27 Oct

Halloween ComicFest in Vancouver! (free comics, kids!)

This Saturday, treat yourself and your favourite ghoulfriend to a free comic book or two.

Halloween ComicFest is an annual event where comic stores all around the world give away free comic books from top publishers. Customers are encouraged to dress up as their favourite superhero, supervillain, or monster, but of course any Halloween costume will do. Or just come as you are.

This year, six Vancouver comic book stores are participating. We have them listed below, as well as an advance peak at some of the books that are going to be on offer.

A free comic book day celebrating Halloween, and horror comics, actually makes a lot of sense. There’s a long history of horror in comics, going back at least as far as EC Comics. The New York-based publisher ignited a national scandal in the U.S. with its 1950s titles Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear. Those anthologies were explicit enough to cause the American government to call a Congressional hearing on the influence of comics on the youth of the day. The result was an industry-wide censorship policy called the Comics Code. (Those EC horror comics also influenced a generation of filmmakers, artists and writers.)

The banning of explicit horror in funnybooks led in part to the rise of the superhero as the dominant subject of comics. Ironically, it was a horror comic that, in the 1990s, helped rehabilitate the industry’s reputation – Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman. Today, one of the most popular series on TV, The Walking Dead, is based on a comic. And paste.com recently posted its list of the 50 Best Horror Comics.

So, in other words, Free Comic Book Day + Halloween = yay!

Some quick facts about Halloween ComicFest:

• 1.75 million comics will be given out for free
• over 1,900 comic shops are participating across the US, Canada and internationally
• there are 21 designated Halloween ComicFest titles to choose from
• some comic shops also give away candy, host games, and hold costume contests

Costume contestants outside The Core comic shop in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Participating Vancouver comic shops include:

RX Comics (2418 Main St.)
The Connection Games Comics (2945 Renfrew St., East Vancouver)
Golden Age Collectibles (852 Granville Street)
Comic Land (3845 Rupert St.)
Tazmanian Comic Connection (3618 E. Hastings St., East Vancouver)
Big Pete’s Comics and Collectibles (128 Lonsdale Ave, N Vancouver)

And remember to arrive early (most stores about 11 a.m.-ish) before all the good stuff is gone!

Some of the titles include: