Free Comic Book Day 2018

For those who aren’t of the informed variety, yesterday was Free Comic Book Day. I’m not going to get into the history of this (mainly because I don’t know and I’m too lazy to look it up). What I do know is the reasoning behind it all. Or at least the idea of it. Essentially, the idea is a day where comic shops give out a select set of comics in order to bring in new readers and maybe showcase some incoming storylines. It’s generally seen as a chance to get together with other readers and spend time at the den of geekitude.

I’ve gone out on a number of these events to see what new stuff might be out there. But this year was a bit different. I took the girls. My granddaughters are 5 and 3 and have never set foot inside a game store or comic shop. This was a chance to start them early down a dark road of weirdness and smelly geeks.

We made a quick stop to one of the shops I have been going to lately to check out gaming stuff, BC Comix of Battle Creek(Link is to a facebook page, sorry it’s what I have). To put a bit of this in perspective, I have a thought of what a bar should be. A real bar is the smoky dive of the jazz era to me. I have expectations and they should be met with when I come to a place. This is true of a comic book store too. Not the smoky bar bit but the expectations. Did I just make that whole thought weird?

Anyway, what I expect at a comic book store and a game shop is card board bins filled with bagged comics and all sorts of comic book stuff nearly filling every available space. This should be the stuff of dreams for the kid inside all of us. Granted when you add in that most comic book stores serve as a gaming supply place too, you kinda expect games everywhere. And now I have to wonder, have I mentioned BC Comix in the past? I think I have but I am not going to search and find that post right now.

Instead I am going to quit playing around and just get to the heart of the matter. So it was the girls first FCBD and their first time in a comic/game shop. When we went inside I mentioned that it was their first experience, and one of the guys who worked there went over the top for them. We went to the tables laid out with all the loot and he pulled out a box of kids stuff.

Here he was throwing comic after comic on the table for the girls (even finding duplicates, because you know they have to have the same things to avoid arguments) and the girls are just eating it up. These girls were wide eyed and flipping pages like this was the best moment of their lives.

After we had our fill of comics I took them around the store. See, as a typical day at the store, there were gamers at the various tables. Some playing Pokemon and Magic. But it was the back of the store that really got the girls. There were a couple tables set up for war. A few people had set up for games of Warhammer 40k. The girls were in awe. The tables were laden not only with miniatures but buildings and random terrain for the warfare about to happen.

Needless to say, I had fun and the girls enjoyed their time. For me, it is something I am now able to share with my grandkids. Sadly, it wasn’t something I was ever able to do with my own kids. Work and such took those moments from life. It’s a lesson you can only learn through experience. When you spend your time raising your kids and making sure they learn the lessons they need to learn, you lose some things along the way. Grandkids are the blessing where you get to enjoy the things you missed with your kids.

Who knows, the girls may end up playing games with me and their dad before too long. And they might even trace some of their happiest memories to moments like this, a visit to a comic shop where they were treated like royalty for even a few minutes.

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