Free Comic Book Day is still more than five months away — May 7, 2011; the day before Thor hits movie theaters — but now we know what to expect from the 10 “gold sponsor”-level titles. Well, mostly. Details are still kinda vague on some. Details after the cut!
Marvel is doing a Spider-Man comic, and though we don’t know the creative team or any details yet, the cover shown is definitely Humberto Ramos. (Not necessarily meaningful by itself, since he’s the current artist on Amazing Spider-Man and this doesn’t look like final art, but there you go.)
DC? “A SPECIAL TOP SECRET PROJECT TOO BIG TO ANNOUNCE!” Alrighty. Image? “ROBERT KIRKMAN KID-FRIENDLY TITLE.” OK, fair enough.
IDW’s offering a Locke & Key book — fitting, given that it’s currently being adapted for TV — and Dark Horse is doing a seemingly Shyamalan-free Avatar: The Last Airbender/Star Wars: The Clone Wars flipbook. BOOM! Studios gets in on the licensed property/all-ages flipbook fun with a Disney Afternoon two-shot of Darkwing Duck and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Archaia does similarly with a Dark Crystal/Mouse Guard flipbook.
That’s not all the flipbooks, no sir! Ape is going old-school/new-school with Kung Fu Panda/Richie Rich, and Papercuts has Geronimo Stilton and The Smurfs, done up all-flipbook style.
Archie is going the more traditional route with Betty & Veronica, but there’s at least an oblique Twilight reference on the cover:
For more covers and details, go here.
December 2nd, 2010 at 7:52 am
No Transformers before TF3? No Thor/ Captain America flip book? Kinda surprising.
December 2nd, 2010 at 7:57 am
A Dark Crystal free comic? ….random…
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:40 am
Why is Free Comic Book Day always pegged to a Marvel film? Isn’t it DC’s turn?
December 2nd, 2010 at 8:50 am
I don’t think it’s necessarily “pegged” to a Marvel film at this point — I think they’ve just settled on the first Saturday in May (where it’s taken place since 2005), and it so happens that the last few years a Marvel movie has come out that weekend.
December 2nd, 2010 at 10:19 am
That said, Albert, I understand the question. Certainly much of the mainstream media coverage tends to rely on the “Superheroes are big business–just look at tomorrow’s THOR movie” angle when covering the events. Marvel gets all the media attention during an industry-wide event, and I’ve heard speculation from some deeply deranged people that Marvel schedules their movies to capitalize on that. For those people, I just have this to say: Marvel is a movie studio first, a merchandising house second, a comic book company third. NOTHING the film studio does takes something like FCBD into account.
December 2nd, 2010 at 12:31 pm
A Robert Kirkman All-ages title sounds as unlikely as a BBQ Pork restaurant opening in Jerusalem.
And I’m putting my money on DC’s book being either Flashpoint #0, or a connection to the Doomsday Reigns storyline
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:13 pm
I guess this kid-friendly Robert Kirkman book is going to be the new one with Jason Howard that he’s been teasing for a while. Fitting since it was also FCBD where Astounding Wolf-Man launched.
December 2nd, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Russ – yeah, I definitely understand the question as well. But it was still on the first Saturday of May in 2005 and 2006 with no comic movies out that weekend. Though the one time it wasn’t was 2004, when it was in July to correspond with Spider-Man 2.
Vinnie – heh, yeah. Marvel Team-Up was all-ages! (And some other stuff.)
December 2nd, 2010 at 9:59 pm
The Robert Kirkman/Jason Howard book was teased in the final issue of Astounding Wolf-Man. The image was in silhouette, but it involves a small boy who is friends with a large, well-armed robot. My LCS is pretty much sticklers for one book per customer (at least on the day of), so it looks like I’m going to have to make the rounds.
December 3rd, 2010 at 10:49 am
I’ll be ordering multiple copies of every kid-friendly FCBD title – my LCS sells them to me for 1/2 price. I hand them out at my school so every student gets one comic. I announce FCBD the week before and encourage the families to go to our two local LCSs and get free comics. I’ve done this for the past 3 years. I wish more schools and libraries would do this to get these comics into the hands of more kids.
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