Picking Through the Pickings on Free Comic Book Day - Page 2

Author: Bill Sherman — Published: May 11, 2007 at 2:04 am 4 comments

  • 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.

  • Justice League of America & Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century (DC): Two of DC's individual freebie titles take the occasion of FCBD to feature titles meant to bring us to speed on their respective series. The JLA entry – scripted by Identity Crisis' Brad Meltzer with an "All-Star Cast of Artists" is even more visually jumbled than Gumby (though I liked that Gene Ha gave his Diana Prince version of Wonder Woman believably strong arm), while Meltzer's unstuck-in-time script attempts to tie together so many loose ends from DCUniverse continuity that it'll probably make sense to few beyond the fannish coterie who already read this tale when it debuted in the new JLA title. Legion works a bit better since it's primary purpose is to introduce the characters as portrayed in the Kids WB cartoon series: J.Torres throws lots of anachronistic jokes into the mix ("When was the last time you defragged?" Phantom Girl asks cyborg computer guy Braniac 5 early in the story), but forgets to provide a story beyond, "Gee, will Superboy be invited into the Legion?" (Spoiler Alert: he is!)

  • Little Archie (Archie Comics): "All-New Story by Bob Bolling" the front cover tells us, and though that'll mean bupkiss to most of the kids coming into the shoppe, it is a good come-on to us elder types who remember reading Bolling's original LArchie tales as kids after we'd run out of superhero books to pore through. This entry, featuring our hero on a summer camp adventure never answers the most pressing question that the series raises (Namely: why do the camp counselors call him "Little Archie"? Isn't he just "Archie"?) but it's amusing enough in its slight way. Inker Jim Amash isn't always helpful to scripter Bolling's pencils (more than once he flattens the figures), but it gets the job done. It's certainly a lot less off-putting than the covers we’re shown in a back cover ad for the upcoming Betty & Veronica Double Digest mini-series drawn "in a dynamic new art style," that looks more decidedly creepy than dynamic.

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    Article Author: Bill Sherman

    Bill Sherman is the Comics & Graphic Novels review editor for Blogcritics. With his lovely wife Rebecca Fox, he has recently co-authored a sudsy size acceptance novel entitled Measure By Measure.

    Visit Bill Sherman's author page — Bill Sherman's Blog

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    Article comments

    • 1 - Robert

      May 11, 2007 at 5:56 am

      Free comic book day - Yay! What a great day!
      New Gumby comics? Gumby is getting around.
      It's a Gumby Party!

    • 2 - G.

      May 11, 2007 at 10:41 am

      Good selection.

      By the way, there is a Web site that you can check out called WOWIO (wowio.com). They have free comics in electronic form available all year, not just one day. :)

    • 3 - Kaonashi

      May 11, 2007 at 3:28 pm

      How odd that Free Comic Book Day would coincide with Cinco de Mayo.

    • 4 - Bill Sherman

      May 11, 2007 at 4:36 pm

      Each Free Comic Book Day has been scheduled to take place on the first weekend of a Big Comic Movie (this year's, of course, being Spider-Man 3) - on the as-yet-unproven theory that the two events will feed off of each other. This year's Spidey flick had its weekend debut on Cinco de Mayo: not as inconvenient for retailers as the summer FCBD was held on a July 4th weekend to align with that year's Big Superhero Movie . . .

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