2021 Free Comic Book Day: The Main Event

2021 Haul

It's finally here. Started the day out at 5am.

All C's

One of the good things about being first in line here are the special give always. They didn't give away the Turtles packs, but the first three people got their pick of special items from their shop. I was disappointed when I found out that they were not selling their loose Pokemon cards because they just didn't want to deal with that today. This was a huge hit to me because I needed them for my Pokemon event tomorrow. I guess a different store will get that purchase then.

A look at the offerings before they got shredded.

Before opening the line would wrap around the building. It was funny that one woman wanted to take our picture because she wanted to show her son that people really did bring chairs to sit in.

They had turned their game room into a mini artist alley. This is where they were supposed to be selling individual cards, but had 'decided' not to deal with that hassle...

Cobalt Comics

The next stop for us was then Cobalt Comics. There was a line and then a woman decided to just cut in saying that there wasn't a line. This was really the only rude person that I ran into today. She just thought that she was so privileged that the line didn't apply to her. I was even more upset about this since no one seemed to care about he butting in. I think that this store next year should have line control since its customers do not seem to know basic courtesy.  

Clearly a line can be seen before the woman decided to cut in.

Mile High Comics

Next was the long drive out to Mile High Comics at the Jason street location. The one thing that stood out was the lack of people here this year. Normally this place is packed. This year they had you select and pick up your comics outside. I did like this better and they also had free drinks to help people beat the heat. They limited comics to 3a piece, but then you could pay $3 for additional ones. This defeats the whole purpose of Free Comic Book Day, but they do something similar every year. I'm still waiting for the people that run Free Comic Book Day to remove them for this practice. Sorry that one of the pics below is blurry. Sometimes it's hard to capture a pic on the move. 

Hall of Justice Comics

After Mile Hi we did a quick turn around back to the Parker area to hit up Hall of Justice Comics. This was my first time coming to this comic store so I had no idea what to expect. My fellow FanExpo Ambassador was supposed to have an event going here, but I was unable to find it when I arrived. I liked how they had a lot of stuff (like artists) outside. They did have a food truck that was overpriced for the most part (a common thing with a lot of food trucks), but the truck was selling bottled water for only $1. For this location they had the comics inside and they actually divided them up into two sections, adult and general.

I was a little sad that I was unable to make it up to Fort Collins this year. I did notice some trends though. First, even with covid going up and the dealt version very few people were wearing a mask indoors. This was both sad and disheartening since once again I was shown that fans are not smarter or kinder then the general population. I have watched the geek world evolve since I was a little kid and disappointment seems to be what I am filled with now in the overall movement. Another trend I saw was stickers. Themed sticker sets of any where from 25 to 100 can be found on ebay for prices from $5 to $10. The comic stores were then selling them from 50 cents to $1. Buying them through the stores is great if you want just a few, but if you want or need a lot I would recommend just going online. Then you can either give away the ones you do not want or sell them yourself.