Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So today I'm starting a new series that's focused solely on the comics that were published for Free Comic Book Day 2021, which was this past weekend. I don't know if I'm going to review every single one as there are 54 of them and I'm not sure I want to spend a year + two weeks reviewing the majority of these books that I don't even really care about that much. However, I will at least review all of the ones that I do care about. Including this one which is a blast from the past. Specifically my past. So let's get into this week's Free Comic Book Day 2021 issue, The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids: Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots!
I don't normally look up what issues are coming out for Free Comic Book Day ahead of time just so I'm surprised when I browse the table the books are on at the comic book store. So when Brad dropped off a bagful of comics from Free Comic Book Day and I began rifling through them, I was completely bowled over by the fact that this book even existed. It's really just a sampler to entice readers to pick up the graphic novel.
So I had no idea that this book even existed. The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids isn't a series I see people talk about online and it never had a TV show or movie adaptation like The Babysitter's Club, Goosebumps, and Animorphs did so I wasn't exactly following it online the way I do the other series I mentioned, particularly Animorphs. But it's actually a fairly recent comic book adaptation. And by recent, I mean within the last two to four weeks as the cover date is August 2021. So it's brand new.
The graphic novel is based on the first book in the series, Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones, which was published back in 1990, so before the first Goosebumps book had even come out. The basic premise of the series is a group of third graders who attend Bailey School, encounter monsters with a particular trait. For example, in this one, their teacher is a vampire who wears polka dots. In another book, called Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses, their bus driver is a Gargoyle who has the ability to turn to stone at will, unlike the Gargoyles in the Disney Afternoon TV series.
My history with The Adventures of the Bailey School Kids is actually quite limited. I only ever had two books in the series, and I don't remember reading any others either. The ones I had were Book #14, Monsters Don't Scuba Dive and Book #19, Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses. I got both of them at my school's Scholastic Book Fair, but oddly enough I got Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses before I got Monsters Don't Scuba Dive for whatever reason.
Because I've never Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots and because this issue is basically a preview for the full graphic novel, I was a bit confused. It's not the full graphic novel, but I also don't know whether it's a preview of the first 28 pages or 28 pages from the middle of the book as it's an 80 page graphic novel. So I don't really have anything to say about the story since it's not the complete story that's in the graphic novel. The artwork is decent though, and it was interesting to see all these characters again, even though I don't actually remember any of them. After all I haven't read the books in about 20 years, maybe 22 years at the most. It was still cool though.
Overall it was a nice preview. I'm probably not going to get the full graphic novel. At least not of this book. If Scholastic publishes the graphic novel version of Gargoyles Don't Drive School Buses then that's the one I'd get since it's the first Bailey School Kids book that I ever got. However if you're my age or were an older kid in the '90s, then I'd recommend getting the full graphic novel, since, unless you were able to get it at your local comic book store on Saturday, or if they have any extra left after the fact, it's going to be difficult to get this Free Comic Book Day issue preview version, and it definitely won't be free. Most comic book stores, at least in my area, usually sell leftover Free Comic Book Day issues for $1, $2 at the most.
And that's it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow for another post. It's not a review or an announcement post per se. It's going to be an article about a topic that all of us geeks can relate to. Trying to keep up with everything when there's so much content out there and not enough time in the day to watch it all. So come on back for that sometime, eh, I'd say in the afternoon or early evening. Before dinnertime for sure. Until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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