Free Comic Book Day: Portland, Oregon

Yesterday started off cloudy, but the sun eventually came through and made for a nice day to pick up free comics.

For Free Comic Book Day, I went to Excalibur Books & Comics. The best comic shop in Portland. They put on a mini-convention with many of the artists from Mercury Studio: Steve Lieber (Whiteout), David Hahn (Bite Club), Paul Guinan (Heartbreakers), Pete Woods (Catwoman), Rebecca Woods (Deadpool), Drew Johnson (Wonder Woman), and Jeff Parker (The Interman). In addition, Craig Thompson (Blankets) and Paul Chadwick (Concrete) were also on hand. All of them were there to sign comics and do full sketches on request. They showed a lot of love to the fans.

I then headed East to Cosmic Monkey Comics. For FCBD, they were holding a sidewalk sale and had Kurt Busiek (Astro City), Ovi Nedelcu (Pigtale), Adam Gallardo (100 Girls), Brandon Graham (Escalator), and Corey S. Lewis (Snarknife) in attendance to sign autographs. I made sure to thank Nedelcu for answering some questions for TGC a few weeks back.

I moved on to Things From Another World on Sandy. This shop, owned by Dark Horse, is more of a combination comic, collectibles, and role-playing shop. There weren’t any signings, but they did have a sidewalk sale and were giving out bounce-back coupons for the next time you visit.

Overall, attendance at the shops was good. There were a lot more children hanging around with their parents. Many of the local papers had mentioned FCBD and there were some ads that promoted the event.

As for the free comics, my favorite was the Owly issue that was given away by Top Shelf. Extremely sentimental, but I can be a sucker for that kind of stuff.

That was how I spent my Free Comic Book Day. How did you spend yours?

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