THE ENTIRE JUSTICE LEAGUE JUST GOT FRIDGED AND NOW EVERYONE IN THE DC UNIVERSE IS KYLE RAYNER, BABY! That was the tagline I pitched to DC Comics for their Dark Crisis event, but they politely declined. You guys can all use it, though.
Are you psyched for Dark Crisis #1 yet? Here’s a little taste from our friends at DC and Lunar Distribution! Final orders are due 5/15.
My goodness! Has it already been a year since Free Comic Book Day 2021? The answer is… no! Free Comic Book Day 2021 was in August 2021, therefore ACTUALLY it’s only been nine months, so how do you like that? That’s the sort of joyless pedantry that keeps me working on this website from a top-secret, undisclosed location with only my friend Bilbo Bag ‘n Board for company, rather than down in the shop where I can alienate people and expose us to one-star Google reviews, ha ha!
If you’re the type of person who wants to experience joy unconfined, you’re in luck because tomorrow is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! As you may know, 364 days of the year, comic book store owners are miserly, penny-pinching misanthropes who count every last bag and board in the shop before they leave at night to make sure none have gone missing. But then, late on the night before Free Comic Book Day, each participating store owner is visited by three specters:
Moved to their depths by this sobering experience, the retailers run through the streets, laughing and whooping merrily, and upon arrival at their shop, start handing out free FCBD-branded comic books to the whole town! Not just to the middle-aged men, but to little girls and college students with septum piercings and all sorts of others! They even discount their own inventory by as much as 50% in some cases! (Bags and boards are still $0.35, though. Those things aren’t cheap.) And then, the day after, a notification from Key Collector that an artist drew Kitty Pryde to look a bit like Billie Eilish in a Marvel house ad will come through, and people are wondering if maybe this means that Billie Eilish will be playing Kitty Pryde in a forthcoming Disney+ series, and then the race is on to pull every single Kitty Pryde cover appearance out of the back-issue bins and flood eBay with them… and the whole cycle begins again.
That is the sacred tradition of our people. And we have honored that tradition every May for twenty years, except during the pandemic and that time it was delayed to August.
If you’ve read this far, you may well be saying to yourself, “That was stupid. I just wanted to know what Ash Avenue Comics is doing for Free Comic Book Day. Tell me. Tell me, damn your eyes.”
Well, we have all kinds of free comics, for a start! There’s the Dark Crisis Special Edition from DC, a 25 Years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer Special from Boom, Spider-Man/Venom #1 from Marvel, a lead-in to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Armageddon Game event from IDW, and loads more! Choose up to five titles each, one copy per title per person. Play fair!
Remember that every issue isn’t for every age group. Not all of these titles are for kids! The books are color-coded to indicate the age range they’re aimed at. Here’s a guide for you culture warriors out there:
In addition, everything in the store is 20% off from 10:00-2:00 (excluding new issues, items on hold, and items already discounted). What better time to get that Jim Lee X-Men Artist’s Edition book that’s the size of a tombstone?
We’re excited to announce that MITCH GERADS, celebrated Eisner award-winning artist of Strange Adventures, Mister Miracle, and Sheriff of Babylon, will be joining us for an in-store event on SATURDAY, 1/29 from 2:00-4:00 pm! Mr. Gerads’ visit coincides with the release of his latest work, the Batman/Catwoman Holiday Special, for which he stepped in to complete the story begun by his friend John Paul Leon before Mr. Leon’s tragic passing last year. Mr. Gerads will be signing copies of that issue and other books featuring his art.
This will be our first in-store event since the onset of the global pandemic, and we hope to see you all there. Please note that if you plan to attend, we ask that you please respect the following requests:
Hey everyone, hope this update finds you well. This week we will be hosting our virtual meetup to discuss the Eisner award winner Black Bolt by Saladin Ahmed and Christian Ward. This marks our second Google hangout to discuss a comic, it’s not the same as our IRL meetups, but hey, this is our reality for the time being. Next month we will be discussing Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh’s graphic novel Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass.
If you would like to participate in our July meetup you can email me at drew@ashavecomics.com to order a copy of Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass, and I will collect your info for the google hangout. Our schedule for the next two months is below, and following that is a cover image and summary for this month’s read. Stay safe, and read more comics!
Wednesday, June 24: Black Bolt
Wednesday, July 22: Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass
The king of the Inhumans has been imprisoned! But where? Why has he been jailed? And who could be powerful enough to hold Black Bolt? The answers will shock you – and Black Bolt as well! If he is to learn the truth, he must first win a fight to the death against a fellow inmate: the Absorbing Man! As a prison revolt begins, the bounty hunter Death’s Head enters the fray – but is he there to help or to hunt? And who – or what – is the warden of this strange place? Black Bolt’s jailer knows only penance and fear. And soon so will the Silent King of the Inhumans! For if Black Bolt can somehow escape his hellish prison, the journey home will be even more deadly – and his welcome may not be a warm one!
