On Saturday, July 3 the Saturday after the sequel to Spider-Man opens the comic book industry will set off its own version of fireworks: Free Comic Book Day is back, and it's better than ever!
The annual event is the perfect opportunity to introduce your friends and family to worlds of wonder available at your local comic book store. From super-heroes to slice-of-life to action/adventure and beyond, Free Comic Book Day has a comic book for everyone!
What's the difference between the Gold and the Silver sponsors? Can I still expect the Silver books for free on Saturday? All the Gold books look like crap...
What's the difference between the Gold and the Silver sponsors? Can I still expect the Silver books for free on Saturday? All the Gold books look like crap...
Uhhh... I'm a little fuzzy on this, but IIRC the Gold Sponsor books will be available at every participating store, and the Silver Sponsor books are only available at participating stores that specifically requested those books.
Yay, someone else is excited about this. I've been going to stores all over Austin for Free Comic Day with a friend of mind since 2002. I love getting free stuff. The stores around here are so cool because they just throw merchandise at you, I got like 20 comics last year from one store.
I wanna get that Everest preview from Oni - that looks good. I wonder if my shop will have it. Anyway, the only real reason I'm going is the big sale that they're doing at the store. I'll probably grab some trades that I've been meaning to get.
Hmmm...I might take a one mile walk to my nearest store, pick a couple of those up. Might grab an Ultimate Spider-Man volume as well while I'm down there (think the last one I got was the X-Men arc).
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY SUCKS! COMICS INDUSTRY DOOMED! OMG!
It was pretty lame, actually. They didn't have the oni book that I wanted - the whole reason I went to the thing! And they were limiting everybody to two free comics. They were having some kind of raffle too - and the prize was some goofy comic book character statues. Yeah, that's going to get the typical Spider-Man 2 moviegoer into comics - a bust of the Green Lantern.
The IDW book was kind of interesting, though. They seem to have cornered the market on the OT Forum's favorite TV dramas, with The Shield and 24 comics (and they had a big ad for the MGS series on the back cover). The 24 book looks kind of cool, I might pick it up when it comes out, based on this preview -
Nina is a character in the book, and she's on the CTU team... that was kind of surprising. I guess it's set before the first season.
Is IDW the future of comics? There's a semi-scary thought.
Tokyopop had the coolest free thing - a digest sized manga anthology with a bunch of previews of upcoming stories. That's pretty unsurprising - Tokyopop murders everybody in the hype and advertising department. I saw a TV ad for that Courtney Love manga earlier today... very disorienting and frightening on a number of different levels, but still.... good hype, I guess.
Sucks for you, Silt. Heroes was great as usual (had some people doing drawings, didn't catch who they were though). We got to pick a copy of each book, but I didn't really bother with the free ones and picked up half my pull (as I hadn't gone all of June). The place was packed, lots of little kids picking up Spider-Man stuff (which is good).
From the website:
2 July 04--But wait: Free Comic Book Day is tomorrow! Can it already be that time again? And with Spider-Man 2 earning accolades left and right, we expect an enormous crowd in our store--not to mention the not inconsiderable draw that Cully Hamner, Adam Hughes, Kelsey Shannon, Brian Stelfreeze, and Doug Wagner of Gaijin Studios will exert over the masses. Believe me, we're battening down the hatches even as I type, ready for the coolest industry-wide function there is! We'll be giving away something like 2 or 3 dozen different comic books while supplies last, so show up early and get in on the ground floor of this exciting wing-ding!
Picked up all the comics I've been missing. Sleeper, Millar's Spider-Man, Astonishing X-Men, Gotham Central, Ultimate Spidey, The Losers, Daredevil, Human Target and Superman. Dropped Batman and The Flash. I think I forgot something, though. Maybe Swamp Thing.
Thanks for the heads up. I took my 5 year old daughter today and she had a blast. She picked up Teen Titians Go (based on the Cartoon Network Series) and some Mickey Mouse/Donald Duck stuff. I picked up Ultimate X Men and some other stuff I have never heard of.
Back in the late 70's/early to mid 80's I was quite the comic fan. I have all of the early Frank Miller Daredevil, a few Classic X-men from the 60's (issue 3-8 I think) and all of the key uncanny X-Men issues (Rise of Phoenix and Death) etc.
Heh, they had nothing but the Spider-Man comic by the time I got there...apparantely it was a zoo earlier in the day. I also picked up the Batman: Venom mini-series. Was hoping to grab at least one volume of Ultimate Spider-Man (got all of 'em up to the X-Men arc), but they didn't have any.