Note: not all the FCBD releases can be covered here, as my shop had a 5-item limit. I will be including things I bought/won. My local shop usually has good FCBD promotions, they usually have a sale, a giveaway thing, free Heroclix/buttons/candy/Lantern rings/etc. I was kind of in a rush this year, so I didn’t really get a chance to search well.
Free Comic Book Day Releases
Archaia Entertainment Presents: Mouse Guard, Labrynth, and Other Stories: A Free Comic Book Day Hardcover Anthology
- Mouse Guard: The Tale Of Baldwin The Brave(W/A: David Petersen): This was good. A fun little story with beautiful art that stands on its own without any prior knowledge of the Mouse Guard series.
- Labrynth: Hoggle And The Worm(W: Ted Niafeh/Adrianne Ambrose/A: Cory Godbey/L: Deron Bennett/Inspired by the film by Jim Henson): Same as above, fun, good-looking, and understandable.
- Steps Of The Dapper Men(W: Jim McCann/A: Janet K. Lee/L: Dave Lanphear): This one was a little confusing, but in that sort of Alice In Wonderland way where it seems like it’s supposed to be confusing. I’m not up on the Dapper Men, so some of this might have been lost on me.
- Rust: Oswald’s Letter(W/A: Royden Lepp): Interesting little story, though a little exposition-heavy for my tastes.
- Cursed Pirate Girl: Ramblings From An Old Sea Dog Who Likes To Be Called Alice(W/A: Jeremy Bastian): I don’t know if it’s just due to the reduced size, but this one felt really busy and hard to decipher, though the second go-round, it was much easier to understand.
- Cow Boy: Long While Ago(W: Nate Cosby/A: Chris Eliopoulos): This one was really straightforward and a little morose. Really nice sound effects.
- Also, it’s a hardcover. It is a really nice-looking hardcover.
Red 5 presents: Atomic Robo plus Neozoic and Bonnie Lass.
- This one is only second place in my personal FCBD rankings, but that’s only because Archaia went all out.
- It’s a really fun story where a mad scientist dinosaur double-crosses a robot with a giant T-Rex who at one point coughs out 2 Lugers into his tiny, tiny hands. There’s a reason the Red 5 FCBD offering is usually the best.
- The backup features aren’t quite as good, though they do feel like actual stories instead of just the first ten or so pages of the first issue. The Neozoic backup was kind of hard to understand, and the Bonnie Lass feature felt too Indiana Jones meets Parker Lewis for me.
Kaboom! presents Adventure Time/Peanuts
- Adventure Time: The first story is by Ryan North and Mike Holmes, and it is funny. The second 2 stories are also fun. I’m not really all that up on Adventure Time, so I can’t quite cop to how well they translate the show’s humor, but they entertained my little brother well enough, and I’m pretty sure that’s what the day is all about.
- Peanuts: The first story and the classic strips are good, but the second story and the previews just did not grab me.
Bongo presents: Bongo Comics Free-For All and Spongebob Comics Freestyle Funnies
- I actually enjoyed the Spongebob feature more than the Simpsons one, probably because of the Ramona Fradon art in the Mermaidman sections.
- I love that this has a story from Sergio Aragones Funnies, as that is a thing more people should know about.
- It’s kind of odd that James Kochalka, the dude who did Superfuckers, has strips in the Spongebob thing, but they are pretty funny.
DC Comics presents: Superman Family Adventures and Green Lantern/Young Justice Super Sampler
- Fair cop, this was traded from my brother, as he had gotten duplicates.I guess that’s the bad side to having double-sided issues?
- I like Superman, and I like Art Baltazar and Franco as a team, so Superman Family Adventures is just about perfect, even if it does have the new costume(I still don’t get how it fits under his dress shirt as Clark, what with the high neck).
- They make the new costume look good. Not even Yanick Paquette could do that.
- The GL story is fun, though the Young Justice story is kind of short in comparison
- Man, what happened to smiling? Superman’s not even smiling on his cover, though he’s at least mildly irritated instead of just scowling like on most every other Superman comic. At least Green Lantern’s happy. Why wouldn’t he be? He’s flying in space!
Bought
Agents Of Atlas: Turf Wars(W: Jeff Parker/A: Gabriel Hardman, Carlo Pagulayan, Dan Panosian, Paul Rivoche, Jason Paz, and Noah Salonga/CA: Leinil Yu, Dave Johnson, and Adi Granov)
- This has dragons, gun-firing gorillas, and a robot that talks smack. It’s really fun.
- The art is surprisingly consistent for such a large lineup of artists.
- This is apparently the second volume of the Agents Of Atlas Series, thanks for marking it as such on the side, Marvel Collections Department.
- Did I mention the smack-talking robot?
Deadpool Max-Mas one-shot(W: David Lapham/A: David Lapham, Kyle Baker, Shawn Crystal, and Lee Loughridge/CA: Kyle Baker)
- This was less fun that I was expecting. It’s fine, but not quite as fine as I would have liked.
- There is less Kyle Baker in this than I would have wanted.
- I still liked it though. The art is fine in all 3 chapters, and the Christmas Carol-esque story is fun.
- I do like how Deadpool was written here as competent, but just unhinged enough to fuck you over if he thought it would get enough of a laugh.
- Seriously, Kyle Baker is the bomb.
Doom Patrol v.2 #70(W:Rachel Pollack/A:Scot Eaton, Tom Sutton/CA: Tom Taggart)
- The secret origin of Codpiece! The man with a dong that shoots missiles!
- This is like 7 issues into a run I haven’t read, so I didn’t quite know who the bandaged couple were meant to be, but they were comprehensible.
- I enjoyed the moments between Dorothy and Robotman, and I now want to get more issues of the Pollack run.
- The cover for real looks like the poster for some sort of sci-fi Eighties sex comedy.
It’s not just me, right?
Won
Daredevil: Hell To Pay, pt. 1(W: Ed Brubaker/A: Michael Lark, Lee Weeks, Stefano Gaudino, Matt Hollingsworth/CA: Marko Djurdjevic, John Romita)
- It is pretty cool how well Lee Weeks’ stuff gels with the Michael Lark stuff.
- It’s not the complete story, but hey, what do I want for nothin’? Rubber biscuit?
- It’s good. Dope scripts, dope art… these comics ain’t really that hard.
So yeah, times were fun, I got some dope comics, and so did my little brother.