A daughter, a dad, and some comics

I took my daughter Elizabeth to Free Comic Book Day on Saturday. The local store had some people playing Imperial Stromtrooper Dress-Up out on the street promoting the event. To get her in the store I had to convince her that Darth Vader and crew were not a threat. But when Boba Fett gave her a friendly wave she calmed down a bit.

Inside the comic store was the busiest I had ever seen it, though I must note that I avoid the place like the plague on Wednesdays. I'm too cheap to have a pull list and besides, Marvel Two-In-One was canceled a while back. Still, since the joint shares digs with my local gamestore Elizabeth and I get in there often enough to browse the bargains bins. They make it a point of putting the "all ages" books on a single low shelf, which makes it easy for me to identify to Elizabeth which books she can pick from. She usually goes for Scooby-Doo and JLU. The Big Three of the DC Universe are among her favorite superhero characters, probably due to lots of viewings of the Superfriends DVDs with her old man.

When it came time to look over the free comic selections I did my best to stay out of her decision-making process. I really wanted to see what kinds of books she would pick out on her. Of course I monitored to make sure she didn't try to select anything with lots of gore or whatever, but she was mostly drawn to kid-friendly looking super hero books. Here's what she selected:


She also got the Iron Man/Hulk freebie, but I can't find an image of it just now. She also picked out this gem from the "all-ages" section:I thought it was pretty interesting that she passed up on cartoony stuff like the Mickey Mouse comic being offered and instead she went straight for genre stuff like superheroes and robots and magic cowgirls. Now, she's not all tom boy by any means. Had there been Strawberry Shortcake or Barbie comics available she would have gotten those as well.

By way of comparison, here's what I got:
I really wanted the free Lynda Barry and Charles Schulz comics being offered, but none were left by the time we showed up.