Saturday was a busy day as May the 4th combined with Free Comic Book Day and we headed downtown to the Jacksonville Public Main Library to celebrate.

May the 4th is also known as Star Wars day, while the 5th is unofficially Revenge of the 5th. What started as a pun, “May the 4th be with you,” turned into a worldwide celebration of all things Star Wars. This year it was also Free Comic Book Day, which falls on the 1st Saturday in May. It’s a day where you can visit your local comic book store and get free comics! Our main library combined the two into one fun comic convention style event.

I was planning to wear a Princess Leia costume, but with the recent passing of Peter Mayhew (the actor that played the original Chewbacca), I felt it was time to dust off my fur and boots and pull Chewbacca out of retirement. I hadn’t worn the costume in five years! Luckily everything still fit and the costume only required minor fixes. My son decided to join the Dark Side for the day and wore a Darth Vader costume. (it was actually pajamas!) I had a cute t-shirt as a back-up, but he was excited to dress up and play with his new light saber.

I was one of the judges for costume contest that day too. So many cute costumes! It’s always a tough job to judge contests. It was great to see so many people turn out and also enter the contest. Congrats to the big winners of the day!

If you aren’t familiar with cosplay, females dressing as male characters is also known as “crossplay” or “genderbent cosplay” and it just goes to show you can dress as anything you want! Although some people get a little confused by my female wookie so I just tell them I’m Chewie’s sister, “ChewBecca,” LOL. I always have fun wearing this outfit and yes, I can do a wookiee roar!

So did you get out for May the 4th and Free Comic Book Day? Tell me how you celebrated!