Comic Book Day 2024 is on Wednesday, September 25, 2024: when is free comic book day? ?

Wednesday, September 25, 2024 is Comic Book Day 2024. Free Comic Book Day 2012 - Charlotte, NC FREE Comic Book Day!

Each day permanently triumphing over evil, as well as for saving the damsel in distress, Comic Book Day is about taking pleasure in a great comic.

Free Comic Book Day does not mean that comic book stores give away their regular inventory. All the comic book companies that participate in FCBD print special issues that they send to each comic book store and the stores give away those comics for free. FCBD 2009 will be on May 2.

The Umbrella Academy is published by Dark Horse Comics. The comic that Dark Horse is releasing for FCBD is Aliens/Predator so it definitely won't be the Umbrella Academy.

The comic book stores that I go to had really good sales during last year's FCBD so it may still be worth it to go there since you can probably get the issues cheaper assuming they are not sold out. To find the comic stores near you go here:

Facts about Comic Books?

Comic books are typically 22 pages (now, they use to have more)

They started out pretty adult with violence, sex, etc etc but they were marketed primarily to children back in the day of the late 30 early 40's because of there outlandish stories.

Back in these early days, Superman could not fly and Batman carried a gun. Superman also killed. The deaths simply happened off panel, like they did in the recent Batman movie. Implied but never actually saw.

Along came the government. The government said "These comics, are messing with our children minds and must be stopped" To keep the government from interfering Comic book companies imposed on themselves the C.C.A (Comicbook Code Authority)

Batman and Superman could no longer kill. Wonder Woman who grew up on an island with nothing but woman now had to have a boyfriend. Batman who had Robin as his companion now had to have a girl sidekick to kick the rumor that he was hot for little Robin.

The comics that we're now interesting to read became completely safe and boring.

After years of comics about to die, along comes Stan 'the man' Lee. He single-handed revised comics. Instead of making the characters perfect, he added character faults. And they had regrets about being SuperHeroes. The Thing actually quit his super team. Up to that point, it had simply never been done.

Then came that faithful day, The C.C.A forbid the comic guys to talk about drugs in anyway. Positive or Negative. Stan had a Spiderman comic that dealt with this issue but the C.C.A said no. He simply took the C.C.A approved stamp off the comic and sold it. Up to that point no one had dared to challenge the C.C.A and got away with it. Not only did Stan get away with it but he was successful at it. :)

This opens the door, for Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Mark Miller (no relation), Alan Moore, Micheal Turner, Garth Ennis and others to come to write more adult stories rather then kids stuff. This was the start of giving comics back it's balls!

Graphic Novels are just 4 - 6 comics stories or more strung together in one big volume.

However, they can be anything. More novel like, More comic book like. It all depends on the writer and the publisher.

The first person to do a graphic novel was the late great Will Eisner. He created the comic book character called the Spirit. The very first graphic novel I believe was "A Contract with God" talking about life in the great depression. I found it to be a nice story.

Manga are like graphic novels however they originate from a country that has a very loose rating system if any really. And they have been doing stuff that are country is just now getting around to doing. I expect slightly better stuff from the boys over in Japan. But they can have crappy stories too.

I guess what I'm saying is

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

Free Comic Book Day in Maryland at Third Eye Comics?

Free Comic Book Day is a partnership between publishers and comic book store to try to get more people into comic books. Participating comic book stores buy special issues to give away. The publishers make them available at cost. Some stores make a bigger event out of it than others. Some stores limit the number of free comic books you can pick up.

Go early bring people with you if you want more books and take a look around the rest of the comic book store, buy something if it interests you.

You can find out what free comic book should be available from the Free Comic Book Day website.