Howdy,

Because I'm a psycho-nutball who cares more deeply about comics than rational people should, I decided to give kids the option of candy or comic books for Halloween. The bumper crop of material for this year's Free Comic Book Day AND my local store's HUGE over-order meant I had a good amount of stuff this year.

It's only 6:30 PM local time, and we're about halfway out of comics and candy. This year, I had some leftovers from last year (Fantastic Four 9-cent adventure, Superman 10-cent adventure, and a few loose issues of Justice League Adventures), plus a bunch of stuff from FCBD (Archie, Mickey Mouse, 2 issues of Spider-Man, Duel Masters, Star Wars Adventures, and The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty for the older kids). Lessons so far:

- Last year, we had a lot more kids taking comics than candy. However, we were also home a lot later last year, so I think we got the older kids. Might have skewed the sample set. So far this year, it's probably been slightly in favor of the sugar-rush crowd over the readers, but not by much.

- First comic to run out? Archie. I had about a 6-8 issues and they were ALL gone by the first group. Second one? Mickey Mouse. THAT surprised me a bit.

- One of the Cutest Little Girls in the World showed up in a Spider-Man costume with her dad. She got the last Marvel Age Spider-Man comic.

There'll be a follow-up or an edit once the night is over. Happy Halloween. Boo!

EDIT: OK, it was more or less over after I posted the above. The Star Wars comics went away pretty quickly, too, and all my Superman 10-cent adventures are gone now, too. I wonder if FF is going to have to wait until the movie comes out, since I still have 3 issues hanging around -- so much for "manga style artwork" attracting fans who wouldn't look at it otherwise.

Did have two groups of sneaky trick-or-treaters who came back for seconds. Neither of them even had decent excuses ("Um, we don't remember where we went already." Yeah, right, kid). However, since one of them came back explicitly for comics, I can't say I'm too upset.

-- Ed/Ace