I can never rememeber when Free Comic Book Day is. I’ve heard about it for years, and I’ve only actually visited a comic store once to pick up some free comic books. But that was a number of years ago when I was still at Fairleigh; the comic books store was Dewey’s Comic City in Madison, NJ. There aren’t as many comic book stores as there once were (we have The Death of Superman to blame for that one), but Dewey’s is one of the better ones. I can’t honestly remember what I picked up that day. But I do know that they make comics specifically for the Free Comic Day.
What bothers me a bout Free Comic Book Day is that I never know when it is, I usually only hear about it after the event is over. Usually the next day. I guess it is usually held at the beginning of May (apparently, now, Â to coincide with a comic book movie that is coming out–this year, Iron Man 2) but I can never remember. One comic that stands out is War of the Supermen, which sounds like an extremely interesting story arc. CNN.com has the description of it:
– War of the Supermen #0 is the beginning of what is promised to be one of the biggest Superman events ever, the culmination of a years-long story arc, involving the arrival of 100,000 super-powered Kryptonians living on Earth. The idea behind these free comics is usually to make them accessible to new readers, so if they can pull this off, that will be quite the feat. Younger readers might want to check out the DC Kids Mega Sampler instead. (DC is owned by Time Warner, which also owns CNN.)
I haven’t actually purchased a comic book since probably back in 2000 when I was big into reading comics of all kinds. I even had them on hold at the local comic book shop and would drop twenty to forty bucks a stop every other week. I guess what finally got to me was going to college and just not having time anymore to read the comics. I guess I was also a little embarassed to be reading comics at school. I haven’t even really kept up with comics, big things happen and I just haven’t been paying any attention. A lot of the “new” types of comics that I was once reading (like: Gen 13, Fathom, Spy Boy, ect…) are all gone (Fathom is actually on its third publication, even after creater Michael Turner’s passing–which when I found out, I was pretty upset). I just don’t think I have the time nor the pocket for comics now, ten years after my last one. I may read about the results of the comic storyline, way after the fact, but, that part of me and “geekdom” are probably gone forever…
…watch, I’ll probably go buy a comic book later this week.
–Cos