free comic book day

As I'm sure most of you know, this Saturday is free comic day.  In Waco there are three participating book stores:  Hastings, Golden, and Bankston's.  Bankston's is giving away even more free stuff if you are a kid and you come in costume.  So guess what we're doing.  Yep, trying out our Firefly costumes early.  Our plan is to show up at each store before they open so we can be there first.  Our schedule is 9:00 Hastings, 10:00 Golden, and 10:30 Bankston's.  Sylvan will be with his daddy who is taking him to see Peter Pan at Casa Manana in Ft. Worth, so I'm going armed with his list of comics. Rob has his last alt. cert. class that morning, so I'll be taking the kids on the whirlwind comic grab solo until he gets out of class.  Then we'll probably have to re-hit all three stores so Rob can grab his free comics.  I'll be sure to take some photos and post them.  Maybe I'll see you there!

Free comic book day

Hasting's had about half the titles and almost no line before they opened.  Of course it was a free for all once we got in, a polite free for all, but a free for all nonetheless.  We went back later on for another Doctor Who poster and everything was GONE.  So glad we went there first.

Golden's book exchange

Golden had very few titles and wasn't worth the trip for free comic books. However, it was worth it to find out about their half off sales every first weekend in even numbered months.  That adds up to a 75% discount on the cover price.  And there were tables that advertised 20 books for $1.00. Rob, not being able to leave a bookstore empty-handed, found three or four paperbacks that he couldn't live without.  Funnily enough, the guy they formerly belonged to had just dropped them off and was still in the store in his "Great Captains" Mount Rushmore shirt with Captain Mal on it.  Naturally they struck up a conversation.  And then who did we run into 3 hours later at Bankston's?  Yep, same guy.  The geekdom is a very small world in Waco, Texas.

Bankston's

Bankston's had all the titles advertised plus tons of other stuff.  We all got 13 titles for free instead of 10 because we came in costume.  Their handling of the crowds was excellent: very controlled, no chaos, and very polite and helpful employees.  They even ordered the first two Serenity titles for us since they only had #3 and #4 on the shelves.  Rob got a Caprica figurine that he's going to take to Comicpalooza to get signed.

This is our test run of our Firefly costumes.  Rob has no pistol or holster and he's wearing normal cowboy boots which are killing his feet right now.  Kaylee's patches haven't arrived in the mail yet and Shanna is still making the jewelry.   It was fantastic being Kaylee for a day.  Everyone called me Kaylee and  was super nice to me all day.  I really had a good time and I wasn't expecting to at all, what with first 2 hours flying solo with the whiny kids while Rob was in class, the hour and a half waiting in line in the hot sun, and the fact that I don't actually read comic books and was only there to shop for Sylvan and be the transportation for the other two.  But, you know me, I have a pretty good attitude about stuff like this and I did want to try out our costumes, so the response that I got made it all worth it.

Some guy built this R2D2.  It really works.  He even opened R2 up and let me peek inside at the electronics.  He said it cost him $10,000 and took 5 years to complete.  I wish now that I'd gotten a photo of the guy with his R2D2.  He even let me touch him even though the sign clearly said " to not to".

Here's all the free comic books I got for Sylvan.   And thanks to Jason Sanchez's tip about going to Bankston before Golden, I managed to get all 26 titles that Sylvan wanted plus a bonus 7 titles that I just thought he might like.  What the heck, they were free!