Collector’s Ink, a local family-owned comic book shop with over one million comic books in stock, celebrated its 30 years of being open for business with a Halloween comic fest.

Patrons were encouraged to come in a Halloween costume. Those who did were treated to a free comic book.

“It’s a free comic book day that we do during the fall to promote reading and community,” Jason Reifert said.

Reifert, who works at his family-owned comic book shop, spoke on some of the books that were given for free.

“We have special comics that are special for this day by the different publishers,” he said.

“So we buy them and give them out to people just for coming in the door. A lot of the time they are special editions, for this day, of their reprints of really, really good issues that’s hard to get any other way,”

These comic books were a great compliment for this time of year.

“Specifically for comic fest they are all Halloween themed – everything’s got a horror undertone to it,” Reifert said.

Reifert’s wife, Michelle, enjoys this time of year for dressing up and coming to work in her costume.

“Halloween is my favorite holiday,” she said.

“I have dressed up every year for Halloween, all of my life. I’d go to school dressed up, I go to work dressed up, I actually try and make it fun. I’ve always been in customer service – it makes it fun for the kids, so I always make sure I have a fun costume.”

Chelsea Metzger came dressed as one of her favorite superheroes, a costume which she made herself.

“I am Faith from Valiant Comics and she is a costume that is my body type for once and I was so happy when I saw that, it’s so simple and she’s really fun,” she said.

“She loves movies as much as I do, she’s a huge nerd. I was like, this is perfect.”

Some of Jason Refiert’s Halloween horror comic book recommendations are Archie Horror Comics and the Walking Dead comic book.

Alex Coba can be reached at [email protected] or @ThatOneGuyCoba on Twitter