Marble Season; Gilbert Hernandez & Free Comic Book Day Update!

Last week saw the release of Gilbert Hernadez' new graphic novel, Marble Season, a semi-autobiographical book based on his childhood. To say it's wonderful is stating the obvious for those of you who are already familiar with Gilbert's thirty plus year output in this medium, mostly via his seminal alternative comic series, Love and Rockets. If you haven't read any Gilbert Hernadez comics previously, Marble Season would be a great new work of his to get yourself introduced to the rich characters and storytelling (not to mention fantastic art) that Gilbert Hernandez does.

AND! You all know that this Saturday is Free Comic Book Day, right!? Well one of the FREE comics from Drawn & Quarterly is a preview comic of Marble Season and said cartoonist, Gilbert Hernandez will be happy to sign your FREE copy of this FCBD  version of Marble Season at Alternate Reality Comics' Free Comic Book Day event this Saturday, May 4th! And all Gilbert Hernandez Love and Rocket books will be on sale for 25% off!

Alternate Reality Comics' Free Comic Book Day event will be happening this Saturday, May 4th, from 10-7pm! FREE COMICS, just for showing up! And we'll have raffles, five local artists drawing for you, sales, the Sausagefest Food truck will be here from 11-3pm, and there'll be many of our friends in wonderful costumes to help you have the most FUN possible and will make for great photo ops! For more details, please check out my Ich Liebe Comics! Entry below this one! 

Free Comic Book Day 2013, here's what's happening at Alternate Reality Comics!

Everyone knows what Free Comic Book Day is, right (being that this year is the 13th annual Free Comic Book Day, you should - grin!)!? Well here's your sound bite description of what Free Comic Book Day is (and I'll be calling it FCBD the rest of this entry): FCBD is a day, every first day of May   , in which the comic book industry gets together to celebrate how amazing this medium is, and all you have to do is show up at your favorite comic book store (Alternate Reality Comics, right?) and Free comics will be had, no purchase required! It's especially fun to bring your comic book newbie friends, kids, and loved ones so that they can share with you in the fun!

So this year, FCBD is Saturday, May 4th (May the Forth Be With You!) and at Alternate Reality Comics the fun will be happening from 10am-7pm! Here's the lowdown of the fun overload that we have planned!:

* First and foremost, everyone who shows up will get FREE comic books! The photo above shows just the smallest selection (some of my favorites) of this years selection. Just about every comic book publisher has a new comic they produce for FCBD, so there's a comic book for whatever your reading taste leans towards. We give everyone several of the offerings, with details of how many to be revealed on the day of the event (no one is ever disappointed!). A couple of the other FCBD comics not shown here that we'll have a LOT of include: Walking Dead, Superman Unchained, Infinity (Marvel's event starting in August), and Gerard Way's The Fabulous Killjoys!

* We are having five local artists, Warren Wucinich, Randi LeeAnn, Joyce Hedelund, Brice Gielgens (and his gal, Kit Kendall will be in helping out in a new cosplay ensemble!), and Ed (I've never known Ed's last name - grin!) and they will happily draw for you (just don't ask them to do the whole Justice League or Avengers line-up - grin!).

* Extra special guest, Gilbert Hernandez (Love and Rockets creator), will be signing the FCBD  comic that excerpts his new semi-autobiographical graphic novel based on his childhood, called Marble Season (do kids still play marbles?)! Everyone will get a free Marble Season comic, but if anyone wants to supplement their Gilbert Hernandez / Love and Rockets collection, we're going to have a BIG sale on said graphic novels!

*Everyone's favorite food truck the Sausagefest Food Truck will be here to take care of your munchies before or after you get your Free comics (they even have a veggie selection, which I LOVE)!

* Raffles for FABULOUS prizes! Everyone who comes to FCBD at Alternate Reality Comics will get one raffle ticket and if you want to get more than one raffle ticket, we'll have details on how this works on the day of the event (Saturday, May 4th as you may remember)! What are the raffle prizes? Well, how about a Captain America statue, a Superman statue, gift certificates, and graphic novels!

