Zombies, princesses, and superheroes gathered downtown for the first Halloween ComicFest, which featured free comic books and a costume contest with cash prizes, hosted by Alternaprint Screen Printing & Comic Book Shop on Oct. 31.
Owners Andrew and Catie Gibbs held the nationwide event at their store for the first time this year. As participants, they handed out free, special edition comic books to attendees, took pictures for the costume competition, and gave candy to trick-or-treaters. This year’s selection of free comic books included special editions of popular titles such as “Harley Quinn,” “Batman Adventures,” “Sabrina,” and “Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers.” Afterward, the store showed the movie “Trick ‘R Treat.”
Halloween Comicfest, which began in 2012, seeks to connect people with their local comic book stores. According to the event’s website, it “celebrates the independent comic book specialty shops, thousands of which exist in North America alone. Each one is unique in its community, with a style and personality all its own.”
Some attendees stopped by the shop for a free comic book, while others entered the costume competition, which featured five categories and cash prizes totalling to more than $2,000.
Ashley May, one of the participants, was able to get the special edition of one of her favorite childhood comic books at the event.
“The only comics I could get as a kid were the Archie comics, so I was really excited when they did a Halloween edition of ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch,’” she said. “I definitely picked that up, and it is great.”
Andrew Gibbs hopes to create an ambience that will encourage people to hang out in the store. He chose to hold events like Halloween ComicFest to create a fun, welcoming environment.
“When we opened up the store, we wanted to do a bunch of different events like this for the community,” he said. “So we figured this would be a nice thing to do. Plus, I like Halloween.”
The Gibbses opened Alternaprint in October 2014 after moving from Chicago to Hillsdale. In April, they moved the business to a downtown venue, expanding their screen-printing business in the back of the store while converting the front of the store into a comic book shop.
Since its opening, Alternaprint has participated in local events such as Summer in the City and Awesome Autumn, as well as national events such as Halloween ComicFest and Free Comic Book Day, which is held on the first Saturday of May each year. The owners also hold independent film screenings on the last Saturday of every month at the store.
“The big expansion we did was the movie stuff,” Andrew Gibbs said. “We’ve been showing and screening indie films here now. That’s been awesome. We get around 30 people showing up to watch films.”
Despite the uncertainties of moving the business from a big city to a small town, Gibbs stated that the transition has been successful so far.
“We didn’t know how well the comic book thing would go, we didn’t really know how well the screen printing thing would go, but it ended up being awesome,” he said.
