Free Comic Book Day Wrap-Up: The Best In Years

Posted in: Comics | Tagged: al ewing, Energon Universe, free comic book day, Marvel Comics, tmnt

Free Comic Book Day was a surprising success this year, after a few down years since the pandemic. Here is all the scuttle from one store.

Free Comic Book Day has been a nightmare to deal with these last couple of years, from the nightmares of 2020 through the sluggish years of 2021, 2022, and 2023. At least at the store I run, Comics and Friends in Mentor, OH, we have seen decreasing interest these last three years, with many failing to get excited about the holy comics holiday. In 2023, for instance, we only gave away half of what we ordered, a new low which put us at a massive loss for the day and had us questioning if we even wanted to participate past getting the books needed to satisfy our pull list customers.

Free Comic Book Day Excitement!

But we decided to still do Free Comic Book Day and be smarter about it. We halved our order, only restocked the biggest titles, and planned for a few more local guests than usual, making it a little mini-con outside the store. We are in a mall (I know, a novelty these days), so foot traffic finds us a bit more than other stores, fortunately. We still couldn’t get a feel for what the turnout would be heading into yesterday, and we worried all week that we didn’t do enough to get the word out.

Turns out, we were worried for nothing. This was our most successful Free Comic Book Day since 2018, and people were actually excited for the comics themselves this year. The standouts that we were asked for the most were Monster High, which should get some reprint; people would buy it if it included a new, second story for $3.99, TMNT because of the character debut, the Archie horror book (shame they can’t get their head out of their ass), and Energon Universe ruled the roost. Those books have been the talk of the shop every week since the launch, and it didn’t slow down for us yesterday, either. The Marvel books moved better than they have in years, with the Bloodhunt/X-Men and Ultimates/Spidey books proving very popular. Unpopular? Absolute Power. Absolutely Nobody Cares should have been the title. Even our hardcore DC people left it on the table and shrugged at the creative team. Every year, DC fans here can’t be bothered to grab whatever their free book is. Very strange.

Regarding non-freebies, the day’s questions were about all things Dynamite and Energon Universe. The new Space Ghost has proven immensely popular; we could have sold at least 50 of them yesterday if we had not sold out earlier in the week. Ditto for all their Disney titles, as it doesn’t matter to us if we always have them; we order in bunches for the kiddos. Adults have really been getting into them as well. The same goes for Thundercats. Dynamite has been really impressive as of late. Energon Universe books wholly sold out yet again, and I wish they could get the trade paperback to us faster somehow. I couldn’t give away GI Joe or Transformers comics a year ago. It shows there are no bad concepts, just poor execution.

Another big thing on customers’ minds is TMNT Last Ronin, but not the newly released Part 2, only the original. Marvel books people asked for a ton included the Red Band Bloodhunt, the new Deadpool #1, Spider-Punk, and Immortal Thor. Basically, we sell anything that has Al Ewing‘s name on it. DC fans wanted whatever House of Brainiac they could get their hands on (except the free comic they could just take), Batman/Superman: World’s Finest collection, and the One Bad Day HC’s; we sold those hand over fist. It’s not a big day for indie collections, with the exception of Spawn; we sold a bunch of that. Ghost Machine and those titles piqued my interest.

Overall, an exceptional Free Comic Book Day reinvigorated my love for the geek holiday. Hopefully, this momentum can continue as the years go by, and we are finally past the sinking ship it felt like it was becoming.

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