar until I read a review recently in Comics Buyer's Guide. Written by Oliver Ka and illustrated (in color) by Alfred and published by NBM, Why I Killed Peter, recounts Oliver Ka's early life growing up, meeting a man named Peter, whom he befriends, and a disturbing thing that Peter does during one of the camps that Oliver attended when he was twelve.


While the disturbing thing that Peter does is very disturbing, it ultimately isn't as disturbing as it could have been (although still disturbing enough to alter a person's life) and Why I Killed Peter isn't sensationalistic and presents the subject matter in such a way that will stay with the reader without being as creepy as it could have been, at the same time not excusing what happened.

FreakAngels vol. 2

Yesterday, the second volume of Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's online comic FreakAngels arrived. Anyone who's read the first FreakAngels graphic novel or read it online knows that the level of quality established right from page one never lets up, rather it just intensifies.
I don't have anything new to add that I didn't already say in my blog entry towards the end of last year when the first FreakAngels collection came out, and really this art says way more than any combination of letters I can put together.
Click on this page to the left and above to see them in their larger glory. As a refresher for those who don't already know what FreakAngels is, basically it's an end of the world scenario, with very few people left alive and twelve of those have immense power (but FreakAngels isn't about super powered characters beating the crap out of each other - not that there's anything wrong with that).

Holy great Batman story, Robin!

Today the much delayed second part of Neil Gaiman's Whatever Happened To The Cape Crusader arrived and I was shocked and amazed at what a great story this is. No Spoilers following:

I thought the first part of this Gaiman Batman story had some good scenes, but nothing that suggested that it would be considered one of the greatest Batman stories ever. I was also holding this story up against Alan Moore's Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow, one of the all time best Superman stories, of which Gaiman's Batman story title pays homage to, and after reading the first chapter, I thought Gaiman's Batman story just was an okay story. Well that has completely changed with the second chapter, especially the last ten pages.

Whatever Happened To The Cape Crusader is one of the VERY BEST Batman stories I've ever read and people will fondly remember this story for a long time. Everything that happens in the second part of this story brings together what Gaiman presented in the first chapter thus strengthening what I originally thought was just an okay story. Andy Kubert's art takes up the challenge that Gaiman's script provided and although I've often lamented both his and his brother Adam's abysmal output (in terms of number of issues they actually produced while exclusive to DC), I've enjoyed their art much more at DC than their Marvel work (I've got a theory that they don't care as much about DC characters as they do about Marvel characters, but it's also true that I don't no the reasons why they were so late with their DC work) and I'm sorry that their art didn't grace more DC titles with an impact such as Andy Kubert's Whatever Happened To The Cape Crusader. Regarding when Whatever Happened To The Cape Crusader takes place in continuity terms, that doesn't matter, this is just a great Batman story that anyone can read whether they've not read a Batman comic in years and or if they're a regular reader - this story just shows why Batman, as an iconic character, has endured for 70 years.

baseball?

Saturday night I went to my first ever live baseball game with my friends Rob and Drea. I've never liked baseball as I think it takes too long with not much really happening (from my perspective), but I do like baseball movies like Field of Dreams and Bull Duram and great anime baseball like Princess Nine, which is about a female baseball team. So the idea of actually going to a live baseball game never really would cross my mind as an entertaining way to spend an evening. I was looking for something different to do this weekend though especially after the yawnfest that was the Xanadu sci-fi con, so off to Cashman Field I went.

Surprisingly I wasn't bored at all from being at a baseball game, and with the game going on in the back (fore) ground, it was a good evening visiting with friends. I was also happy that they had beer that wasn't just Bud, Coors, or Miller (I had a Heifenweiser), but the pretzel I had must have been from last year (Drea said hers was one of the worst she'd ever eaten also) - fortunately the peanuts washed that taste away. If I had to pay a lot of attention to the game as my means of entertainment, well I'm pretty sure that would have been my first and last live game that I watched, but I now can say that one of the big appeals of going to a baseball game is the social aspects. I'd recommend going with at least a couple of friends as a fairly inexpensive (I'm sure "real" baseball cities like Chicago or San Diego can't say that) thing to do, but I'd say you'd want to go before the temps hit 90 and above.

My other car is...

...your mom. I saw that on a license plate over at the Plaza Hotel when I got to the Xanadu sci-fi convention yesterday. Actually that was the best thing about the "convention" for me. I didn't have much in the way of expectations for what that convention was going to be, but I didn't expect it to be as much of a dud as it was. It was good seeing fantasy artist Brom and buying a couple of books from him though. I do hope the few people that I saw there had a good time.

Xanadu - Las Vegas sci-fi con

This weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (April 17-19), at the Plaza Hotel downtown, Xanadu Las Vegas will be the happening spot for those of you that want to check out a local science fiction convention. Xanadu will feature mostly actors from sci-fi television and sci-fi movies, but they've also got an exhibit room (I'll have a booth there as will Comic Oasis), a costume contest, screenings, and panel programming. The huge artist guest they have appearing is Brom, so for a lot of people that's an attraction unto itself. Unfortunately they don't have one day passes, so first check out http://www.xanadulasvegas.com/ to see if there's enough guests and programming you're interested to make the two or three day passes worthwhile for you.

This will be my first time at a convention that isn't comic centric so I really don't know what to expect, but I like to think this will be an interesting mix of people (the hotel itself is sold out), having looked at their guests and programming list. I just hope they play the soundtrack to the 1980 movie musical Xanadu by ELO and Olivia Newton John on an endless loop throughout the Plaza Hotel this weekend (which oddly given my love of ELO & Olivia Newton John music and musicals, I never have seen, even though I've heard it's a good cheesy muscial)!