It was a Saturday. Usually, I’d be in bed until whenever I feel like it. May 1st, however, was different as it was Free Comic Book Day!
I got up around 5.30 in the morning, took a nice shower, grabbed a quick breakfast, surfed the internet for a while and went out to the bus station to go to Robinson’s Galleria.
I arrived an hour early before the mall opens, I chose to wait at the nearest entrance to Comic Odyssey. Of course, I wasn’t the only one who thought of going early, there were already a line of people and kids in there by the time I arrived. I met a fellow from the local toy group, Cybertron Philippines, I think he said his handle was vectorprime, I also met Norby, the moderator of Comic Odyssey’s facebook page and a fellow member from my local comic forum, CKP.
When the mall finally opened, people immediately rushed towards the comic store, their excitement made me sprint a little as well. Heh. It was just great that I made it to the first 50 people to get in line.
The line was moving pretty fast when the store started the event. The free books are well organized inside, the store limit each visitor to 3 free comics of his choice.
I chose the only DC title off the choices, War of the Supermen, along with Mouse Guard. I wanted to have the Toy Story book as well but the store did not include it in their orders so I settled for Bongo Comics instead. Aside from the FCBD titles, the store also handed out their bags filled with random comics for free. Norby was also kind enough to give me a copy of their comic, Yo Bo!
Now one could leave the venue after getting his free books but it’s pretty hard to ignore the store’s discount off their products. Everyone was all over the p50 bins of back issues!
The sale was a huge help for anyone who missed a couple of issues for their comic collection and for anyone who wanted to start on reading comics. I thoroughly checked the bins with the Batman titles; I was able to buy some interesting titles and some back issues to fill in the gaps of my collection.
The major scores I consider from the sale are the issues of Detective Comics by Rucka and Williams featuring Batwoman. I always wanted to start the series but and at p50 a piece, there’s no backing down now.
I was also following Dini’s and Nguyen’s run on Detective Comics before and was able to find a couple of them as well as some random issues from their run on the new Streets of Gotham title. (gotta hunt for the ones missing!)
Also got these random Trinity issues with interlocking covers by Kubert, I thought it might look good when put in display somewhere in my room.
I bumped into some friends inside the store. There’s Tonstee, a CKP moderator, his brother Enzo; Dustin aka Banana Bits from college also made it to the event; Melvin, also a friend from my college and a bunch more. I met another moderator of CKP, Carlo and a fellow member, Ryan D (who is also responsible for most of the photos in this post), it was just too bad that I could not stay longer in the venue to hang out and chat with them a bit as I had to meet up with my friends later that day.
I was also hoping to get a commissioned sketch from the comic artists that participated in the event but did not have the chance to do so. The store stated that the artists will arrive sometime around after lunch time and I could not stay any longer. I guess I’ll just try my luck on future comic conventions.
Here’s a photo of the artists — Gerry Alanguilan, Leinil Yu and Edgar Tadeo.
Here’s the Comic Odyssey family that made a lot of comic fans happy on that day!
The day was a tiring one but was very well worth it. Kudos to Comic Odyssey as well as Planet X, and all the stores who participated that made FCBD possible in the Philippines.
This is one event I definitely won’t miss next year.
credits to Ryan D for the photos. check his comic blog here!
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