Mark your calendars: Free Comic Book Day will fall on May 2 next year. And if you still don’t have a 2009 calendar yet, then mark your 2008 calendar with a reminder to mark your 2009 calendar when you get it.

As I’m sure you’re all well aware, Free Comic Book Day is the one day a year where Blog@Newsarama contributors are allowed to walk into any comic book shop and demand whatever comics they want and the shop’s proprietors are legally required to give the books to them free.

Yes, I’m sure that’s how Free Comic Book Day is celebrated. Don’t bother looking it up. Particularly if you own a comic book shop.

Okay, you got me. That’s not what Free Comic Book Day is. It’s actually the day Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson hitches eight octogenarian Golden Age freelance artists to his sleigh and, whipping them savagely, has them pull it from his magical workshop atop the Empire State Building all around the world in a single night, so he can leave comic books on the doorsteps of good little boys and girls. (Nah, I’m just kidding; it’s not Wheeler-Nicholson in the sleigh, it’s Stan Lee. And the only people pulling it are Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. And Lee doesn’t whip them, he hectors them with alliteration).

Okay, you’ve suffered enough (presuming you’re still reading and haven’t gotten bored and left already). Free Comic Book Day is actually the industry wide marketing event in which comics publishers and retailers borrow a page from the books of drug dealers and try to hook new readers by giving them a free taste of their wares.

Yes, that’s right newcomer, the Green Lantern preview book is free, but if you want to find out who wins the rainbow war, you’ll have to pay $2.99 to $3.99 a chapter just like everyone else!

So, what are the publishers offering next year? As the mother site relayed yesterday, the FCBD folks have announced their “gold” sponsors. Let’s take a look, and start judging them simply by their covers…

Archie Presents: The Mighty Archie Art Players
Archie Comics

The “Mighty Archie Art Players” return.

In this special FCBD09 edition, the Mighty Archie Art Players have a rip-roaring good time in the Old West, put a modern-spin on the classic Snow White fairy tale, tell a “big fish” story — literally — with Betty as a mermaid, and cater to the whims of Veronica, transformed into the ancient Egyptian queen, Cleopatra.

Their curtain-raising performances will leave you laughing in the aisles.

The deviants at Archie Comics are presenting their usual deviance, this time focusing on costuming and roleplay. My own tastes are far too vanilla to take much pleasure in the peculiar proclivities of modern Riverdale youth culture, but I understand a lot of people (perverts) are into this sort of thing.

Nah, seriously, if you’re taking a kid with you into a comic shop (you monster!), you really can’t go wrong with giving them an Archie comic. It’s like apple juice.

Bongo Comics 2009 Free For All
Bongo Comics

The comic company that brings you The Simpsons and Futurama in the fantastic four-color format joins with retailers to reel in new readers.

This special issue features a comic cornucopia of tantalizing tidbits and a spectacular sampling of the best in humor comics.

Remember when The Simpsons used to be a pretty funny show? Yeah, me neither. But the folks that make the comics still do, and usually replicate their memory into some pretty decent humor comics. Bonus: This won’t cost you a cent more than watching the show does.

Disney/Pixar’s Cars
Boom Studios

Take a peek under the hood of BOOM! Studios’ line of Cars comics, based on the hit Disney/Pixar movie!

This issue includes an exciting exerpt from Cars #1, revealing the plucky origin of Lightning McQueen.

In addition, readers will be treated to never-before-seen sketches, character designs and script pages.

These sorts of behind-the-scenes types of books tend to be kind of disappointing if you’re looking for a free comic book on Free Comic Book Day, but, at the same time, if you’re as curious about how Pixar’s computer-animated worlds, in which color, texture and lighting seem to play such a large role, will translate into the comic format, it might be worth a look.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Dark Horse Comics

A special issue featuring the greatest heroes of The Clone Wars.

Also in the spotlight are Emily the Strange, Usagi Yojimbo, and other all-ages favorites.

Packed with 28 pages of story, the book bears two covers, one with the Star Wars characters, the other celebrating Dark Horse’s best all-ages characters.

Hey look, it’s Kit Fisto! I love that name, Kit Fisto. It makes me smile every time I hear it, see it, say it or even type it. (Kit Fisto).

Blackest Night #0
DC Comics

Across the universe the dead will rise. Prepare for the coming of “The Blackest Night” with this prelude to the biggest comic event of the year.

This special edition recaps the key moments from “Sinestro Corps War” and “Rage of the Red Lanterns” that led to “Blackest Night”, and will give readers everything they need to know about the Green Lantern universe, their ongoing War of Light, and their dark days ahead.

