By William E. Ketchum III | wketchum@mlive.com
FLINT, MI--This weekend, a Flint comic book store is welcoming artists and comic book fans to get some free books and see artists in action.
Comic Relief, a store located on Fenton Road in Flint, is hosting its fourth 24-Hour Comic Book Day on Saturday. The event began at 10 a.m., and the store will open overnight until 10 a.m. on Sunday morning.
A rack of free comics was available near the back of the store, and other back issues were half off for the day. Comic illustrators Randy Zimmerman and Robert Marzullo sketched pages by the entrance.
"It's an extra way to get sales, but it's also a decent way to give back to the community," said Wayne Luck, the store's manager. "We have a ton of backproduct, why not kick some of it out the front door?"
Comic Relief has been around for 28 years, Luck said. Between him and Zimmerman, who owns Flint Comix, "we know just about anybody that has a pen. ... If you read books, we probably know you."
Zimmerman said that in 2010, he delivered the original goal of the event: creating a 24-page comic in 24 hours. The comic was about a little boy who went to the store for 24-hour Comic Book Day, but got tired throughout the night.
The story mirrors Zimmerman's while creating the comic.
"It took a lot of cartoonist tricks, taking out backgrounds, and a lot of caffeine. The farther into the night it gets, the crazier the story gets," he said. "The key is to see if you can be that creative in a day. some people can spend eight hours on a page, depending on their detail."
This year, Zimmerman wasn't going for a 24-page comic in 24 hours. Instead, he was sketching for an upcoming edition of Flint Comix. Marzullo, a Burton resident, drew a picture of Spider-Man before practicing scene sketching for the second book of a new comic he has started, entitled Black Stone Eternal.
"This is my first time here, but I'll be back for sure," he said.
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