Saturday, May 4, was this year’s Free Comic Book Day! From my experience as well as all I’ve heard and read about it, I think FCBD 2024 was another big event for local comic shops!
JUST WHAT IS FREE COMIC BOOK DAY?
If you go to freecomicbookday.com, you’ll find out a lot about this yearly event in the comics industry. FCBD is described as “a single day when participating comic book specialty shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their shops.”
Here’s a little more information:
“Every year, on the first Saturday in May, the industry comes together to give away free comics and encourage both curious, first-time comic book readers and seasoned comic book fans to flock to the best place in the comic book community: local comic shops. Each one is unique in its community, with a style and personality all its own, and each one carries a full line of comics, graphic novels, toys, and related products. Local comic shops are the hubs of our community, where fans can come together to discover new comics, make lifelong friends, and find a sense of commonality.”
More than 2,300 local comics shops annually participate in this event, and that includes DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing, BOOM! Studios, Dynamite Entertainment, and Image Comics. There’s always a diverse range of titles available, and that often includes some Indie comics publishers.
Some stores even held costume contests, creator signings, drawings by guest artists, raffles, prizes, and other fun community events. It is often the busiest day of the year in many local shops.
FCBD 2024
Free Comic Book Day is really and for true back! Many of the shops I checked in with offered numerous FCBD books to fans who participated. And there were several comics from the “big three” (Marvel, DC, and Image) as well as from other publishers including BOOM!, Dark Horse, Dynamite, IDW, Scholastic, Arcana, Overstreet, Gemstone, Penguin Young Readers, and Valiant, just to name a few.
Like FCBD’s in years past, the earlier you got there, the better the selection there was for you to choose from! Many shops limited the number of books you could pick up, but there were some that were happy to let you take individual copies of just about everything! If you went to one of those places, you’re likely still making your way through all the comics you picked up!
Of course, every shop hopes that you won’t only pick up the free stuff! As you check out the store around the free comics, you just might see something you want to pay for and take home as well!
From what I hear, the number of people who came by was actually again very strong. Overall, the stores I checked in with were thrilled Free Comic Book Day continues to do well with them handing out free comics and also selling their wares!
If you didn’t get a chance to stop by your local comics shop, you can always visit there in the next few days and see if there are any of those free comics left! Many stores will be happy to give you copies of books that remain! Some stores also donate them to local hospitals including pediatric wards so kids of all ages can still benefit from them.
WHAT WERE MY IMPRESSIONS?
There were several books I got to read, and that included DC, Marvel, Dynamite, BOOM!, and Valiant.
I also got a chance to look at the successful books Scholastic sells since they had a preview of Unico Awakening. All-ages books and anime remain quite the rage these days, and it was a real opportunity for me to actually read material from this comic. I had interviewed Samuel Sattin about this comic some time back, so it was great to see what he had worked so hard on! It’s been described as “a dynamic reimagining of Osamu Tezuka’s classic UNICO manga for a new generation of readers. UNICO tells the incredible story of a young unicorn who, after enraging the evil goddess Venus, is banished from the heavens and forgets all he once was. Saved from oblivion by the kindhearted West Wind, Unico continues to help others, before having to escape Venus again and begin a new adventure.” I highly recommend anime fans track this one down for sure!
I seriously liked the DC ones (of course!) and some of the Marvel previews. I find myself buying more and more of the Dynamite comics as they continue to revisit popular animated series, this time including Jonny Quest! Yes, I’m excited to see that one come back! And they went back to the “original series,” as it were, not the follow-up shows.
Fans of the “Energon Universe,” which included Transformers, G.I. Joe, and Void Rivals, had a book with three new stories in it from the biggest names in comics! They described it as “a perfect jumping-on point for new readers and a can’t miss for long-term fans.”
One of the books that some fans found hard to get was The Worlds of James Tynion IV. This book was helping celebrate the five-year anniversary of Something Is Killing the Children and the ten-year anniversary of The Woods and Memetic. It also had materials from Wynd, my personal favorite of his! Both he and his mentor Scott Snyder have been doing well in recent years!
The book that got some fans of Doctor Who (called “Whovians”) excited was a preview including the Fifteenth Doctor and his companion Ruby. Here in the U.S., fans have seen Ncuti Gatwa play this latest incarnation only a few times on Disney+. Oddly enough, there are a lot of Whovians that don’t like comics or novels or other forms of storytelling—just the TV episodes! This has always provided a challenge for the franchise, but maybe things will change this time around!
However, overall I think Free Comic Book Day was back, strutting its stuff well, hopefully adding new readers as well as attracting previous fans back into the fold! We need every one of you!
What do you think? Did you go to one of the local comics shops in your area? If so, what did they do well, and what could they have done better? Do you plan on participating in FCBD 2025? Regardless of your opinion, please be sure to share your thoughts below!
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Wayne Hall creates the Wayne's Comics Podcast. He’s interviewed Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, John Layman, Kyle Higgins, Phil Hester, Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, David Petersen, Christos Gage, Mike Grell, and Matt Kindt. On this site each week, he writes his "Comics Portal" column (general comics comments and previews) and reviews comics.