So it's that time of year again, the first Saturday of May where thousands of comic book stores partake in Free Comic Book Day.
For those unaware, Free Comic Book Day started in 2002 by a California comic book store as a means of getting publicity for both comic books and the stores which sell them, having a date which coincides with the typical big blockbuster comic movie of that year (which recently has become the exclusive domain of Marvel). Today it's partaken by thousands of comic book shops, with countless comics which where specifically printed for this event.
Selection and the ammount of comics from the options tend to vary (it's usually proportional to the size of the store itself, and some have a "spent 10$ and get you can take 5 more on top of that" option), but one thing they have in common is one only need to walk in to get some. Usually they will be Issue #0, Issue #1 or overviews of a story arc, all with the intent of both interesting the reader and hopefully getting them to buy the product it's a glorified advertisement for (it's worked on me in the past).
This year I got 21 comics from the 3 stores within a 5 minute distance from my collage (my friends and I hit them together), though one of them was actually a 4-in-1 manga and 4 of the comics where from a rare "single multi-comic" pack for Free Comic Book Day that had each of the 4 comics have 2 stories from different series.
I also ended up spending 70$ on 3 Daredevil graphic novels (The Murdock Papers, Redemption and Reborn), but I guess that was part of the whole point.
So, what did the rest of you do for Free Comic Book Day?
For those unaware, Free Comic Book Day started in 2002 by a California comic book store as a means of getting publicity for both comic books and the stores which sell them, having a date which coincides with the typical big blockbuster comic movie of that year (which recently has become the exclusive domain of Marvel). Today it's partaken by thousands of comic book shops, with countless comics which where specifically printed for this event.
Selection and the ammount of comics from the options tend to vary (it's usually proportional to the size of the store itself, and some have a "spent 10$ and get you can take 5 more on top of that" option), but one thing they have in common is one only need to walk in to get some. Usually they will be Issue #0, Issue #1 or overviews of a story arc, all with the intent of both interesting the reader and hopefully getting them to buy the product it's a glorified advertisement for (it's worked on me in the past).
This year I got 21 comics from the 3 stores within a 5 minute distance from my collage (my friends and I hit them together), though one of them was actually a 4-in-1 manga and 4 of the comics where from a rare "single multi-comic" pack for Free Comic Book Day that had each of the 4 comics have 2 stories from different series.
I also ended up spending 70$ on 3 Daredevil graphic novels (The Murdock Papers, Redemption and Reborn), but I guess that was part of the whole point.
So, what did the rest of you do for Free Comic Book Day?
