The crowd outside Cloud City Comics waits for the doors to open.

We spent Free Comic Book Day at Cloud City Comics located in Syracuse, NY.  It was a first for About Heroes in that it was the first live audience, remote episode! Jeff Watkins, owner of Cloud City is a dear friend and invited us out to take part in the store’s Free Comic Book Day festivities.

Our guests for FCBD and the show were Jeff and his guests:

Artist Zach Howard (Aliens, Spider-Man, The Cape, Blue Beetle): Zach flew in from Denver to be at Cloud City to help promote his upcoming project with Mike Raicht, Wild Blue Yonder. He also shares some great stories about working with IDW and his space pirate past with Steve Jackson Games. Check out his website and his DeviantArt page.

Writer Mike Raicht (Stuff Of Legend, The Pack, Army Of Darkness, Infestation: G.I. Joe): Always a friend of the show, and we’re a friend of his. Mike joins us again to talk about his upcoming above mentioned project Wild Blue Yonder, his stint as a Lemoyne College instructor, and the possibility of a Stuff Of Legend movie?

Artist Aaron Kuder (Key Of Z, Legion Lost): Also a past guest on the show, Aaron comes on to talk about his upcoming work on Avenging Spider-Man. Be sure to check out his great work here!

And we get a special treat in the form of Russ Burlingame, contributor and podcaster at ComicBook.com and friend of Jeff’s. Russ has a great review of FCBD at the store at his site, which you can read here, as well as his interviews with Marvel Films (and Avengers) actors Clark (Agent Coulson) Gregg and Tom (Loki) Hiddleston. It was a real pleasure to meet Russ, who actually was a friend of a lifelong friend of mine’s daughter and we didn’t run into each other sooner simply by happenstance. But we made up for lost time, as our actual off-air conversation lasted thrice as long as our on-air one did!

And a special shout out to Ryan Zlomek, who I met at Ithaca-Con, but we keep missing each other until he showed up with Russ today, and then had to wait around while we hung out talking about his days as a intern at Wizard Magazine. By way of thanks and a mea culpa, I encourage you to check out his Digital Playground website.

And of course, Jeff and I enjoyed talking about what comics means to him, how much he enjoyed About Heroes exposing Rick Olney, and we announce the Indiana Jones World Map raffle to be held in June at his store. We also talk about his cameo in the YouTube video The Vegan Zombie, and his days in Antarctica with The Sea Shepherds and their anti-whaling efforts. We also talk to a few of the customers who came out to Cloud City Comics and made Free Comic Book Day a huge success.

If you find yourself in the Syracuse, New York (Go Orange!) area, it’s worth your time to make it over to Cloud City Comics. Like them on Facebook, and go see what a beautiful store, complete with a wonderful (and intact!) plate-glass window front, it is at:

Cloud City Comics

3649 Erie Boulevard East

(Located in Shoppingtown Mall, next to the food court)

Syracuse, NY 13214-1204

Phone: (315) 449-0880

Open seven days a week!

Everyone who knows me knows how I have always had issues with comic book stores located in a mall. They have such high overheads, that they cater to the lowest common denominators to push product and get the money in the door. They never have any decent back-issue stock, or that community-oriented atmosphere that makes me feel comfortable in a comic book shop. I’m here to tell you that Cloud City Comics is ABSOLUTELY the exception to that rule! Go there, and tell them About Heroes sent you!

And of course, check out our YouTube channel this week as we post videos from the store

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