Free Comic Book Day! Here’s What You Missed!
For the first time in five years, Free Comic Book Day was not held on the first Saturday in May. That threw many (including myself) off. Not to anyone's surprise, we can blame the ongoing pandemic for the delay, but the fact that we still got to celebrate it, especially when many aspects of the print industry is in decline, brings me much joy! Yes, we got to celebrate it, just a little later, on August 14th, and celebrate it, I did!
Free Comic Book Day helps bring new readers and enthusiasts into different different book outlets, more than 2,300 stores across the country when you get down to it. That's not even taking into account how this (to many) holiday has spread over to Australia, Europe & Asia. According to NationalToday.com, Free Comic Book Day started back in 2002 at the same time as the release of the Tobey Maguire / Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie. The idea came from a California comic shop owner realizing the uptick in sales around the releases of movies. He wrote an article that was published, one thing led to another and history was made.
Nineteen years later, we were able to celebrate with over 50 titles released for free from not only Marvel and DC, but smaller publishers like Valliant, Dynamite, Dark Horse, Archie, Tokyopop, Titan Comics, Boom! Studios, Image, IDW, Aftershock just to name a few. At our local Yakima comic shop, Ron's Coin & Collectables there was quite the turnout (my pics don't do it justice), allowing guests to pick 3 books for free. Here's a look at the event from this past Saturday, August 14th.
For, what I believe is the first time in the 19 year run, Free Comic Book Day actually got into the public Library to help give books away! Thanks to Facebook page of the Yakima Valley Libraries, I was informed that the Sunnyside, WA. branch would be participating in FCBD. So, my wife & I took the trek down to the lower valley!
They only received about a third of the comic offerings, but were limiting guests to 5 different issues each. I was then informed about all the comic books / graphic novels (trade paperbacks) that could be checked out via the Library. This blew me away, I've just bought my comics, and yes, I've had some regrets on bad stories. I will definitely be looking into this, and maybe just save some $$$ in the process. Here's some pics I got from the Sunnyside Library!
Now, my wife went with me. I'm not going to lie, the original intent was if I brought an extra person, she would get me extra books. What I didn't intend on was my wife wanting to grab stuff that SHE WANTED! Full disclosure, I did not grab just to "grab" I took only what I wanted, and have every intention to read and not "ebay". Needless to say, with 3 books each at Ron's and 5 books each at the Library, I'm not hurting for anything to read. In fact, the only books that I saw originally advertised for being released that neither place had, was a Spider-Man & The Tick. Upon further looking, the Tick never even came out to some online retailers either. Oh well, maybe next year. So which actual books did I pick up? Take a peak below & until May 7th, 2022, happy reading!
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