Collector’s Paradise FREE COMIC BOOK DAY Plans: HERO Initiative Benefit Party with Mark Waid, etc.

If you are a long time customer, you know we always go ALL OUT for FCBD. Well, this year, I thought we bring it up a FEW notches. The plans started gathering in my head last year, around November or so, when my friend Jim McLaughlin from HERO Initiative came by to bring us some of those really cool STAN LEE books that HERO put out. We started talking about how we can organize something really REALLY cool for FCBD, and started brainstorming ideas, names and all the other fun stuff.

First person to sign on was MIKE KUNKEL, the amazing creator of “HEROBEAR and the Kid” and the Super-cute new “Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!” book for DC. I met Mike last year at Wizardworld LA, and we talked about the possibility of doing something for FCBD. Mike is an amazing artist and you can see his stuff on his site, THE ASTONISH FACTORY.

Next I talked to my good friend and customer JT KRUL, who is a very good writer, whose credits include MOST of the ASPEN COMICS line, plus Red Sonja, X-men Unlimited, and the really good Joker’s Asylum: Poison Ivy one shot. JT spent his FCBD with us last year, and graciously agreed to do it again. You can see JT’s website HERE.

Through JT I got in touch with JOE BENITEZ, a great artist who’s been producing amazing stuff for the last few years, including Darkness, Weapon Zero, Magdalena (who he created), in addition to his recent stint on TITANS. I have known Joe for many years, as he used to be a regular customer until he moved out of the Valley. It’s great to have him back, specially since I am a HUGE fan of his art, which you can see on his site, Wraithborn.com.

I have been a huge fan of our headlining writer, Mark Waid, for a long long time. His Flash and Fantastic Four runs are still probably the best I have ever read on those titles, and books like Kingdom Come and Empire are some of my all-time favorite reads. His new book, Irredeemable, is coming out next month from Boom Studios, a company that he runs as their Editor-in-Chief, and I am SUPER proud to have Mark as our guest, as well as the rest of Boom, who will be on hand (hopefully) to PIMP their great line of books.

Now, do you think we are done???? Not even close. I wanted to start promoting the event this week, thus this blog entry and a new page on the website, but I have a feeling that our list of guests will improve dramatically in the next few days. The webpage is just a start, keep checking it weekly for updated information.

In addition to our amazing list of guests, we’ll have a bunch of great things, including Costumed Characters, Special Sale, Raffles for products provided by our guests, SKETCHES for HERO INITIATIVE by our Artist Guests and a ton more stuff.

We really look forward to providing all our customers with the best FCBD Experience possible. Thank you all for being loyal patrons of our business.