I’d like to let you all know about a very special event that’s taking place tomorrow in central New Jersey. Before I get in to the details, I’d like to talk a bit about why this event is so special, why I care about it enough to volunteer for it, and hopefully inspire you to head this way if you’re in the area. If you’re in a rush, feel free to skip down to “The Details” for the TL;DR version.
If you’re on this website, chances are you’re a comic book fan. (It’s either that or you’re lost and don’t know how to use a web browser properly, in which case I suggest you seek out the nearest teenager for assistance.) As a fan, you love the medium, the characters, the stories, the shared experiences of it all. Some of your personal heroes and role models might even be selfless crusaders for justice, working tirelessly for the betterment of mankind. Their thrilling heroics are inspiring, and they seem to spend every moment of their spare time and every dollar they can scrounge up on traveling the world, and sometimes beyond, to fight evil and help those who aren’t strong enough to help themselves. It’s almost impossible not to admire people like that, which is part of why American comic book heroes are so powerful and earn so many devoted fans.
Being a fan, you probably want to read as many of these stories as you can get. Maybe you want to collect a full run of every comic featuring your favorite character. Perhaps you want to find everything drawn and/or written by your favorite artist and/or writer. You might even want to collect as much as you can get from one particular genre, or a particular publisher’s shared universe.
The downside is that collecting comics can be an expensive, time-consuming hobby. You have to spend time trying to hunt down the best deals on eBay, or digging through the poor selection and disorganization of the quarter bins in your local shop, or even traveling to the bigger shop one county over with an excellent selection of over-priced back issues. While individual comics might be cheap, those dollars add up quickly, and collecting quickly becomes an expensive hobby.
To a certain extent, it’s also a very self-centered activity. Instead of spending money to help the world, you’re spending money on your own entertainment. If you’re like me, you might even feel a little guilty spending a good portion of your disposable income on comics when you could be doing great things, like donating your money to charity, or doing important things, like paying your rent and bills on time.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way we could search through an extensive collection of back issues, all together in one location, (relatively) organized, and end up getting a large quantity of comics for bargain prices, knowing all the while that the money you just spent was for a good cause? Boy do I have the event for you!
The Details
Superheroes for Hospice is hosting a massive comics sale tomorrow, September 22nd, from 10 AM to 8 PM at the Monmouth Mall in Eatontown, New Jersey. All proceeds go to benefit the Barnabas Health Hospice and Palliative Care Center (BHHPCC). That means every dollar you spend will be used to alleviate the pain and suffering of families through the process of losing their loved ones. It’s the kind of cause that would make Superman and Spider-Man proud to have us all as fans.
The event is kind of like a local comics convention, only with less cosplay and the best selection of back issues I’ve ever seen. Hundreds of long-boxes full of tens of thousands of comics and graphic novels from DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Vertigo and more will all be there to look through. I’ve helped sort this collection, so I can tell you from personal experience that there is a little bit of everything here, including full runs on many popular comics, with quite a few hidden gems mixed in. I’ve personally found near-complete runs of such titles as “DMZ,” “100 Bullets,” “B.P.R.D.,” “Fables” and “Northlanders” at previous Superheroes for Hospice events, and I can tell you there’s a huge selection of cape comics as well. The Justice League titles alone took five of us volunteers a whole afternoon to sort through. This is a figurative gold mine for anyone trying to build a collection.
Continued belowThe prices are incredibly fair as well. All of the comics have the same price, starting at (I believe) one or two dollars each, but the more comics you buy the cheaper they get, until they cost a mere twenty cents each!
The comics aren’t the only attraction, either. Local yet nationally renowned artist Mike Ciccotello will be doing four live paintings on-site during the event. There will be other guests as well, selling their comics and doing sketches and caricatures. The guest list includes: Paul Castiglia (“Archie’s Weird Mysteries,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures”), Dave Ryan (“War of the Independents”), Howard Bender (“Mr. Fixitt,” “Sherlock Holmes Minute Mysteries”), Javier Cruz Winnik (sketch artist), Joey Endres (“Megazeen,” Hero TV), Thom Hall (“R-13,” “KING!”), Jesus Marquez (“Live By the Sword”), Nick Mockoviak (“HVZA”), Don Smith (“Ghost Investigator,” “Political Power: Ronald Reagan”), Mark Voger (“The Dark Age: Grim, Great & Gimmicky Post-Modern Comics”), and indie comics publisher PLB Comics.
This event is held every two or three months, usually on-location at the BHHPCC main office in West Orange, New Jersey, but once a year they travel down here to the Monmouth Mall.
Superheroes for Hospice also accepts donations at any time, whether an event is currently running or not. All donations are tax-deductible.
If you have any questions about the event, feel free to e-mail myself or organizer Spiro Ballas for more information or to add your name to the mailing list. I hope to see you there! (I’ll be the guy digging through the Dark Horse bins all day.)