* And for the month of May, our Artist Spotlight section of our store, will be a group show featuring different local artists doing their version of any comic book cover. We've already got several fab pieces in, but we have room for more and you have until Monday, April 29th to turn in your submission. We're having the opening reception for these artists and their art on Wednesday, May 1st from 5-7pm, but if you don't get a chance to make that, you'll be able to Marvel (and DC - grin) at this art as you pick up your FREE comics on FCBD!

We hope all of the patrons / friends of Alternate Reality Comics will join us on this big FUN day, Saturday, May 4th, because you all are the key ingredient of everything that has made Alternate Reality Comics one of the headquarters for sequential art greatness here in Las Vegas! Free Comic Book Day, Saturday, May 4th, pass it on, bring friends!

Artist Spotlight group show in May!

In anticipation of the 13th annual Free Comic Book Day (just about THE BIGGEST day at comic stores everywhere, but especially here at Alternate Reality Comics - grin!), Saturday, May 4th, here at Alternate Reality Comics, we're having a group Artist Spotlight for the month of May! The Artist Spotlight section of The Reality is a section where every month we spotlight a different artist or two (usually local).

Here's how this group show will work: We're looking for anyone to draw or art up a version of any comic book cover in any medium. No real rules, just have fun with your piece, we're not looking for replicas of any cover, just maybe that they have some nudge nudge wink wink reference to the cover you're paying homage to. The piece should be no larger than 11x17 and submissions are due Monday, April 29th. Our reception for all of the art and artists for this group show will be on Wednesday, May 1st, from 5-8pm and we'll have the art up throughout the month of May, and with Free Comic Book Day being Saturday, May 4th, there's going to be an especially large amount of people seeing this art! More details on Alternate Reality Comics' epically huge Free Comic Book Day version 2013 will be forthcoming in a day or two here on Ich Liebe Comics! Or you could stop by the store for more info about FCBD and or more info about this Artist Spotlight!

So the image above is my contribution to the group Artist Spotlight, kind of my "Here's what I've got, show me yours!" May is going to be even funner (is that a word - well it is now!) than things usually are at Alternate Reality Comics, so we hope you'll be a part of our festivities (alternative artist superstar, Jim Rugg, is coming out Thursday, May 30th!)!

Letting It Go; Miriam Katin

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day,  the first Sunday of every year in April, when we remember the millions of people killed in genocide during WWII and in genocides throughout history. So it seemed especially appropriate that I read Miriam Katin's new graphic novel, Letting It Go, that came out earlier this week, today.

Miriam Katin, was a little girl during World War II, and along with her mother, was fortunate to have survived getting captured by Nazis by hiding in the Hungarian countryside, which she details in her first, also excellent graphic novel, We Are On Our Own (in which she also gets into her loss of religious faith as a result of the Holocaust).

In Letting It Go, Miriam Katin's second graphic novel, again through her wonderful pencil art style (but this time in color), she writes about how her son tells her he wants to move to Berlin and she is having a really hard time with this as she has not forgiven what has happened in Germany during WWII. No one should ever forget the Holocaust or ANY genocide, but as Miriam Katin shows in Letting It Go, one needs to move on and Germany today has much to offer people. Thank you, Miriam Katin, for sharing another powerful story about how the Holocaust effected the people who lived through that horrendous time. 

Goodbye, Camine Infantino

 Today is a sad day for comic fans, especially Silver Age DC comic book fans, specifically fans of The Flash, as artist, Carmine Infantino, has died at the age of 87, after a long illness. I first started reading / buying comic books back in 1975 and DC Comics / The Flash were amongst my first comic book favorites. Although Carmine Infantino wasn't drawing the Flash in the 1970s, whenever I'd see earlier Flash comics drawn by Infantino, I'd snatch them up and even though I really disliked his late 1970s / 1980s art style that seemed too rely too much on the use of a T Square ruler (his Star Wars and Spider-Woman comics for Marvel were especially annoying to me) his art was always very kinetic.

