I've been a comic book fan for over 20 years so it's always cool to meet fellow geeks. I first discovered the Comic Book Fiend Club on Instagram, a little over a year ago. These guys have built something more than just a club, it's a family. They come together to help fellow members when life "happens". They do charity like their Comics for the Military campaign they do every year. Being a member of this club is definitely something I would love to happen in the future. I was really interested in how the idea of the club came about. So, I reached out to Aaron (MercWithABeard), one of the Co-Founders and President of the West Chapter and asked him a few questions
1. How long have you been a comic book fan?
For as long as I can remember. When I was around 12 my uncle had boxes and boxes of comics. So my cousin and I would spend hrs reading them and talking about the different characters and who we thought could beat up who and who would be awesome team-ups. Those were some good times.
2. Where did the idea for Comic Book Fiend Club come from?
Me wanting another form of brotherhood. I’ve played in a metal band for most of my life and when it slowed down around 2014, I started missing the work and brotherhood that came with it. During that time, my girl and myself started hitting up a lot of conventions in Southern California. Meeting some amazing people , cosplayers, artists and vendors. We fell in love with the geek community. From there I knew this could be a platform for myself to bring people together like we did with music. I met a few nerds on IG (Instagram) through comic related posts, so I hit up my IG buddy Jessie Ramon about the idea of getting a bunch of nerds together for meet ups at cons and comic reviews on IG. Jessie was down from day one and brought up a guy he met on IG named Steve Scline who had/has the biggest Batman collection known to man. After talking with Steve about the idea , I hit up my new Con buddy Rene Garcia. And within a day, the Founding Fathers of the CBFC were working on ideas for the club. The Name and Logo just came to me. Being a huge Misfits fan, I love the Fiend Club concept they have and brought that idea to the geek community. So I called my buddy who designed most of my bands album covers and merch designs to do me up a design for the club and within a week the Crimson Bat was born.
3. What has been the most rewarding thing about the club?
Building a Family. Not just in the geek community, but real life. We’ve had dinners together, celebrated babies together, celebrating weddings together and more recently dealt with heartache together when our brother Chris Garcia was in that horrible accident. Chris is doing amazing now, but seeing the CBFC Family along with the geek community come together during the hardest of times, made our eyes open up wide and really appreciate the Family we’ve built. Along with that, the impact from Charities has been amazing to witness. Our “Comics for our Military” campaign we run year round, has been amazing to be apart of. Honestly we have a lot to be proud of. The hard work our members put into this club is incredible to watch.
4. How often will you be expanding membership?
Open enrollment is April and October of every year. April being our small enrollment period and October being our big enrollment period.
5. What do you look for when accepting new members?
The Comic Book Fiend Club is a social club, so when looking for new members, we want to see social people in the geek community. People that love and respect the geek community like we do. IG is our platform for enrollment, so we look for IG pages that are not just selling pages, google images pages, raffle pages and we love seeing people post not just comic related material. We want to see real people.
6. Who are your favorite comic book characters, besides Deadpool lol ?
Well growing up Captain America was my favorite character. But the minute I picked up a X-Force comic book, my life changed. I quickly became a fan. The stories and artwork was amazing. The characters were all amazing. Shortly after Cable became my favorite character along with Domino, Boom Boom, Warpath and Shatterstar. I remember reading the last 10/15 issues of New Mutants and getting pissed that it ended after New Mutants #100 came out , but then X-Force #1 came out and my world was back on track. Honestly I didn’t become a Deadpool fan during the X-Force days. It wasn’t until the 1997 series from Joe Kelly that I became a fan. I came across some back issues and shortly after became a huge Deadpool Fanboy.
7. Where do you see the club in 5 years?
In 5 years the club will be 9 years strong. I see bigger expansions. We currently have members in almost every state in the United States along with members in Canada, Scotland and the U.K. I never imagined the club that four random nerds started back in 2015 would turn into this. With 5 more years under our belts, I want to see the club brand be well known throughout the geek community worldwide. I want to see our family grow and be the backbone that the geek community bends on for geeks in need. Through both charities and events.