The Toy Box: Free Comic Book Day 2023!

I had to go to the comic store for a new short box to put some odds and ends comics in, and upon arrival was greeted to Free Comic Book Day. This isn't something I track, mainly because unless there is something specific I hear about, I'm not really all that worried about it. Especially since I don't tend to read "new" comics.

But...You know, if you're there, and they're free, why not? I'll always grab Spider-Man titles, or ones which coincide with my nostalgic side.

My local comic shop limits the number of books people can take, so despite there being 15+ titles to choose from, you can't get them all unless you have multiple people with you. This isn't a problem for me since I'm not interested in the majority of them, but I can see where major comic collectors would find this annoying.

They had two Spidey books this year, as well as some good retro based titles. The only reason I grabbed the Avengers title is because the shop clerk said that it had a preview appearance of an upcoming title / character.

I'll end up bagging and boarding the Spider-Man titles, and throwing them in my Miscellaneous Spider-Man titles box. The rest will get thumbed through, and sit in a pile until they make their way to Alexis in the annual box I send over.

What surprised me was that my local shop apparently now sells records. Reasonably priced ones at that. I don't think I saw anything over ten dollars, and the titles weren't bad. There were some good soundtracks and 80's albums mixed in there, but I didn't need the majority of them.

At $6.00, I wasn't going to leave The Jackson's Victory behind. It would have been amazing if it were a first print with the dove on the cover, but then it certainly wouldn't have been so cheap.

I grabbed The Human League's Fascination! because it's actually not available on CD in the US. In fact, there's only one pressing on disc, and it's the 2015 mini LP version, which was only available in Japan.

I didn't look at the records too closely when in the store, but when I got them home, the surprises just kept coming. Both were clean, and I mean, pristine. Additionally, the Jackson's LP had the original sleeve and promotional order form inside. That's super sweet right there!

Sitting above the vinyls on a shelf was a book I'd never heard of, and decided to grab.

This hardback is a pretty cool comic autobiography of Queen. It has some really good artwork in it, and it's inter-cut with with full pages of history and photos.

I looked into the book a bit more when I got home, and found that the publisher, NBM, actually made several "In Comics" books about musicians. I immediately went to Amazon and grabbed Michael Jackson, David Bowie, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, Elvis, Willie Nelson, and Janis Joplin. I also pre-ordered Prince, which is slated for September. There were a few other titles in the series, but they don't appeal.

Here's a link to the page if you're interested in checking them out. If you're looking for them on Amazon, you're going to want to put "NBM" in your search when you put the particular artist's name. That was the easiest way I got them to come up.