What a fun night!!! On Monday we hunkered down and discussed Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli‘s Batman Year One. We covered a number of topics, but the majority of the entertainment-packed two+ hours revolved around the effects of the dual narrator on the flow of the story, the importance of Commissioner Gordon’s character in the Batman mythos, and most importantly (ok, arguably most importantly) the effect of the characters on Gotham and the effect of Gotham on the characters.

As an added bonus, Andy Smith, local penciller/storyteller extraordinaire (Stormwatch, 52, Red Sonja/Claw) went over Mazzuchelli’s page layout and demonstrated how certain graphic tricks work to lead the readers eye through a given page. OUTSTANDING!!! Thanks Andy!!!

We’ve posted a few new pictures from the night over in our Heroes Discussion Group set on our Flickr site, if you’d like to take a peek.

Of course the last fifteen minutes were spent on the battle royal to decide what the next book will be. We have it narrowed down to three and we would like ALL of your input as to what it should be:

SHAZAM: Monster Society of Evil by Jeff Smith
Sandman Volume 4: Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman
Astonishing X-Men Volume 1 by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday

These nights are fun and informative and can only improve if more of you join us. It’s VERY laid back, and a lot of fun! All you need to do is set the date aside– the next one will be after HeroesCon in July–we’ll announce it right here on the blog once we nail it down. Read the book and then join us! There is no pressure to speak, but if the past discussions are a harbinger for future meetings, we feel confident you will want to join in.

Holy cow, what can you say about this year’s Free Comic Book Day that isn’t in ALL CAPS? Even though we ordered way more books than ever before (12,000!), we gave nearly all of them away, to the HUNDREDS of fans who showed up, many of whom were lined up well before we opened the store at 10am!

Free Comic Book Day is always the biggest day of the year for us, but this year everything really came together just right. It was warm, but cloudy enough to not be really hot. It was cloudy, but the clouds never did open up and rain. We set up a giant tent in front of our store, and within minutes of our 9 special guests arrival, there were lines snaking all over the place, as they signed autographs and did FREE sketches! Literally, all day the space under that tent was crammed with fans and pros, just kinda hanging out and getting to know each other.

Inside there was a line snaking around the store for pretty much the entire day–we always do a lot of business on Free Comic Book Day, but it seemed like this year EVERYONE bought something, including all the kids who showed up. This is hugely gratifying for us–having kids come in to get some freebies is one thing, but when they come in and buy a bunch of comics, it means they’ve become comics readers. This year we definitely saw a HUGE increase in the number of kids actively buying comics, which is awesome.

Pretty much the whole staff was on deck and working hard all day long, with Seth and Shelton starting things at 7am! Phil, Rusty, and Adam shut things down, an even more unforgiving task, given that the rest of us had taken off for a party our friends Anne Geary and Scott Valeri threw for staff and guests. But don’t worry–the three last employees made it to the party after they closed the store down, and we all got to enjoy some delicious barbecue and some cold beverages.

All in all, this Free Comic Book Day might be this reporter’s favorite yet–just a general good vibe and a great time for everyone! But don’t trust me: I’ve put up a TON of photos on our Flickr site, most with some sort of unnecessary description. Check em out! But while you’re hear, please accept our earnest thanks for making this Free Comic Book Day the best ever! And thanks also to our staff, who really came through in a big way!

It seems like only yesterday I was packing to go to New York, but it’s almost been a whole week. Where does the time go? Last Wednesday Shelton, his daughter Shelley and I packed up a van full of comics and statues and headed to the Javits Center for the New York Comic-Con. It was my first non-Heroes related convention. And while nothing can compare to the friendly atmosphere of HeroesCon, I had a blast. We worked hard, but we also had plenty of time to take goofy pictures. Shelley had a lot of fun with my camera. Take a look at some of the best pictures from our adventures at the NYCC.

We’ve been talking about it for months now, but just so’s you know: this year’s FREE COMIC BOOK DAY will take place on Saturday, May 3! There’ll be DOZENS of free comics you can pick up, and we’ll have a ton of creators on hand to sign autographs and do FREE sketches! We’ll be announcing a larger list of attending creators next week, but for now I can tell you that SCAD instructors Chris Schweizer–whose upcoming book Crogan’s Vengeance will be published by Oni Press–and Shawn Crystal (of the upcoming BloodRed) will be on hand. Plus we’re sure there’ll be other familiar faces there, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Creators will be signing and sketching from 1pm to 5pm.

And don’t forget the BOOKS! We’ll start giving out free comics as soon as we open at 10pm that Saturday. There’ll be between 20 and 30 different titles, most of which should be suitable for all ages, so bring the whole family!

And if you’ve never been to one of our Free Comic Book Day celebrations before, I’ve coincidentally just put up a whole kit-and-kaboodle of pictures on our Flickr site of past FCBD’s so check it out: crowds and star power galore!

