Picking Through the Pickings on Free Comic Book Day

Well, this year's Free Comic Book Day (May 5th) has come and gone – and over at Acme Comics in downtown Normal, IL., owner Jim had decided to emphasize the major companies and kid-friendly titles on the freebie shelves this year. Having visited Acme during each of the previous FCBDs and seen the predominance of kids and their parents crowded into the shop, though it also meant that some of the works I wanted to see (Eddie Campbell's The Train Was Bang on Time, Fantagraphics' Unseen Peanuts) weren't part of the selection. Wound up with fourteen books, though, so let's take a look at my haul:

• Amazing Spider-Man Marvel: With Raimi's big sprawling moneymaker already smashing moneymaking records, no surprise at all to see that one of Marvel's freebies is an "all-new Spidey adventure" by Dan Slott & Phil Jimenez. The real surprise resides in the fact that Slott's one-off original story isn't a complete wank-off (he even makes a decent self-referential joke alluding to the fact that this year's FCBD came on Cinco de Mayo): a simple tale of our hero distracted on the way to his Aunt May's birthday by a carjacking. A few attempts at continuity with the main storyline don't work as well as they could (e.g., the appearance of the red-headed superheroine Jackpot is particularly puzzling), but in general this reads like the kind of engaging throwaway you might've gotten in the old days between big multi-part super-villain stories. A good way to start, though the teaser for the upcoming AS-M #544 tacked onto the back of the book was too brief to really grab me.

• Bongo Comics Free-for-All! (Bongo): Every year when I pick up the new Bongo selection, I think, "I've gotta read more of these books from the Line That Matt Groening Built." Then I forget about my resolution until Halloween when the Treehouse of Horror annual appears. This year's entry has a fine and funny Evan Dorkin-scripted opener and a few lesser pieces featuring the Futurama gang and Ralph Wiggins (the Wiggins piece is the biggest disappointment since it never really captures that character’s surreal stoopidity). Still, it's an enjoyable little freebie: I should check more of these Bongo books out this year...

• Family Guy & Hack/Slash (Devil's Due): Definitely an odd pairing: this Teen Readers two-fer provides an unfunny strung-together set of FG vignettes and the opener to what appears to be a gory horror series centered on a heroine hunting down bloody serial killers. The latter does one of the standard FCBD ploys: give the reader half of what'll be the first real issue in an attempt to hook 'em into paying full price for a comic that they've already half read. I'm a little curious about this 'un (I'm a sucker for a good matronly killer lunchlady), but since they also tell me it's gonna be a "major motion picture from Rogue Pictures," maybe I should wait for the video?

• Gumby (Wildcard Ink): I’ve enjoyed the recent Bob Burden & Rick Geary takes on Art Clokey's classic kids show clayboy, so I was looking forward to particular item. But this particular B&W issue, written by Shannon Wheeler in place of Burden – and featuring Geary among a three other artists is too slapdash to work. Liked Wheeler's parody of R. Crumb's famous stoned one-pager, though.
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Article Author: Bill Sherman

Bill Sherman is the Comics & Graphic Novels review editor for Blogcritics, though he has also written about other aspects of pop culture for this site and his home blog, Pop Culture Gadabout. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored …

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