May and toe-ing the line of pure geekdom.

There is one thing that happens each year at the beginning of May.  No, I'm not talking about Cinco de Mayo, which we do celebrate as the birthday of one of the best dogs I was ever privileged enough to know, Spuds (1990 ish-2010).

Anyway, I'm talking about the first Saturday in May, which this year fell on May 4th: FREE COMIC BOOK DAY!

The first Saturday in May each year, your local comic book shop gives away free comic books!  These are special edition comics released by publishers specifically for this occasion.  Everything from kitty-cats to zombies, there are a ton to pick from.  Go check it out next year.  Seriously.

So Mia and I went up to The House of Pop Culture, our local comic shop in Waldorf, where they were asking people to each only take 5 comics.  Mia and I each selected our own, and decided to share so we didn't get any repeats.  We ended up getting more than 5, because we couldn't decide between a few books- and the gentlemen there were very kind to let us get a few extra.  Here's our collection!

As a rule, I generally like female protagonists in comic books best, but as has happened in years past, my favorites in the collection were the gang from Riverdale High (Archie, Betty & Veronica).  Other good ones this year were The Steam Engines of Oz, and Endangered Weapon B.

We can't go to free comic book day and only take the freebies, so each year, Mia and I pick out a graphic novel to buy.  This year, she picked Dr. Horrible (based on the NPH youtoube character), and I selected a Tank Girl and  one by Neil Gaiman: The books of magic.  Thus far, I've only read the Dr. Horrible one.  It was cute.  Now that I'm done with Comps (Just have to hit that submit button) I should have serious reading time to finish out this month.

After hitting up the Comics, we headed south to the Toys R Us, because not only was it free comic book day, it was also May 4th, a day that many geeks celebrate as in "May the Fourth (Force) be with you!"

I'm not a huge Star Wars fan- I've seen the old movies, and I think Episode 1, but I AM a LEGO fan, and Toys R Us was hosting an event where you could build a LEGO starship.  We walked in, and spotted the table.  The young man working it said "Well, you guys are a little older than you're supposed to be, but I'll let you play, anyway."  Mia and I immediately proceeded to begin building- and racing (as we are apt to do with LEGOs), which the employee though was great- he asked Mia, "Is that your mom?  That's the coolest thing ever!"  

Mia beat me- but only because I had to deal with interference.

What do you know- we got a comic book here, too!

Yesterday, Rob and I went to the ANS Comic-con in La Plata, which was a hoot-  There were two reasons I wanted to go.  First of all, Frank Cho was going to be signing, and he and I went to UMD at the same time in the mid-90's.  I met him once, then, when he did a signing there, and wanted to see him again.  Notice below that the original signature from 1999 is much more personable than the top signature from yesterday.

A nice bonus, we also got to meet Bill Mickay, who also signed some covers of Zombies vs. Cheerleaders for me!

The second reason we went to the Comic-con was that they were screening some DAVE school shorts, one of which was Tofu: The Vegan Zombie.  Unfortunately, they were running short on time, and stopped this one before it was over.  Luckily, I was able to come home and find it on Youtube.

So, speaking of Zombies, Rob and I started watching The Walking Dead recently.  Shhhh- don't tell me what happens.  I don't want to know.  We are almost done with Season 2, and then we'll have to hunt down someone who has them on DVD, because Netflix doesn't have Season 3 yet.  Anyway, it's a fantastic, yet really frightening show.  It's got me thinking about what we would do during the zombie apocolypse.  I've done my reading- I've read Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide, as well as World War Z (a FANTASTIC book- highly recommended for zombie fans).  But I think that the best course of action would be to head west to Nebraska.  My folks have a well, they have a garden, and my brother is armed.  I think that will be the best place to go.

Enjoying the AMC series so much,  I started reading the graphic novels (Each volume is approximately 6 comic book issues).  I started reading them on my kindle.  I hate to say this, because I feel like a traitor to the local comic book stores, but I really like reading them on the kindle.  It shows each page, then zooms in on each panel.  I'm on Volume 4 now.  That being said, however, had I known I would enjoy them so much, I would have purchased them in Compendium version- much cheaper that way.  Each volume is $8-9 on the Kindle.