Free Comic Book Day 2024

Free Comic Book Day!

Technically this makes twenty years for me, having discovered it in 2005.

Having to cheat last year because I’d just gotten into town with family for a visit and so couldn’t reasonably expect them to go visit a comic book store, I was ready to dive in this year.

I opted to make my target Nerd Out, the shop farthest away I’m willing to make the effort to visit, which I haven’t done in a few years, so that was another motivating factor.

Got there some thirty minutes after open, but in my experience they just don’t line up in Tampa the way I really like to experience these things.

Nerd Out always has two selections, one from this year’s event and a second cobbled from older free comic events. They had some old stuff in that one! From the new stuff they only let you take one (unless you actually bought stuff), and didn’t even have a comprehensive set. They didn’t have any DC and I’m not sure they even had Marvel. 

When I hit the repurposed South Tampa Comics later, now part of the Coliseum of Comics collective, I scooped up DC and Marvel. Between them there was no chance for Valiant, a reliable presence since the revival in 2012, and particularly disappointing because they’re making a new push for relevance again.

At Nerd Out I hit the dollar bins and found a bunch of cool stuff, as well as Supreme: Blue Rose in collected form (very excited to read it again). 

Since I hit Coliseum late in a very long day I just scooped up my allotted five picks there and headed back out again.

So anyway here’s the six I got:

Absolute Power (DC) Mark Waid setting up his next big event.

Barda (DC) A preview for one of those young reader graphic novels the company keeps pumping out. Barda, as in Big Barda. I look forward to this one.

Blood Hunt (Marvel) One of the things that continually astounds me is how little Marvel comics and movies have to do with each other. It’s really only the Guardians of the Galaxy that managed to avoid such a fate, but in typical comics fashion the company flooded the market ahead of seeing how much interest the market actually had. Anyway, this one revolves around Blade, that guy the company technically had as its first cinematic success who’s been MIA basically the entire time.

Flash Gordon (Mad Cave) Jeremy Adams, who keeps trying to convince DC to keep him around, hedged his bets by looking around for another property to explore. Really surprising that comics have slept on ol’ Flash Gordon all these years.

Spider-Man/Ultimate Universe (Marvel) Marvel is currently desperately trying to make their Ultimate comics a thing again. It could happen!

Star Wars (Marvel) This one was really because it’s also Star Wars Day today.