Boola Boola! Saturday I drove down to Athens, Georgia for this year’s FLUKE minicomics festival. Good day: run-ins with cops, some fun cartoonists, 3 Stella Artois and 1 Bass Ale, and a visit to a sloppy-but-fun comic shop, followed by a big dinner. Heck, that’s the whole story! But on the off-chance that you want to know more, I’ve posted a photo report over on our Flickr site. Check it, bruthas and sisters!

Holy moley! I’ve just uploaded a bunch of photos of our first ever Heroes Discussion Group, which was pretty great. I’ll leave most of the description to our Flickr photo report, but here are a few highlights, for those of you on a time budget:

1) Andy Mansell is the perfect guy to run this kind of thing. He’s even more knowledgeable than he is friendly, and that’s saying a lot. The depth with which he explored League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (our discussion topic) was all anyone could talk about afterward. Super educational.

2) It is hard to talk about one Alan Moore book and not continually bring up all the other ones. Which is okay, but we kept sliding into discussion of From Hell, which not everyone had read.

3) POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT: Could the Captain Nemo we see in the book actually be Sherlock Holmes in disguise? This idea, posed by Andy at the very end of things, prompted a lot of passing back and forth of copies of the book, accompanied by “Look, he’s right!” or “I don’t see it.”

The meeting ended with everyone nominating two books they’d like to discuss next. The top vote-getters were From Hell, Sandman Vol 4., and All-Star Superman. All-Star Superman barely won, so our next discussion group will focus on the first collection of the series, reprinting issues 1-6! And what’s more, we’ve decided to offer 10% off whatever book is our next topic of discussion all month long! That means that until next month’s meeting, tentatively scheduled for Monday, April 28th, just mention the Heroes Discussion Group to get 10% off of All-Star Superman, Vol 1! This discount will not apply to single issues–just the hardcover.

If you were at the discussion group last night, we’d love to hear your thoughts or ideas on how it went. Feel free to comment below–and if you couldn’t make it last night, but still want to talk League of Gents, we can keep the discussion going! Thanks again to Andy Mansell!

I’m in the midst of a number of long-term photo archiving projects, and in getting ready for the upcoming Free Comic Book Day (Saturday, May 3; sure to be huge), I realized we didn’t get any photos of last year’s event. I’d love to have some for our Flickr page–if you or someone you know was here for FCBD last year and took some photos, send them to me and I’ll pick a bunch to put up for a photo report, with your name credited. You can send them to me at dharbin[at]heroesonline[dot]com. I thank you in advance.

So, showing clearly that people don’t do background checks anymore, I was invited to talk to students at the New Technology High School at Garinger today. While the ostensible topic was comics as related to history, we ranged all over, from 60’s books, social relevance and Judaism, to manga and anime. Mostly the latter. It was a ton of fun, and involved not one but TWO fire alarms, which for some reason made it seem like I was really in high school, which was great. Unlike a lot of people, I loved high school.

Anyway, you can find all the details in our Flickr photo report. The short version is that it was tons of fun, and everybody was super-nice. Thanks to the teachers and students at Garinger High School for making me feel so welcome!

Man, who is this goober? But boy, those shirts look great! These are the only two we got, just to proof, and I quickly snatched them for myself. It looks like we’ll have them available for sale Thursday or Friday, so mark your calendars! The top shirt is by Jim Mahfood, and the bottom (modeled by me in true “Dre Day” style) is by Alec Longstreth, who I’m sure really loves early 90’s gangsta rap. You’re welcome, Alec!

Both shirts look AMAZING, even better than I thought they would. Hats off to our friends at Contagious Graphics, who really do first-rate work, and were extra helpful throughout the process of getting these set up.

If you’re seeing these for the first time, a quick review: they’re the first two of a planned series of 6 total shirts, each featuring the art of a different Indie Island guest. Once we have them in hand, they’ll sell for $20 apiece, plus $5 if you need it shipped within the continental U.S. These are very limited, so if I were you I’d get yours as soon as possible! If you like, I am keeping a little waiting list for when they show up, so feel free to post that you’d like one, especially if we actually know you, which will give your place on the waiting list a little more weight should fights break out.

I know, I know–as if I would tell you if it were a big failure. But hey, no lie: a ton of people showed up for Singles Night last Friday, and it was super fun. I suspect much of the reason was that Shelton decided at the last second to provide beer and wine; whatever the cause, by 8 o’clock or so the joint was jumping! Lots of guys and girls, lots of music, lots of conversation–I’m not sure how many love connections were made, but we weren’t doing any exit polls, either. Suffice it to say that we had such a great time that we’ll definitely be doing this again! Next up on the schedule will be the brand new Discussion Night we’re planning, which readers of the Heroes Hotline may have noticed on Friday. But that’s a blog post for another day, one which I’ll leave to Andy Mansell, who’ll be running the discussion.

For a complete rundown of the night with a ton of color 8 x 10 glossies with the circles and the arrows on the back of each one, check out our Flickr set devoted to the event. And thanks to everyone who made our first Singles Night such a big success! Extra special thanks to the Sweet On Geeks website and Geek Monthly magazine, who provided tons of free stuff and really got the word out–you guys are the best!