Free Comic Book Day 2009

For the 4 of you that read this, and the one of you that may pay attention:

Free Comic Book Day is this Saturday.

For the past few years, the first Saturday in May promotes literacy. As the doors fling open and the gates go up, hundreds, if not thousands of comics will readily be available to the public for FREE! Show up at a participating store or location, and grab yourself some cool reading.

Common misconceptions:

1. Not every comic book in the store is free.
2. You do not just get to pick anything and take it for free.
3. Don't be a jerk and take more than one of any title. I don't care if it may go up in value.
4. Just because we didn't get enough copies of your independent free comic, don't whine.
5. The comic book stores do actually have to pay for these things. It's at a reduced rate, but the comic book store owners agree to hand them out for free.

I don't think I have ever really been there for a Free Comic Book Day. I at least never had to work it. I think I showed up last year just to see how it was going.

Here is a list of some of the free comics (Marvel and DC Comics tend to do 2 freebies each):

• Archie Comics: Archie Presents: The Mighty Archie Art Players
• BOOM! Studios: Disney/Pixar’s Cars
• Bongo Comics: 2009 Free For All
• Dark Horse Comics: Star Wars: Clone Wars
• DC Comics: Blackest Night #0 and DC Kids Mega Sampler
  
• IDW Publishing: Transformers Animated/G.I. Joe
• Image Comics: Savage Dragon #148
• Oni Press: Resurrection #0
• Marvel Comics: The Avengers and Wolverine: Origin of an X-Man
  
• Viz Media: Shonen Jump Presents: Ultimo

Most of the books are reprints of some kind. Once and a while, the freebie is new material, like DC's Blackest Night #0, which sets up the summer event for the company. In some cases the new material eventually gets handed out everywhere, but demand is still high, so they release a purchasable version of the book. Marvel did it with a Spider-Man and an X-men free comics from the last 2 years.

There really is stuff in there for everyone. That is not even a complete list of comic available. I particularly like the attention to the younger reader comics because they tend to be better stories. Many of today's most prolific writers got their start writing the "kids' books". DC Comics tends to win out in that vein. Other comics are media tie ins' that showcase the company with a license of other media, like Disney's Cars, and the GI Joe/Transformer stuff. Dark Horse is even coming out with a new Aliens comic for it. Oh, and if you didn't know, Bongo Comics is almost solely Simpsons related.

So, please, if you can, make it out to your local, supporting comic books shop for some free stuff. Once and a while they even have events to coincide with the "holiday."

My store won't have any real events because we aren't a real comic book store in my opinion. We will have a ton of free books for people though.