Free Comic Book Day Summer

No one cares about this any more, with everything else going on, but just for historical purposes: Back in March, I asked “what will happen to Free Comic Book Day?” At that time, they were expecting that they’d have to reschedule from May to later in the year once the pandemic was under control.

As we know now, due to idiots who think “freedom!” can contradict scientific fact and a ridiculous lack of political leadership, we’re still in it. So there were no gatherings, celebrations, celebrity appearances, or sales. Instead, the various Free Comic Book Day publications were shipped out across nine weeks, from July 15 – September 9. Marvel was one of the first to announce (along with Image Comics) that they were putting out their FCBD titles (because they had events and stories depending on them), which I suspect broke the dam open.

There are many problems with this, but in my case, the most obvious was that I don’t go to the comic book shop. KC does. I give him a list of what I’m expecting and what I’d like to see if the shop got it in, so I don’t have the ability to browse and sample, which is what the FCBD books should be for.

The other major issue is that dividing up the titles takes away any sense of an event. It won’t bring in new customers the way a big bang would, which makes this a failure as a promotion. This is making the best of a bad situation, though, since the books had already been distributed and billed for. The actual distribution schedule can be seen at ICv2.