Jed was in a big hurry this time, because he had to work at 4 PM and he wanted to make absolutely certain that he wasn’t late. He usually gets up around 11 AM or noon each day. So he was adamant that I be ready and waiting for him outside on the front porch before he showed up at 1 PM. I did so, and fooled around on my phone playing various little games until he arrived.
We headed over to the Comic Book Shop and of course it was packed, just like last year. However, I think this year it was even worse, because most of the free books were gone before we even got there, and we couldn’t park in the store’s parking lot, we had to park in the lot of the movie theater next door. You could hardly turn around or examine a shelf of goods without bumping into somebody.
The ad for Free Comic Book day featured an image of Darth Vader with the large words DARTH VADER!!! (exclamation points included) so I assumed there would be somebody in a Darth Vader costume there. However, this was not the case. I guess since Star Wars Day was the next day, there was only one person in a Star Wars-related costume, a rather attractive blonde who I believe was dressed as Revan from the Old Republic series of video games. She had the face mask and was carrying two toy lightsabers, anyway.
I was a bit disappointed because they didn’t have a copy of Saga Volume Three for sale, even though it was supposedly released on March 25th (according to Amazon). Perhaps they were all sold out, or perhaps they hadn’t ordered any yet. Nevertheless, there were zero copies on the shelves. I still wanted to show my support for the store (and pick up two extra free books by spending at least $5), so I dropped about $17 on a copy of Locke and Key Volume One, which Jed recommended as an excellent book written by Stephen King’s son, Joe Hill. Apparently it’s a Lovecraftian tale with a comic book twist (which probably means more heroics and less death and insanity than in actual Lovecraft).
Jed hung around and talked with some of the employees of the store for a little while, but he actually read my 2013 entry and mentioned that he was unaware that I felt we had stayed too long last time. So he cut himself rather short after maybe 30 minutes and we departed. Jed seemed a little disappointed and said if we had “more time” or it was “less crowded” we would have had a “better day.” He bought some things too, though, and we got far more books than we should have since he was a friend of the store.
Anyway, we returned home and I immediately started reading my free books. (I always read the free ones before I read the ones I’ve purchased.) I would finish the free books over the next couple of days, in between bouts of binge drinking. However, I haven’t even cracked open Locke & Key yet. It’s still sitting in its little plastic bag at the end of my bed. I’ll get around to it eventually.