Rab’s World

The seventh annual Free Comic Book Day took place this Saturday, May 3rd, 2008. I love these ideas! Believe it or not; it only takes one person to spark the idea. Brainstormed by retailer Joe Field of Flying Colors Comics in Concord CA in his “Big Picture” column in the August 2001 issue of Comics & Games Retailer magazine, it was started in 2002 and is coordinated by the industry’s single large distributor, Diamond Comic Distributors.

I made a note of this day on my PDA. A great comic book store in my neighborhood was close to my daughter’s ballet academy. So, while she danced; I perused the Comic shop next door. I was immediately pulled to the 80a age comic book section. I grew up on the Fantastic Four; Amazing Peter Parker; Power Man & Iron Fist and the X-Men. It to me a full 15 minutes before I got to the ‘Free Comic Book Day’ section.

I went to the wiki to get more information. Then it struck me that the Marvel-inspired movie ‘Iron Man‘ premiered in North America on Friday, May 2nd in film theatres. This is what they said. “Free Comic Book Day is scheduled on the first Saturday of May after the release of a major theatrical film adaptation of a well known superhero property, in order to take advantage of the film’s heavy promotion and related press about the comic book medium. On Free Comic Book Day, participating comic book store retailers give away specially printed copies of free comic books, and some offer cheaper back issues and other items to anyone who visits their establishments. Last year; Spiderman 3 rocked the movie theatres. Retailers do not receive the issues for free; they pay 12-50 cents ^[1] per copy for the comics they will give away for free.

It seems to be effective in that it got me to visit a Comic Book store. I stopped collecting many years ago. Grabbing this X-Men comic will not make me look for back issues or get my monthly fix of upcoming issues. I just appreciate that this day exists.

So I’m thoroughly enjoying my Free Comic (although, I feel the word ‘comic’ is a misnomer’). I chose the Marvel Comic called the X-Men. I can tell you, there is nothing comical about this issue!

So if you missed it this year; just keep track of a major super Hero film release and look for the Free Comic Book Day on that Saturday in May. Here’s a sneak peek of what they offered yesterday.