Saturday May 7th is National Free Comic Book Day, its the one day a year us loyal collecting geeks welcome the rest of the world into our kingdom of super heroes, fantasy and adventure all that goodness and for no charge. In order to promote literacy and to support the comic book industry, every year several publishers put out a variety of comic books to be distributed at your local comic book shop.
In 2002 the event began where the first Saturday of May was deemed Free Comic Book Day, and the large comic book publishing companies of Marvel, DC, Image and others put out specific books to help promote their product and hopefully bring in new readers to the titles.
There are 36 different books for this years, most stores do put a limit on the number of books you can take, but they often also have additional sales on that day throughout the store. A full list of all the comics that come out his year can be found here: http://www.freecomicbookday.com/comics.asp
Two of the larger more popular stores here in the Western New York area are of course participating:
Don's Atomic Comics on Transit Rd. in Lancaster: http://www.facebook.com/donsatomiccomics
They are having a 20% sale off of EVERYTHING!
Don's is a great store with a lot of the traditional mainstream comics as well as a huge amount of indie and small press books.
6354 Transit Rd. in Lancaster.
The other big store in the area participating in Free Comic Book Day:
Queen City Bookstore on Main St. in Buffalo
http://www.facebook.com/queencitybookstore
Queen City is one of the longest running comic shops in Buffalo, a huge selection of books, everything from mainstream to indie as well. When you come out for Free Comic Book Day you can have your picture taken with Thor, as well as see other costumed heroes at the event.
I'm such a geek I usually spend the day going to both stores, getting different books at each and taking full advantage of the sales that are taking place.
The Buffalo News Classifieds is also promoting the event, each store will have a poster telling customers how they can place free collectibles ads with The Buffalo News.
So make plans for this Saturday, make sure you Batman t-shirt is clean, or your Captain America shield is polished and head on out to your local comic shop on Saturday to support a great event and your local businesses.
