Free Comic Book Days 2020 and Geek Shopping Spree
7/25/20-
COVID has impacted everything this year including Free Comic Book Day. Instead of entirely canceling the event it has been spread out over several weekends. Unfortunately I had to miss last weekend. I tried to get to a comic book store in Colorado Springs, but they didn’t even open until 12pm and I had a fossil dig to get to. So today I had some missed time to make up for.
The first stop was All C’s in Aurora. They had a few of the comics, but they also had the Black Widow Helix figure and the Marvel Loki Box. They Loki box they were running out of the larger sizes, so if you still need to get yours move quickly. For the free comics they were limiting 3 per person.
The next stop was to a comic store I had never been to before, but had seen when I drove past it to get food at Jason’s Deli. Cobalt Comics & Collectibles is a nice little place. Their store does not have as much packed into it as All C’s and the diversity of items offered is also less. Here they were not restricting how many comics people could take which allowed you to get one of each that had been released so far. I also went digging through their $1-2 comic bins and found a few interesting comics to buy. They also had a bucket of geeky stickers (only 50 cents each) on their front counter that also caught my attention. I bought several (mostly Marvel and Star Wars). Geeky stickers are a great way to make any item geeky.
Then the next stop was 2nd and Charles. They did have a few of the free comics left, but they were ones I had already gotten at the previous stores. Right now they are still having some major sales going on and they are always a great place to find geeky products. One of the weirdest products they have here I just had to buy today. My mother has a rubber ducky collection and they had geeky rubber ducks. The main ones I saw were Ghost Busters and Lord of the Rings. So I just had to get her a Legolas one.
Then I ended up hitting to Five Below stores. I had never been in one of these before today. To be truthful I thought by their name that they were an outdoor store like REI. Then a friend, ShCe, recently told me what they really were. A store where most items are $5 dollars or below. I will admit that I was wrong about these stores and they are amazing. They have so many geeky products: clothes, toys, accessories, water bottles, wall art…the list just keeps going on. The geeky tees are only $5. That beats Walmart and JcPenney’s sale prices, where I normally get my geeky shirts. The most important thing about this store is if you are a figure/toy collector. Two of the action figures I bought for $5 each were $24.99 at Cobalt Comics. Then I also bought a Rey doll for $5 that was $12.99 at 2nd and Charles. The key take away is this: shop around before you by something. I love small comic stores/smaller businesses, but sometimes their products are marked up so much that it isn’t worth buying them there. I will support these stores by buying products that are reasonably priced.
The final stop today was Enchanted Grounds Coffee House & Gameporium in Highlands Ranch. This was another new stop for me. Their main focus is games, but they do sale some comics and other products. They had 2 free comics that I had not found at the other stores. Here I picked up the Ticket to Ride London addition. I will also be going back to get some ElfQuest graphic novels that they had. ElfQuest holds a special place in my heart and seeing them here made me really happy. We also grabbed some drinks here as well. They were a good prices for what you got, way cheaper then Starbucks. The only negative thing I have to say about this place at this point is about their chairs outside. I will say this as politically correct as possible. The chairs are not meant for anyone that has a little weight on them. I am not a small person, but I do not consider myself overly large and my butt got stuck in them. They were also very uncomfortable. They need to get larger chairs that can accept the average American, yes America is getting fatter and if you want to be able to serve people it needs to be taken into account.
I am very disappointed in Mile High Comics this year. I verified that they were on the Free Comic Book Day’s website, but when I called them to find out what they were doing they said that they were not participating this year. I found this weird since I figured if they were on the website that they were sent the comics to hand out. In the past they have held on to previous years free comics and sold them the next year with the money going to ‘charity’? They have also sold the full set of comics the same way to raise money. Do they really donate the money? To me I just feel that it is wrong to charge money for items that are supposed to be free as a gift from the industry to its fans even if the money goes to a good cause. Not everyone can afford comics and it seems elitist to charge people for them and limit what others can get just because they don’t have money. I have felt that Mile High Comics have dishonored Free Comic Book Day by their past practices and this year just adds to the suspicion I have of them.
We’ll
see what next weekend brings.
8/1/20
Went to All Cs to pick up this week's free comics. I was surprised
that they had Steve Cardenas there, aka one of the Red Power Rangers
(yes there has been more than one). It was still cool though. Also going in
there was an amazing cosplay that had been built by a group that builds cosplay
for people in wheelchairs. I’ll be doing more research on them for a future
post.
8/8/20
We went up to Fort Collins to check out what Gryphon Games & Comics was doing. They had the free comics displayed and were also giving away free buttons from a previous Free Comic Book Day. Besides that there wasn’t much going on and they were not very busy. After we went to Halley’s comics who were on Free Comic Book Day’s website as a participating store. When we got there the guy said he didn’t have any of them left and that they were just giving them out as they came in, but that only a few had shown up. The odd thing was he had one of the BloodShot ones in plain view behind the counter. Maybe he was keeping it for himself and didn’t think anyone would notice it sitting there. On the way back to Denver we took the back roads home and stopped in at a Walmart. The Walmart had some geeky masks. They were DC and I decided to pick up the Batman and Wonder Woman ones. Not a huge fan of DC, but still a geeky product. I have not seen these masks at any of the stores in the Denver Metro area.
8/15/20
Went to All C’s again today. They still had some of the Black
Widow Helix figures left and had the new comics for the week.
Title Picture from: https://www.freecomicbookday.com/Article/243418-Free-Comic-Book-Day-2020-to-Take-Place-July-15-through-September-9
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