This coming Saturday, May 3rd is the first Saturday in May. For some people that means Free Comic Book Day
It’s a day promoting the art form at participating comic shops all over the country. Select comic books are given out as promotion. There are special deals. That sort of thing.
This year as last, Troy Freund will be hosting a staged dramatic reading from comic books at the Boulevard Theatre. His SPOILERS MKE: The Sequel will make it to the Boulevard’s intimate space on 2252 South Kinnickinnic Avenue for two performances: one at 1:30 pm and 3:3o pm. Both performances are free.
Kind of a fun premise, Freund has video footage of last year’s Spoilers event available on YouTube. Here’s a look:
Last year’s program included work by Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Chris Claremont, Peter David and Frank Miller among others.
(It’s weird looking at the above footage. I’ve read some of these comics and it’s very strange hearing it out of the context of the visual medium. So as long as I’ve got the basic info out of the way, I’m going to do a little fanboy geek out and list a few that I’d like to see in the staged reading...these doubtlessly will NOT be included on the performances. Freund hasn’t listed what’s actually being performed. Here’s what I’d love to hear, though...if they can do this sort of thing in comic book fanboy blogs, I see no reason why I can’t do this here.
Evan Dorkin--Anything from Milk and Cheese--Some really funny social satire with crude, brutal and profoundly witty dialogue that would be a lot of fun to hear aloud. Dairy Products Gone Bad, they are a carton of hate and a wedge of spite.
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Anne Nocenti--an excerpt from her run on Daredevil--She was criticized for bringing too strong a feminist political angle to the book, but even if you don’t agree with her politics, Nocenti had some really poetic stuff that would work really well in a staged reading.
Dave Sim--an excerpt from High Society --Sophisticated political satire that’s broken-down into clever, little bite-sized episodic fragments. Get someone with a decent Groucho impersonation for Lord Julius and you’re halfway there. )
None of the above is on the show, but whatever it is that Freund chooses should be fun. It's interesting enough to see this dialogue pulled of the page and spoken aloud like this. And it’s free and it’s in Bay View on a spring afternoon, so why not check it out?
