Free Comic Book Day

So, after the bad experience of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, I needed something to get the bad taste out of my mouth. Thankfully, I knew what was happening the next day: Free Comic Book Day. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Josh, my best friend, had been telling me for months about this comic book shop near him called Local Heroes. It was a great spot. You know how when you think of a normal comic book shop you think of a store in a strip mall with the old guy working behind the counter, with geek written all over him, and the cheap metal shelves? Well, at least that's what I think of. Well, Local Heroes is what a comic book shop should be like. It had carpeted floors, wood shelves, a sitting area with a couch and chairs to read your comic books, and a much wider selection than any other comic book shop I've been inside. If I lived in Norfolk this would be the place I'd go.

So, what is Free Comic Book day? It's basically a time where different companies have a chance to advertise what's new for this year in comics as well as let you enjoy some free comics. I'll be honest, most of the free titles sucked, but the ones I got were pretty legit. DC is doing a Green Lantern story entitled "Blackest Night" where the Green Lantern Hal Jordan will face the fabled Black Lantern Corp, a group with black power rings symbolizing death. The free comic they offered gave you enough background to prepare you for the event happening this July. After picking up that and 2 other free titles, I browsed the store to see if there was anything else that intrigued me. I ended up picking up Kingdom Come, which oddly enough I bought for Josh, but never read myself. That's a story with DC characters about an apocalyptic future. I also picked up Batman: The Long Halloween. This Batman story inspired The Dark Knight so needless to say I was intrigued. After purchasing my books, we talked with some of the other patrons. It was really cool hearing what they thought of comic books. One guy I met, Andrew, is going into Anthropology in grad school, and is doing his thesis on folklore, and will be focusing on comics in that area. I think that's neat! I think a lot of people think comic books are geeky and you can't learn much from them. I would heartily disagree. To me, comic books are our time's mythology. It inspires us to rise up and be heroes in our everyday lives with what little we have to offer. All of us are granted gifts and abilities and yes, all of us have our weaknesses as well. However, as Christians, God doesn't just give us gifts, he gives us His Spirit, the Helper who is strong when we are weak and when we follow his promptings, we can begin to truly live. That's why I love following Jesus. He can make a hero out of all of us if we just listen and obey.