Comic Book Haul

One of my favorite things about Free Comic Book Day--besides the obvious free comic books--is the sales that most of the participating shops run. Once you've got people in the store, why wouldn't you try to sell them stuff? And why not see if you can unload some of that inventory from the back room?

D and I hit three different shops yesterday, and our first big score was at the Portland Things From Another World (TFAW), where we found the Queen & Country: Red Panda hardcover (pictured above) for 60% off. D also picked up The Stranded, about which we knew nothing except that it was written by Mike Carey, who did Lucifer, which D loved. And hey, 60% off!

Artist Steve Lieber was at TFAW to sign books, and when we presented him with our copies of Whiteout, he asked, "Do you have time for me to do a drawing?" (Are you kidding?) We watched as he penciled and inked this image of Carrie Stetko:



That was the same book Greg Rucka had signed a couple of years ago, when we ran into him at PAX:

 
(Buy Whiteout Volume 1 from affiliates: Powell's, Amazon)

After TFAW, we headed down to Excalibur Comics on Hawthorne. Kurt Busiek had already bugged out, but we said hello to Adam Rosko and chatted briefly about Trek in the Park. They're doing "Space Seed" this summer. Can't wait.

For some reason, traffic on I-5 north was hellish, and it took us a solid hour to get back across the state line. Fortunately, we had Josh and Chuck to keep us company.

Our last stop before heading home was Amazing Stories in Vancouver, where I found a sealed box of The Making of Star Trek: The Next Generation collector cards (SkyBox Gold Edition, set number 8268 of 50000, pictured above) in the 75% off bin. They're obviously not worth much as collectibles, but I didn't buy them as an investment; I bought them because I'm a huge TNG geek.

On our way out of that store, the owner of Pop Culture--who had set up a table outside--offered us samples of some of the soft drinks available at his establishment. So we stopped for a minute and tasted some root beers and the original-formula, made-with-real-sugar Dublin Dr Pepper.

All in all, it was a very good day. I'm looking forward to doing some reading this week.