I haven’t really read a comic book since I was nine or ten, until a friend told me about the new Buffy season eight in comic book form a couple months ago. I read the first two, and was hooked, though, admittedly that has more to do with Joss Whedon’s writing than with the medium.

Today, we went to Lone Star because Wednesday was when Buffy #3 was released, and we hadn’t had time to get it then. Jeremy had informed me via IM that today was also Free Comic Book Day, which is apparently an annual event. I didn’t feel entirely stupid, as Fuzzy hadn’t ever heard of it either, and he’s got several thousand dollars of X-Men comics in boxes in his den.

We came home with the Buffy books we’d gone there for, plus two game books for Fuzzy (never mind that he doesn’t actually PLAY tabletop games. If it makes him happy to have the books, he should have them). We also snagged four selections from the table of selections for Free Comic Book Day: DC’s Justice League of America #0 2007, Dark Horse’s Umbrella Academy Zero Killer Pantheon City 2007, IDW’s Transformers the Movie Prequel # 1 2007, and Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man Swing Shift 2007. Over dinner at Cracker Barrel, we each read the free books – Fuzzy read Spider-man while I visited with the Justice League…and I do mean “visited,” because after all this time, catching up with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman again, as well as about twelve other DC heroes, some I didn’t recognize, was like spending time with old friends.

I’m not planning to start buying old issues, or anything, but it was a nice journey, made even more so because it was free.