Free Comic Book Day, May 3, 2008
Wow, it's May already! We here at KLC Central have barely had time to catch our collective breath from the New York Comic-Con (a report is forthcoming. Please forgive our tardiness as most of the crew have been fighting colds and family crises since the big event), and now Free Comic Book Day is upon us! On Saturday, May 3, many of your favorite Kids Love Comics creators will be attending events at participating local comic book shops across the nation! Among them will be Jimmy (Amelia Rules!)Gownley, Steve (Astounding Space Thrills, Star Trek)Conley, and John (Buzzboy, Roboy Red, NASCAR Heroes)Gallagher at Cards, Comics and Collectibles, in Reisterstown, MD; John Gallagher (can the man really be in two states in one day?!?) and Rich (Roboy Red, Buzzboy) Faber will be at Captain Blue Hen Comics, in Newark, Delaware, along with KLC friends Jamar (Grosse Adventures) Nicholas, Scott (Scooby Doo) Neely, and Mike (Monsterman, Brave and the Bold cartoon, Superman Adventures) Manley, among others. Other friends of KLC who are making appearances include Mark (Banana Tail) McKenna, at Grasshopper Comics in Williston Park, NY; Art Balthazar and Franco, of Tiny Titans and Patrick the Wolf Boy fame, at Challengers Comics + Conversation, in Chicago, IL; and Mike (Herobear and the Kid) Kunkel at Atomic Comics – Metrocenter, in Phoenix AZ. For more info on where to find your favorite comics creators check out the FCBD website!
Oh, in case you want to know what to look for, here are some of the covers of the KLC FCBD comics. First is Amelia Rules! Comics and Stories:
Next,the Kids Love Comics "Comic Book Diner" anthology features fun stories, how-to's, and more, by some of comics' top all-ages creators! John Gallagher's Buzzboy! Scott Sava's Dreamland Chronicles! Patrick the Wolfboy! Roboy Red! Banana Tail — and more! All hosted by Jimmy Gownley's Amelia Rules! characters! Plus: A Super-Cool Guide and Recommended Reading List of the best in Kids' Comics! A great introduction (and helpful guide) to comics for readers of all-ages:
Finally, NASCAR Heroes All Stars Special:
Please check the above link to the rest of the Free Comic Book Day offerings for more! We hope we'll see you at your favorite comic shop on May 3rd, Free Comic Book Day!
5 comments:
Why did you go spit on potential buyers on a perfect family outing like Free Comic Book Day?
Thankfully, I read the FCBD edition of Comic Book Diner before my kids got to it, and I've got to tell you that the Buzzboy bit pisses me off. Care to venture a guess as to why?
My kids (8 & 10) LOVE comics, and we're constantly looking for new books and series for them to read. They have better vocabularies than most of the adults I work with in IT because of the love of comics I introduced them to at young age. As a 'conservative', I see no reason to purchase anything from a source that makes two HUGE mistakes, a) assumes that conservatives have a problem with free speech, and b) so completely goes against their own Mission Statement: "to increase the comic book medium’s sales potential". Bashing conservatives as anti-1st Amendment is, for lack of a better term, lame AND patently untrue, especially when you consider liberals' penchant for shouting down conservatives on college campuses, the left's support of the farcical 'fariness doctrine', and the current mass media's open on-air bias in support of Democrats.
Conservatives, the huge majority of us anyways, mostly just want to keep porn out of kids' hands or make sure that cussing and sex is not a part of early-evening TV without warning. But other than the whackos who see Harry Potter as 'of the devil', righties would rather have ALL ideas debated openly in the court of public opinion. The 'science' is not 'in', but lefties would silence anyone who disagrees with their views. That is a fact. John Kerry vowed to sue any television station that played an ad from those who served with him, for goodness sake! All this at the time Dan Rather was portaying Word documents as if they were produced in 1972 to attack a sitting POTUS just before an election.
My kids and I will find other sources of comic fare. I don't need another liberal telling me how 'evil' I am. Oh, and if I find this crap in my local school, I'll let every parent I know about it. Believe it or not, we conservatives are more than happy to let our school admins know when stuff like this is peddled at our kids.
Guess what? That ain't censorship. That'll simply be exercizing our right of free speech. No hard feelings. :-)
Jerry-- you are obviously very passionate about this story, and I think that is a good thing, as the idea of any good story is to provoke discussion and thought. I'm sorry you don't like the story, and it seems like you read it, but I am not sure why you would accuse me of generalizing conservatives.
As for the villain, why did you assume he was your standard conservative? I would think that any character who condones book burning would be seen as a whacko by anyone of any political slant. Rush Limbaugh is obviously very conservative--would he condone book burning?
It was a story with a message supporting free speech-- with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Growing up, freedom of speech was never taught to me as anything political-- it was a god-given right.
If you see politics in this story, I'm that's your issue, because to me, this transcends politics.
Incidentally, I live in a very conservative part of VA, and gave copies to my daughter's entire school-- not a single parent has complained about the story, other than to say, it may be a bit over their kids heads. I believe most will interpret this story as what it is-- a tale with many different interpretations.
And no hard feelings at all. :)
Okay, so my tone was a bit harsh, to say the least. I have to admit, sitting in the floor, surrounded by dozens of comics that represent one of my life's 'passions'... reading with my kids... I was taken aback. I found that your villain had struck a nerve deep into one of my other passions... politics, particularly, honest political discourse.
In what's billed as a kids' comic (not a teen or young adult title), it looked like a swipe at a particular political view, framed in a way that, to me, is out-of-touch with recent political reality, to an audience that isn't old enough to know better.
Help me out then, since we're working from a 'no hard feelings' context...can you name a single conservative (radio talk show host) who advocates book burning?
We should probably leave out the errant Hagee or Wright types from this context since preachers generally pay for radio time and aren't usually known as personalities but more strictly as preachers with radio shows. I'm having a tough time coming up with a name and quotes to back it up. I feel confident that for every one 'righty' you find, I can name at least three 'lefties', with quotes, that advocate shutting conservatives out of the national political discourse. Arianna Huffington's new book starts with the premise that conservative political views are so toxic and harmful that they don't deserve to be heard.
They say that you only get one shot at making a first impression. I hope that future efforts don't dumb-down to kids, but at least, save the 'do-gooder liberal vs. evil conservative' for O'Reilly and Olbermann.
Wouldn't a nice, juicy 'evil capitalist' have been a better first effort? Ok, I'm kidding. There's plenty of that stereotype already. The recent Iron man movie laid off the obvious ME connection, much to its credit.
Go to http://childrensbooks.about.com/cs/censorship/a/burningbooks.htm for an account of a book burning incident that took place in the US just a few years back. The books burned were Harry Potter books, which a pastor denounced from his pulpit as promoting witchcraft. Yes, I think the people who did this are whackos, but the thing is, it happened in more than one community.
While I totally agree that conservatives cover a whole spectrum of philosophies (I myself am a Lutheran pastor's wife), I don't agree that Buzzboy is bashing all conservatives. And I live in northwestern Florida, where Avi's The Fighting Ground (a Newbery Award winner from more than 2 decades ago) has been removed from school library shelves for "obscene language."
I apologize, the URL was cut off. The rest of it is .../a/burningbooks.htm
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