Photos: Bergen Street's Free Comic Book Day and Act-i-Vate Party

Did everyone have a happy Free Comic Book Day? I did! Being Brooklynites, Degan and I picked up our freebies at Bergen Street Comics and Rocketship bright and early on Saturday. But come the evening, I headed back to Bergen Street for their Act-i-Vate party and presentation.

I'm a fan of the Act-i-Vate Comix Collective from back when I produced a segment on the site for a now defunct web series. For those not familiar with Act-i-Vate, the short version is they're a group of working artists who produce professional-grade serialized comics for free online. The presentation at Bergen Street showcased examples of the great work being done for the site, and I was surprised to see how much more sleek and functional the interface has gotten since I last checked in.

The presentation also included an announcement of the Act-i-Vate Primer, a hardback collection of new comics by Act-i-Vators, available exclusively in print (well, at least until two years go by, at which point they'll be put online. These guys just can't stop themselves from giving their work away!). Considering the Act-i-Vate stable includes such indie luminaries as Dean Haspiel, Roger Landridge and Dan Goldman, I imagine this collection will get a lot of attention when it hits the shelves this fall.

More pictures after the jump...


Bergen Street always has some great original art up on the walls. For the Act-i-Vate party, they hung up original inks, pencils and prints of the Act-i-Vators work.

Graphic novels by the Act-i-Vators were laid out on the center table. I ended up buying 08, illustrated by Dan Goldman, who is responsible for my favorite Act-i-Vate comic, the insane and extremely NSFW Kelly.



Everyone likes balloons.

A slide from the presentation of some of the pre-launch teaser material.

So if after all this, you're thinking about going to check out the site, here are few notes from the presentation about some of the comics on Act-i-Vate, if you need a place to start:

Panorama: "Nauseating, in a good way."
Ultra Boy: "Grusome, macabre, and fun."
Underwire: "It's for chicks!"
Fut Miso: The mini-comic at the bottom of this page was described as "The best thing on the site".
The End is Here: "I started with a daily strip about penguins way before all those movies came out." Described as the saddest comic ever. I just read it, and yeah, it goes from cute to soul-crushingly bleak in about one page. Hardcore anti-war sentiment.
Pecan Sandy: "It's Nick's reaction to Drawn & Quarterly."

Fun Fact:
Warren Ellis paid the $25 activation fee for the original Act-i-Vate domain name. "The Act-i-Vators could only come up with nineteen."

For yet more FCBD and Act-i-Vate party photos, check out our Flickr.

Bergen Street Comics Opens In Brooklyn's Park Slope

We at Geekanerd have been so consumed with WATCHMOCOLYPSE that we missed an even more important event this Friday; the opening of a new comic shop in our very neighborhood! And not just any old comic shop, but one with leather seats, exposed brick, and original art on the walls. Rocketship may finally have some competition for all those Best Comic Store in Brooklyn awards.

I had a chance to speak to Tom Adams, the owner of the shop and "comic evangelist" who NY comic nerds may recognize from his previous job at Midtown Comics. He said the store will offer $20 back for every $100 you spend, they'll be doing Free Comic Book day in May and Dollar Comic Book Day in April, and they'll be having a grand opening party on March 13th. You can get updates on the store via Twitter, Facebook, a in-progress website.

More photos of this newly minted store, after the jump...


The new releases are at the back of the store...I picked up the new Buffy, but didn't have time to check for any of my favorite smaller titles. Next Wednesday will be the real test.

Come on, how many comic stores actually INVITE you to sit down and read the merch, much less in a nice leather chair? For those who don't want to zoom in, that's Scott Pilgrim #1 on display, coupled with the Annotated Pilgrim. Genuine class.

The pages on the wall are original inks of Brahm Revel's Guerrillas, which is currently being put out by Image Comics.

Here's Tom The Owner, racking up the Marvel Section. From the store's Twitter: "All day and night genre-racking our books = Heaven."

Hey, where's the storefront and awning? Well, I was so looking forward to reading my Buffy comic*...I kinda forgot to take a picture of the outside. But as of Saturday 3/7, the awning just said "COMICS" in big gold off-center letters, so presumably there's more to come.



*And it wasn't even a very good issue >:(