Carmine Infantino also went on to be the editorial director, and even later, the publisher of DC Comics, but to myself and most comic fans, he'll mostly be remembered for the big part he played in ushering DC's Silver Age, primarily The Flash. Thanks for all the entertainment and great comics, Mr. Infantino.

Where were you when the first issue of East of West came out!?

 Okay, I'm going to do my roll call of some of the great stash of new comics out today on New Comics Wednesday, but first I want to put on my hyperbole hat and tell everyone how AWESOME the first issue of East of West is!:

I've been a fan of writer, Jonathan Hickman since he first came on the scene as he's a great thinking outside of the box writer with some BIG ideas. Most comic book readers probably know him from his Fantastic Four, FF, SHIELD, Avengers Now, and New Avengers, but he also does a great Image monthly called The Manhattan Projects, that shows that the creation of the atomic bomb was just a cover for what the great minds working on that project were really cooking up.

Here's the sound bite description of East of West: a Sci- Fi western featuring the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who are looking to kill the President (a future President). I was excited about this title when I first heard about it and my expectations for this title were met on every page, I was getting the same thrill I got when I read the first issue of Preacher by Garth Ennis and the better Grant Morrison comics that weren't just weird for weird's sake (not that there's anything really wrong with that kind of story, I just want something else with my weird). 

East of West wouldn't be half as great as it is without the fantastic art of Nick Dragotta and Frank Martin's colors, which makes Dragotta's art look better than it ever has  (Dragotta has worked with Hickman on Fantastic Four and FF previously).

I ordered what I think / thought will be a good supply of the first issue of East of West #1, and talked it up when I first had it on club sheet three months ago (in bold type, with the creative team next to the title listing, which means this is a title I think has a great chance to take off). As often happens when I put out the quarterly new club sheet reserve sheet for Alternate Reality Comics, not that many people sign up for new titles, even ones by creators they've liked on other titles. I do understand that there's a sea of titles to choose from and a lot of people want to pick up the first issue before committing to the series, but when I have less than a third of the amount of people signed up for a new title than the amount I've ordered, well when a title like East of West comes along with the buzz it's going to get, those shelf copies are going to be gobbled up pretty rapidly. Anyway, I should have enough to last for at least a week (people have been signing up for this title after my order was placed so the copies I (and other stores) have could go faster than that. But there will be second, third, and collection printings if people don't get on board right away. Sorry this section of my hyperbole blog entry went on long, I just wanted to give people a look at what goes on behind the scenes with new titles that are selling out.

And now back to the New Comics Wednesday title tease (and this week is one of those week's where you just want to mainline all of the titles at once because there's so many great ones!): The third fab issue of Young Avengers (probably my early favorite of the new Marvel Now titles), the 

 second first issue of Guardians of the Galaxy, the third Age of Ultron, Batman Incorporated (the follow up to last month's sad issue), Aquaman, Flash, FF, Fantastic Four, Superior Spider-Man, Uncanny Avengers, Fatale, Unwritten, The Massive, Luthor Stode, Morbius, and Powers! 

When David Lost His Voice; Judith Vamistendael

 Judith Vamistendael is a Belgian cartoonist who also illustrates children's books. When David Lost His Voice was originally published in two volumes in Europe, but now there's this one wonderful 270 page full color hardcover, published by Self Made Hero.

I'm not sure if When David Lost His Voice is a true story, but it sadly could be and whether or not it is true or not, When David Lost His Voice is just a beautifully sad account of David, who gets cancer and  the women in his life and how they're all trying to deal with this reality.  Although When David Lost His Voice, even being 270 pages long, doesn't take very long to read, it is a book you'll want to revisit, share with others, and take time to slow down the animated quality that Judith Vamistendael brings to every page.