BOARDMAN — For fans of the Marvel universe, Saturday was a perfect way to kick off the summer movie season as a new Marvel movie hit theaters and comic book stores across the country celebrated Free Comic Book Day.

At All American Cards and Comics in Boardman and Warren, fans of all ages gathered to celebrate the occasion by grabbing armfuls of free comics and chatting with fellow fans. Both stores were buzzing with excitement as some fans eagerly anticipated celebrating later by checking out “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” which hit theaters Friday.

Between both stores, owner Greg Bartholomew said he ordered 3,000 to 4,000 comic books. To celebrate their 30th anniversary, the stores also had a 30-percent-off sale.

BOARDMAN STORE

Randy Moy, a manager at the Boardman location, has been a part of the celebration for 20 years. Moy admitted he once was a comic book collector but has transitioned to graphic novels.

As indicated by an empty row of tables, Moy saw a decent amount of business throughout the day, many of whom linger about the store thumbing through their favorite comics.

“It’s mostly nonregulars. I have a handful of regulars who come in but it’s mostly nonregular customers,” Moy said. “We get crushed early during the sale then there’s a sharp decline throughout the day.”

Among the crowd was Kim Frederick, 52, of Youngstown, and her son, Zion Frederick Smith, 16, of Austintown, who flipped through the pages of their favorite titles and chatted excitedly about their outfit plans for Comic Con, which is a few months away.

Kim Frederick, a comic book fan herself since childhood, said she’s eyeing a chance to dress up as Predator, a species of extraterrestrial hunters with advanced weaponry and technology used for trophy hunts. She said she typically tries to dress as black superheroes like X-Men’s Storm.

“We had a little store in our neighborhood that sold comics on a little rack,” Kim Frederick said. “My character was Wonder Woman, anything that had to do with a woman being a superhero.”

Zion has been a collector for eight years. His mother told him about the free comic day and sale, which he gladly took advantage of armed with copies of X-Men and Venom.

He remembered having a love of Spider-Man, his first comic starting out, but has since developed a love for the character Deadpool.

“Deadpool was one of the first comics I got from an actual comic con. I was in third or fourth grade when the teaser trailer for the movie came out. I loved it. I thought it was awesome,” Zion said.

An illustrator, Jake Fife, also was at the Boardman location. He displayed some of his artwork and promoted a collaborative comic called “A Kid and a Comic,” a publication featuring a number of comic book creators showcasing their characters in comic strip form.

WARREN STORE

The Warren location on Courthouse Square also had a busy day. Bartholomew, of Leavittsburg, called the event a “great way to bring people in. ”

“To tie everything when a Marvel or DC movie is coming out, the comic book publishers will make a promotional comic book for us to give away,” Bartholomew said. “It gets all the comic book people together. Even if you’re not into comic books, the event attracts those people who want a good bargain or don’t stop by comic book shops often.”

Bartholomew estimated 300 to 400 people stopped by the downtown shop Saturday. At least 85 percent of the customers he saw were new faces. Bartholomew has lived in Warren for 20 years and started the comic-centric shop in 2002, around the time of the release of the Sam Raimi and Toby Maguire Spider-Man movies.

However, his love for comics stretches back to the early 1970s when his parents would take him and his brother on family vacations in the summertime.

“This is the early to mid-70s, no phones or handheld video games,” Bartholomew said. “So my mom and dad would stop at a convenience store and give us a dollar each. At that time, comics cost 25 cents so we’d get four for a dollar.”

Whenever friends had a sleepover he recalled everyone sitting and reading their favorite comics. His first comic is hard to remember but he believes it was a DC comic, as he was originally a Batman and Superman fan before getting into the Fantastic Four and the X-Men in the late ’70s.

Clutching three copies of Flash comics, his favorite hero, Donald Cook, 11, of Warren, was alongside his mother, Renee Cook, rummaging through the shelves.

“We come every year for the free comics, but it’s also like a routine for us where he always gets a new Flash comic book every year,” Renee Cook said.

Her son has been an avid comic book fan since the age of 4. According to his mother, Donald’s dad kept a collection of original, still-packaged Superman comics. A curious Donald asked his father what they were and he eventually fell in love.

His mother said his collection is at least in the range of 100, with Flash making up about 20 to 40 of the comics in his collection.