free comic book day

since yesterday was free comic book day, i felt obliged to stop by second foundation and see how the boys were getting along. their advertising consisted of a sign on the sidewalk that read "free comics!" in bright orange letters. apparently it was effective--i've never seen the store that packed (of course i usually stop in on weekdays, not saturdays). the limit for free books was three, so i supported some of my favorite publishers by picking up stuff from alternative press (jeff mason is the guy who first got me hooked on comics back when i was 15-16ish--one of these days i'll tell that story), top shelf (which i hoped would have an excerpt of craig thompson's upcoming carnet de voyage, but didn't--not that the other stories weren't good), and slave labor (i mainly got this for the evan dorkin cover--slave labor has gotten too depressingly gothy over the past few years).

i also picked up the few things that had accumulated in my folder since last time i was in: vertigo's new comic, the witching (could be good--i'll read the next few issues before i judge), the light of venus (luba's comics and stories number 4--i've really enjoyed the venus stories beto does--i miss the measles comic!), caper (all of winick's plotlines in this book have started slow and then impressed me later--i'm hoping that'll happen again), batgirl (i will quietly admit to being a little disappointed w/ horrocks' writing on these--or maybe i just wish he'd draw more issues of atlas instead), and issue 4 of new frontiers. i also got the reissue of derek kim kirk's short stories, which i kept meaning to buy when it first came out, and didn't, and so when i saw the new version i jumped on it. the first story is incredible and the shorter ones are worth reading as well.

so there's all the latest comic-book-news from me. keep looking for more word-nerdiness!