Uh-oh. This upcoming Green Lantern story, in which the Green, Yellow, Red, Black, Orange, Blue and Violet Lanterns all fight one another, often makes a sort of sense while you’re reading the actual comics, but is downright impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t read them with a straight face, and to have that person understand what the hell you’re talking about.

So, good luck turning kids and civilians on to DCU comics with this, DC. On the other hand, those of us who already haunt comics shops each Wednesday and show up on FCBD for some free swag will probably appreciate this a lot more than the Archie Art Players doing their thing…

Transformers Animated/G.I. Joe
IDW Publishing

G.I. Joe and the Transformers kick off IDW’s FCBD09 promotional comic with three great stories.

First up is an 11-page Transformers Animated tale that features a young Optimus Prime in his days at the Autobot Academy.

Next is not one, but two great G.I. Joe stories — a six-page story written by the maestro behind-the-series today, and the second written by the maestro behind the series originally. Secrets are revealed and action abounds.

This is the one that the nine-year-old version of myself would pick out if he could somehow attend Free Comic Book Day ’09.

Savage Dragon #148
Image Comics

All-new story and art from fan-favorite writer/artist Erik Larsen (Spider-Man, Wolverine).

There’s a new vigilante in town: The Dynamic Daredevil. This recently resurrected hero from comics’ Golden Age has made Chicago his new home and it pits him against Chicago’s fin-headed finest.

Plus a mysterious assassin from Dragon’s past is introduced as Dragon’s battle against the notorious Vicious Circle heats up. It’s the ultimate introductory issue and fit for readers young and old.

Given that the vast bulk of Image Comics’ current output is new-reader friendly, using the FCBD platform to spotlight one of the few Image properties that isn’t seems a little weird to me, but, at the same time, Savage Dragon is probably the closest thing to Image’s version of Superman or Spider-Man and, in a lot of ways, both the face of the company and the embodiment of the spirit of the company when it began and how it currently stands.

But what really blows my mind here is the guy behind Savage Dragon. That’s clearly the Golden Age Daredevil, familiar to current comics readers as one of the Golden Age heroes resurrected by Dynamite in their Project: Superpowers series, only they call him Death-Defying ‘Devil. So I assumed Dynamite owned the character at this point.

But here he is, popping up in Image, and he’s going by Daredevil again…?

What gives? Is he public domain now? Because, if so, Marvel should really have a story where he hires Matt Murdock to sue Marvel’s Daredevil for using his name. How could Murdock sue himself, but how could he refuse without compromising his secret identity? It’d be a classic, I tell ya.

The Avengers
Marvel Comics

The mighty Thor and both the New and Dark Avengers join forces against the frost-giant Ymir in a battle that will have terrifying consequences for the Marvel Universe — and for these heroes — in the days to come.

Top-flight creators Brian Michael Bendis and Jim Cheung combine talents to bring you an absolutely essential all-new touchstone story for what’s coming up in the Marvel Universe — and it’s yours, absolutely FREE.

(Uses every ounce of his willpower to resist making a joke about Hawkeye’s positioning on this cover).

Resurrection #0
Oni Press

From the writer of Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man comes a science fiction epic that explores the aftermath of Earth’s most brutal conflict. For 10 years the alien invaders have laid waste to our planet, but now they’ve vanished, leaving the survivors with two questions: “Where did the ‘bugs’ go?” and “Where does humanity go from here?” It’s existential questions, alien-fueled intrigue, and some of the biggest action in comics today. PLUS: A preview of Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen.

This doesn’t really look like an Oni Press book, does it?

Shonen Jump Presents: Ultimo
Viz Media

The Shonen Jump FCBD09 edition features 32 action-packed pages of manga fresh from Japan, featuring a new chapter of Ultimo.

Ultimo is an exciting manga serial by legendary creators Stan “The Man” Lee and Hiroyuki Takei, creator of Shaman King!

As much as I like Takei’s art, I kind of home this never gets published. It seems dangerous. I mean, Stan Lee…writing manga? Isn’t that like a matter, anti-matter touching sort of thing, where there’s a huge explosion?

By the way, if you’re curious about this project, don’t try googling “Ultimo” at work. The first hit is a bra company. The second one is to Marvel monster named Ultimo that originally appeared in 1966’s Tales of Suspense, written by…Stan Lee? As a modern Marvel character might say, “The hell–?”

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 11th, 2008 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.