Save the Robot – Chris Dahlen

Jetpack Comics is the best comic store in seacoast New Hampshire – actually one of the best I’ve ever been to. It may not have the indie focus of Million Year Picnic, but it’s central to the geek community. Local artists can see their work showcased, and Star Wars PocketModel players can sign up for game nights. A few nights before Christmas I went there to grab some Fables trades and overhear the local kids cook up their hopes and dreams for ditching their parents and getting a place and watching b-horror films for the rest of their lives. It’s the kind of place you immediately feel at home.

Yesterday was Free Comic Book Day, the day that the industry tries to rebuild its audience by handing out free books. And in Rochester, they did it up right. Jetpack not only organized a big event at its store: they set up a city-wide scavenger hunt. You would show up at the comic store, get a card and a map, and go to a dozen local businesses – from a bike store to a furniture store to the Rochester Opera House – to pick up more comics and get the card stamped. Hit every place on the hunt and you were entered for a drawing of some kind; I didn’t investigate, ’cause I was trekking around with a three-year-old and knew we weren’t going to see everything.

But we did hit the comic store, which was packed, and the neighboring tents that they set up in the lot beside the store, where you could get prints, autographs and custom drawings by Rich Woodall of Johnny Raygun, Fatsquad, the crew at Severed Head Comics, and Marvel’s Ed McGuinness. We got a McGuinness print, a piece of original artwork from Green Arrow #51 that the illustrator was just giving away, free HeroClix Iron Man and Batman figures, and a bunch of free books. A little girl at the Rochester Opera House also gave us an original Crayon drawing, but did not sign it.

I brought my kid, who was mainly interested in seeing Jabba the Hutt at the Rochester Opera House. Not that he knew who Jabba was: we haven’t seen the movies, so basically I spent the whole day explaining the character and getting him wound up, so by the time we got there and saw the giant life-size foam puppet on the stage – which looked awesome, by the way; the New Hampshire Star Wars fan club does not screw around – he was totally pumped and a little scared. A girl whose name I didn’t catch operated the Jabba puppet and made it wave its hands and stick out its tongue. She also got it to lick its own eyes, which was hilarious. My kid was so excited that he actually looked around for other people to show this to: “Look!” he told a thirteen-year-old standing at the back of the stage, “Look! He stuck his tongue up his nose!”

When I was a kid, the idea that you’d need a Free Comic Book Day to remind people to buy comics would seem totally alien. Same for Record Store Day a few weeks ago. I just don’t understand an era where “comics” and “records” are not synonymous with fun. When my kid is a teenager, am I going to have to talk him into having sex?

But giving a place like Jetpack a chance to throw an event like this is worth the whole thing. They didn’t just throw an event for the geeks; they tied together the entire town, led people to businesses they might not know about, and got someone like myself who never hangs out in Rochester to wander around and really check the place out.

I can’t wait to see what they do next year.