Hey Comic Shop Friends! It’s May! We’re in the home stretch for Free Comic Book Day now! This Saturday the 4th!

Come on out 10 am to 7 pm and you can pick out 12 free comics!

Bluey will be here in the morning with free Bluey books!

We’ll have 50% off back issues in the shop! (Except for the wall, because John has something special planned to rerack the wall.)

The Rust Belt Monster Collective will be painting a Star Wars-themed mural outside the shop!

Make sure to support the local artists and vendors that will be set up in the FCBD room!

And it’s the day before my birthday! I’m taking a staycation after FCBD, so you won’t see my beautiful face in the shop until the 14th. I know it’s terrible, but you’ll manage.

If you have a moment, do us a solid and vote for us for Best Comic/Collectible Shop in Scene’s Best of Cleveland 2024. It looks like a lot of contenders got pushed to the best hobby shop category if it feels like some are missing, but we’re happy to take a vote for Best in Comics! We love comic books!

Vote here: For Just Our Shop

Or Vote Here for all categories

You can vote once per day until midnight on May 20th!

Wednesday May 15th is the one-year anniversary of Ben co hosting the Midnight Rental Secret Screening at the Grog Shop! (This will also be the twelfth screening I’ve gone to, and so far I’m 10-1 with what movies I’ve already seen.) Come out and celebrate Ben’s continued confusion about these crappy horror movies! Come out for a belated birthday celebration for me! Nightbeast!

Then, Thursday the 16th is Late Nite Comics! Another chance this month to get 50% off back issues, and dig through some new dollar stock boxes! We’ll be open until midnight!

MARVEL COMICS

Marvel sure set themselves up for Free Comic Book Day, with three new series! One of which is Blood Hunt, which we’ve all been excited for since February!

Blood Hunt! Marvel’s fang-filled event is here! And we probably already asked you, but do you want the regular PG-13 version or the RED BAND version with more pages and even more blood and guts? (Red Band, you want the Red Band.) There is a FCBD Blood Hunt book this Saturday, but you’ll want to grab #1 on Wednesday before we sell out on the weekend! The first thing Kyle asked me when I came in on Tuesday was “Did you read Blood Hunt yet?” It was the second book I read this week, and it should be the first book you all read this week. Jed MacKay and Pepe Larraz have the bloodiest Marvel event ever! The sky has gone dark, the vampires have risen to drown the world in blood, and Earth’s final night has fallen. Can the Avengers, Blade, Bloodline, Spider-Man, Hunter’s Moon, Tigra, Doctor Strange, and Clea end this dance of death?

Joe Kelly. Adam Kubert. Wolverine. @&#%$&# Deadpool. @%&#. The third time’s the charm. Get ready for WWIII in this three-part mini-series with the most intensely mismatched team-up in comics! On the trail of a serial killer in Vancouver, Wolverine has a run-in with Deadpool which leads to a globe-spanning story. The mysterious Delta has set his sights on Deadpool, with Wolverine caught up in the plot. A plot with Wade Wilson undergoing a radical change. Grab it now before the new movie in July!

It’s the return of a Max title, the return of Frank Castle to current comics, and the return of Garth Ennis to Marvel in this savage, blood-soaked story set deep in Vietnam in 1971. Nick Fury has been captured by the Viet Cong, who don’t realize the extent of the secrets that he possesses. Secrets that can damage the United States beyond comprehension. But the C.I.A. knows, they aren’t taking any risks with those secrets falling into enemy hands, and they’re dispatching the deadliest man in the U.S. Army. It’s up to Lt. Frank Castle to get Fury. With art by Jacen Burrows.

DC COMICS

Even though it’s the Wednesday before Free Comic Book Day, DC has kind of a “fifth Wednesday” to start the month. There are Annuals for Flash, Harley Quinn, and Nightwing, and a couple specials.

Eight stories to put a spring in your step! Harley Quinn breaks King Shark out of Belle Reve for a “Field Trip” by Joey Esposio and Vasco Georgiev. Batman shows off some dance moves in Thomas Krajewski and Wes St. Claire’s “Cold Feet.” It’s Spring Break for the Teen Titans in “Relay for Your Life” written by Meghan Fitzmartin with art by Gavin Guidry. The Metal Men hit the beach for a surfing competition in “The Day the Robot Danced” by James Reid and Scott Kolins. Katana is the “Soul Survivor” in writer Mike W. Barr and artist Kenya Danino’s story. Lex Luthor is “Buried Alive!” Written by Patrick R. Young with art by Nico Bascunan. Martian Manhunter and Clayface put on a performance in Morgan Hampton and Paul Pelletier’s “Shape-Shift in the Park.” Superman and Jimmy Olson have the best seats for all the action on “Opening Day” written by Cameron Chittock with art by Marco Santucci.

It’s House of Brainiac part 2.5 as the invasion of Metropolis rages on with this three-chapter one-shot from writers Joshua Williamson and Mark Russell and artists Edwin Galmon, Fico Ossio and Steve Pugh. Find out how Brainiac created a Bottled city of Czarnia. Can Perry White’s mayoral run be successful? Maybe with Bibbo’s help organizing the community! And of course, Amanda Waller is involved in all of this. To be continued in Action Comics #1065 and Absolute Power: Ground Zero!

SMALL PRESS COMICS

And we are rich with new Small Press books! There are so many, I can’t put them all in this newsletter!

My favorite, Eric Powell, and voice actor Lucky Yates combine their comedic talents in this three-issue mini-series with art by Gideon Kendall. Originally conceived as an animated short, Lester of the Lesser Gods was never produced, but now it’s back! In comic form! If you like post-apocalyptic wasteland stuff, and wish Mad Max was goofier, then this is for you. Lester is the son of Odin, and after thwarting Satan’s attempt to bring Hell on Earth, he wanders the wasteland battling all sorts of things with names I cannot put here because this is family friendly, and now after “helping” Kat the Destroyer, the duo is on a quest to take down Will Fyre the Technomancer Guy. It’s ridiculous, and I love it.

Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso team up again on this brutal revenge-driven Western! Three children set off across the Texas frontier on a mission to rescue their mother from the ruthless outlaws who abducted her and killed their preacher father. They’ll learn the true cost of revenge, and that once tasted, nothing else will ever be so sweet. “This is my story. The reverend would be ashamed.”

Vault is doing another free #1! Pick up the new series of Barbaric, and then check out our rec row of Barbaric titles! Writer Michael Moreci and artist Nathan Gooden have a jumping on point for those of us who haven’t joined the Barbaric bandwagon yet! Owen, Axe, Steel, and Soren meet a compelling new bad guy, Orrick, a tortured barbarian now turned master torturer. Secrets from Owen’s past that should stay buried are revealed. Will the cursed-to-do-good barbarian do some actual good? Maybe? But much worse guys will meet their end thanks to Owen and Axe! With lots of blood!