Loadin' Up For Halloween

Well, here we are in the middle of October, and I finally realized that Halloween is just a couple of weeks away. I never got much out of dressing up for just the one day, so once I was looked at as too old to go around begging for candy, I lost just about all interest in the holiday. Still, I have no desire to have my house egged (or worse) so The Wife and I generally oblige the neighborhood kids by having candy available.

About five years ago, I heard an idea which I thought was absolutely brilliant. Instead of giving away candy for Halloween, why not give away comic books? They're just about as cheap, last longer, and are more interesting than candy. After the first year or two, I had kids who only knew us as "the people who give out comic books" -- often said with some degree of enthusiasm.

Obviously, I try to stockpile cheap issues over the course of a year and I have a short box set aside with comics that I'm going to part with. I fill the box with the occasional duplicate, some Free Comic Book Day leftovers, and whatever 9, 10 or 12 cent issue that's come out in the past year. This year, though, I missed Free Comic Book Day and there were no cheap new issues. Since I was staring a pretty low number of on-hand issues, I needed a relatively quick way to increase my stash.

Fortunately, one of the local comic shops was trying to unload some back issues they had cluttering up their long boxes and made a couple of discount boxes. Any issue in the box for only a dime! Some halfway reasonable stuff, too: X-Men, X-Force, Warlock... I counted off 110 issues and carried the box up to the cash register. The manager was happy to get rid of the books so he gave me everything in the box and the box itself for only ten bucks!

Of course, then I went through the box more carefully at home...

"Oooh, I don't have these. Or this one. Or this. Or..."

I ended up pulling out about ten issues for myself, and felt that was just a little too close to call for the number of trick-or-treaters we usually get. So today, I went through my regular shop's FCBD leftovers and pulled out a dozen or so Transformers and Archie to round things out.

So, come Beggers' Night, the Kleefeld Household will be ready to hand out comic books to everyone who stops by. What better way to celebrate the medium and get more people interest in comic books?

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