Before opening Ogre's Grove in Milton, Kristin and Justin "Ogre" Sinnott used to plan vacations in early May so they'd be in areas with several comic book shops. The biggest holiday of the year for pop-culture fans is Free Comic Book Day.

Publishers such as Marvel and DC Comics create special books to release on the first Saturday in May and sell them to retailers at cost, which then allows shops to give them to readers for free.

Free Comic Book Day was born in 2002, but it wasn't until 2018 that the Sinnotts had the means to bring it to the Cape Region instead of traveling to a larger town like Annapolis, Md. For more information, go to www.capegazette.com/node/157623.

When the couple found out that the official Free Comic Book Day 2020 was being postponed by the distributor, Diamond, due to the coronavirus pandemic, they brainstormed on how to still celebrate on the traditional date by handing out leftover comics from previous years. Milton has been allowing food drive-thrus, right across from the shop, so they decided to play off that idea.

Ogre called Town Manager Kristy Rogers to get approval, and she had traffic cones sent over so comics could be delivered curbside between the library and Ogre's Grove at 129 Union St. Since the space is only big enough for a couple cars, reservations were scheduled 10 minutes apart. In all, 30 families signed up, totaling 48 adults and 42 children. In addition to free comics, bags were stuffed with posters, stickers and other swag with the help of PLB Comics and the Ocean City Comic Con.

"This will go in the books as the weirdest Free Comic Book Day, but Ogre and the Grove here, we went ahead and moved forward anyway. We made a lot of people happy and put a lot of smiles on faces," Ogre said to Joe "the Beast" McCoy of All Comics Access. To see the interview, go to www.bit.ly/FREECOMICBOOKDAY1.

To be notified when the official Free Comic Book Day books will be released, sign up for the Minion Mailing List at www.OgresGrove.com.