Comic Haul 5/4 - Free Comic Book Day 2019

My yearly tradition of traveling to Evansville, IN for Free Comic Book Day continues! This year I hit up the usual spots as well as a few new ones. I didn't score anything too amazing, but I did get some stuff. Let's take a look.

This year was a bit different from past trips. Literally none of the friends I typically go with were able to make it this year. Because of this, there was plenty of room in my car to invite two of my friends who had never been before.

My all-day event began early when I got up at 6:45am and quickly got ready. My friends and I headed towards Evansville at 8:00am and arrived at our first destination, Comic Quest, right as the store opened, and the line was already going out the door for the free comics.

After very slowly progressing through the line, these were the comics I selected. I knew going in which ones I was after, and fortunately they had all of them. They limited guests to six books per person, so I grabbed the Lady Mechanika, Spawn, Spider-Man, Street Fighter, and Vampirella books on my first go around. The Avengers and Overstreet books came later.

The Spawn, Street Fighter, and Vampirella books were all high on my wishlist. Everything else I picked up just because.

In addition to the free comics, I also bought this random issue of The War of the Realms because I liked the cover. I don't know anything about it, but it's a variant.

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed in the overall offerings at Comic Quest. I was actually able to look at their back issues this time, but I found that they weren't really in any order and I couldn't find anything I was after. I'll have to save them for a return trip when time isn't a factor. They also had a Catwoman statue I have been wanting, but the statue had what I would consider a defect, so I passed on it.

After leaving the shop, we went and ate at Red Robin, as we traditionally do. I had intended on taking us to a comic shop from the past before we made our way to the shop called Secret Headquarters, but I decided that we'd go there first as I've spent a lot of money there in the past.

This time it was relatively underwhelming, and I only grabbed a few comics. They had a box labeled "90s bad girl comics" which I flipped through and found these, even though I don't consider Black Cat to be a "90s bad girl" and the fact that one of these books was released in 2010 and one was released in 2013. I didn't realize it at the time, but the bottom right Lady Rawhide book is a reprint, so that's annoying.

They did have some Dawn comics in that box that I would have bought for sure had I not already owned them all. Too bad I couldn't find any I was after. They also had a box that was full of signed comics, which was neat. None of the comics in the box really caught my eye, though.

The most important thing I got from Secret Headquarters were these old issues of Game Player's Strategy Guide to Nintendo Games magazines. I love old video game magazines and have a pretty decent collection of them, and I am always in the market for more. Unfortunately, old game magazines are typically pretty expensive. These were all very affordable so I wasn't about to pass them up.

Finally, here are the random bits I picked up on the trip.

If you're going, "Swordfish?" right now, you can just click away. It's a great Hugh Jackman movie with a fantastic Paul Oakenfold soundtrack. It's a top shelf film and it was $4. It came from Coconuts.

On a return trip to Comic Quest, I bought these beautiful clear and sparkly pink dice that people keep asking me what I'm going to do with for some reason like I don't own a big box full of dice.

At a dirt mall while trying to find Comics Unlimited, we instead found a guy selling a bunch of toys and video games. I bought two random Game Boy games (because this is a video game site, after all) for $2 and $3 each. He also had a basket full of M.U.S.C.L.E. figures and I tried to buy the entire thing from him for $40, but he was firm on selling each one for $1, so I bought 10 from him. $40 is admittedly low, but he could have $40 now or $60 or so over the course of however long it takes him to go through the basket.

So after hitting up the dirt mall and maybe(?) finding Comics Unlimited but not buying anything, that's when we went across town to Coconuts and Super Mega Replay. Things are out of order here because of my collage image up there. I didn't buy anything at Super Mega Replay, so after that we went to the Book Broker for some more comics. They still had some of the Free Comic Book Day books, so I grabbed a handful that one of my friends who couldn't make the trip was after.

We ended up going back to Comic Quest to kill time before the movie and I bought this Harley Quinn print for some reason even though I'm pretty much out of wall space. I liked the art, though. The guy's name was Charlie Fithian and he has a website called CoolDojo.com where you can buy his designs on shirts and mugs and stuff. This is also when I bought the pink dice. It doesn't matter.

Soon it was time to head to the IMAX and see Avengers: Endgame. I had waited to see the movie until then because tradition calls for seeing the latest Marvel movie at the IMAX on Free Comic Book Day. I managed to avoid spoilers by staying off of social media for over a week.

And that was my trip! It was different from past trips in some ways but also the same in many others. I typically don't come home with an incredible selection of things since it's not a convention, but I think what I got this year was pretty good. The next convention is at the Superman Celebration at the beginning of next month. We'll see how that one goes!