This Saturday at the shop: cartoonist J. Gonzo will be joining us to celebrate the release of his cover art for the Robbie Reyes Ghost Rider special, and, while this cover is sold out at the distribution level and at most shops, we have a nice fat stack for anyone who needs one. Swing by the shop from noon until 2 this Saturday, October 19, to get a copy signed, and feel free to bring along any of his other work you have in your collection, he’ll sign those too.
Gonzo has been on one this last year with his sold out Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Dia de los Muertos variants, his first cover for Marvel with many more to come. Of course J. Gonzo has been putting in the work for years with his own six issue self-published Luchador comic book series La Mano del Destino, which has also been collected into a graphic novel at Image Comics; as well as collaborating with writer Henry Barajas for the historical graphic novel La Voz de M.A.Y.O.: Tata Rambo.
So, this Saturday, come see Gonzo, there will be comics, art, and more, from noon to 2 PM.
After a four year hiatus, the Ash Ave Comic Book Club returns on Sunday, April 21st to discuss Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ latest work, The Winning Card. Originally serialized in the DC Comics anthology series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, King and Gerads pick up where their Riddler graphic novel left off, with a pivot to the Clown Prince of Crime. The Winning Card is a re-imagination of the first Joker story from Batman #1 in 1940, setting out to create a comic book that, as Mitch Gerads has stated, “actually scares you,” the reader.
In one day we sold through the initial dozen copies we received, and we have more copies on the way for anyone looking to read it. Now, when it comes to how the Comic Book Club works, the main sticking point is that you need to purchase the graphic novel from us to attend the meetup. If you have already purchased a copy from the shop last week and would like to attend the meetup, then please reach out ASAP to claim your spot. If you want to attend Comic Book Club, your purchase of the graphic novel and your verbal or written commitment to attend the meetup is what we need. After all, seating is limited. And we have to have one extra open seat, as artist Mitch Gerads will be sitting in and joining us for our meetup… just like the good old days. (Mitch is a great sport, and loves to talk comics. Back in the day, he previously attended the Ash Ave Comic Book Club meetups for his maxi-series Sheriff of Baghdad and Mister Miracle).
Looking forward to seeing old and new faces for the first Comic Book Club in a long while. Shoot the shop a DM or email with any specific questions, or to reserve a seat and copy of the book. We do recommend that you get the book as soon as our restock arrives, and get to reading ASAP so you will have had some time in the week leading up to the event to think it over, and maybe put together some questions, analysis, or criticism to share with our discussion group.
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!
Pictured: Bilbo Bag ‘n Board
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:
The Ghost of Comic Retail Past, a fellow who is always posed in a crouch with his knees up over his head as an homage to Todd McFarlane’s classic Spider-Man #1 cover
The Ghost of Comic Retail Present, who you only get to see after you’ve made an order for 50 other ghosts
The Ghost of Comic Retail Future, a woman of color bearing an iPad with Marvel Unlimited installed on it
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?
Thanks to you, Free Comic Book Day 2021 was a resounding success! It was a pleasure to spend the day in the company of old Ash Avenue Comics friends and to have the opportunity to make new ones. We got a special treat when Spider-Man and Spider-Gwen swung by to plug in some gaps in their back issue collections! To live in such a rich, diverse community of comics fans and pros is a gift that we don't take for granted. Thank you for choosing to shop at Ash Avenue Comics, and we hope to see more of you in the year ahead! On to Free Comic Book Day 2022!
