Free Comic Book Day is one of my favorite days of the year. As the phenomenon has grown, it’s becoming more and more of an event, which makes me even happier. I love comics, and I love being able to find new comics to read. Free Comic Book Day offers a way to do that with minimal financial outlay while meeting fellow comic book enthusiasts.
The website http://www.freecomicbookday.com/Home/1/1/27/992 has gotten better and easier to navigate with each passing year. It used to be a bare bones announcement. But now, there are sections to find out more about artists and writers and other, much more famous, comic book geeks. You can see more about the sponsors of free comic book day and check out FAQs if you need more information.
The section that I like most about the website, however, is the Comics section. It has evolved to simple images of the covers of that year’s Free Comic Book Day selections into a resource to help plan your FCBD strategy. Yes, I have a strategy when I go in.
My local comic shop is a pretty nice place, but space is at a premium. Usually, they let in a few people at a time, let them grab their selections, and then let the tide gently carry them out the door. The crowd is polite, I’ve never seen any problems with line cutting, shoving, or grabbing. It’s just a whole bunch of people in not nearly enough space and, for some of them, it’s their very first experience in a comic book store.
More and more parents are taking the opportunity to use Free Comic Book Day to show their starry-eyed little sprockets how much fun being a geek can be. Most of the kids in line with their parents are dressed up proudly in their very best superhero logo shirt (last year, Captain America was pretty popular, but I saw a surprising number of kids wearing Flash t-shirts, too) or in full costume. I was right behind one dad who’d brought his son dressed as Thor. That kid was thrilled to death that everyone in line recognized who he was supposed to be, even my mom, who was visiting me during FCBD last year and was clearly the one in line who was not like the others.
Even more fun, we’ve got a local crew of guys who will use any excuse they can find to dress in full stormtrooper armor or in their Death Star crew uniforms. There was even a Darth Vadar to help rile up the crew. If anyone had really stopped to think about it, we probably would have found the lack of Jedi in the area disturbing.
Because there are so many people attending, there’s a limit to how many books you’re allowed to pick up, so they can maximize the number of participants who walk away with loot. I don’t, in any way, disagree with this policy. After all, the more recruits we bring to the comics side, the more likely the industry will be to flourish. Any time a kid can walk into an event like that and come out with a real, tangible souvenir, especially something as cool as a comic book, seems like a real way for everyone to win.
There are things to be aware of before diving headfirst into Free Comic Book Day, though. Yes, there are a lot of family friendly events and all ages comics out there. FCBD isn’t just about the kids, though. There are also comics available squarely geared for adults, because, hey, if we didn’t totally grow out of liking comics, we’re surely not going to grow out of liking to go to an event aimed at us, either.
That’s one of the reasons that I like the fact that the FCBD website has downloadable previews for a lot of the comics that will be available. Even if there’s not a preview, clicking on a cover of interest brings up a short description and a rating, so you can figure out if that comic is appropriate for your kid’s reading level. That’s important information to have, especially if the store you visit is full of excited geeks. It’s much harder to see what another person is picking up from the table. Most of us know the average eight year old probably shouldn’t get their hands on the “Fight Club” comic, but to someone completely new to comics, they may not have made the connection, especially if they never saw the movie.
FCBD always has a pretty good selection of all ages rated comics, and my local store is fantastic about making sure that those comics are the first and easiest ones for the little starry-eyed sprockets to see. Of course, I can’t speak for every comic shop out there, but I would suspect they are probably equally responsible because they’re fans like us and want to see FCBD continue to be the fun event that it has been thus far.
In case you’re wondering, the all ages selections this year include “Bob’s Burgers”, “Bongo Comics Free For All” (which features the Simpsons), “Boom Studios 10th Anniversary FCBD Special”,
“Bodie Troll & Friends”, “Rabbids”, and “Gronk and Friends”. It’s a decent mix of familiar properties and a smattering of indie comics that might inspire the next generation of geeks to start establishing ties to their local comic shops very early.
If all of this excitement sounds like fun, but you’re not quite sure how to get in on the action, the Free Comic Book Day website also offers a store locator http://www.freecomicbookday.com/storelocator so you can (hopefully) find a shop that’s participating in your area. Free Comic Book Day is May 2 this year. I hope you have as much fun this year as I’m sure I’m going to.