Tomorrow is Free Comic Day

Tomorrow (Saturday May 3), a large number of comic shops will participate in Free Comic Day, a day designed to introduce new readers to comics. Use the above link to locate participating stores and check for available issues, and then show up and get some free comics.

8 replies on “Tomorrow is Free Comic Day”

  1. They miss the point
    The comics industry is so myopic they can’t even see why this idea will not get new readers. The only people who ever go into comic stores are already comic readers. Giving them free comics is nice, but won’t introduce any new readers to the industry. What they need is to get comics in front of people anywhere besides comics stores!
    I remember when I was a kid just starting to read comics I saw them on display in drug stores, supermarkets, newsstands, card shops, anywhere they had any products targetted at kids. Now I never see comics outside of the comic store anymore.
    As comics readers get older and start to get married and have kids (ie: get busy) the industry will slowly lose it’s readership.

    • Re: They miss the point

      The comics industry is so myopic they can’t even see why this idea will not get new readers. The only people who ever go into comic stores are already comic readers.

      That’s the problem with the Tsunami line, too, I think. The line is targeted at getting teenage girls to start reading comics, but if they’re not in comic shops already, it won’t do a lot of good. That might pay off this fall, when the graphic novels collecting those issues start to land in regular bookstores, but not sooner.

      The free comics do have hopes, though. A few hundred thousand Free Comic Day copies of Ultimate X-Men #1 will be randomly inserted into issues of today’s New York Post, with a URL for the comic shop locater so they can find a local store participating in Free Comic Day. That’s a step in the right direction, but they need to get more than Archie titles in grocery stores and gas stations if they really want the industry to thrive again. When the only titles most of the public sees are those published under the Archie label, the general public is going to have a pretty poor view of comics overall. (I personally think that Archie relates to the comic industry in much the same way that McDonald’s relates to the restaurant industry.)

      The most good comes out of Free Comic Day, I think, when people go to the stores, load up on free comics, and then start passing them to friends who don’t normally visit comic shops.

    • Re: broken link

      That link don’t work, Bub…

      This happens when you post news at 4:30am. I’ll go fix it in the story now…

  2. sort of agree
    I actually see a lot of comics in book stores – but quite frankly, that’s not really the reason I don’t buy comics (the lack of them being in places other than comic stores). I don’t buy comics because I can’t reliably go pick up one comic a month – I just don’t remember. I don’t buy magazines that way. I’d just forget to think about it, and miss an issue. With something that has a serial storyline like that there’s no way I’d manage it. a few comic stores have “subscription” services where you can have them order YOUR comics and hold them in a bundle and you come pick them up every month, but what I want is delivery to my home. OR, better than that, I want more graphic novels. I’ve gone out to get several of those recently (beyond the Gaiman stuff I’ve been reading, even) and while they’re expensive, they’re really nice to keep on your bookshelf. they don’t have quite the same feeling that comics do – the whole “it’s so fragile and I need to keep it really nice just in case one day it’s worth something OH NO DON’T TOUCH THE PAGES!!!” thing. With a graphic novel I can read it over and over and let my friends read it. If the prices on those came down, I’d be buying graphic novels up the wazoo.

    • Re: sort of agree

      I know many comic book stores allow you to have them pull out copies for you. I know I used to have a big list and then every month I would go and pick up my lot.

      What really killed it for me was that all of the comics I was following (Marvel XMen being one) went down the tubes with regard to story and drawing.

      Some of you may or may not know is that when Image comics started, they were a bunch of Marvel artists that were fed up and wanted to do it their way. At first I loved it, but after a while, their style of art grew very weary. Everyone, men and women, were cut out of the same cookie cutter. Humungous, cut, well built, etc… In fact many of the character’s faces looked very much alike. There was no uniqueness amongst the characters beyond the clothes they wore.

      I really used to enjoy the Valient line of comics, Man O’ War, Solar, Harbinger. But then they were bought by another line, they scrapped all of the original story lines, started over with issue #1. I hated this, they had great characters that I invested many many (too many) hours in reading.

      But enough of my rant…

      • Re: sort of agree

        Some of you may or may not know is that when Image comics started, they were a bunch of Marvel artists that were fed up and wanted to do it their way. At first I loved it, but after a while, their style of art grew very weary. Everyone, men and women, were cut out of the same cookie cutter. Humungous, cut, well built, etc… In fact many of the character’s faces looked very much alike. There was no uniqueness amongst the characters beyond the clothes they wore.

        Sorry, my original point of this paragraph was that Marvel then saw how good Image was doing and brought them back in on the team. I think it really hurt them in the long run, at least from my point of view.

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