Tomorrow is Free Comic Book Day. This has traditionally been the biggest day of the year on the comic book retailers’ calendar. The free comics that are available at local comic shops encourage the offering of sales, promotions, parties, signings, and all forms of revelry. Historically, Free Comic Book Day has been the first Saturday in May, but in the past two years it has been moved to later in the year due to the concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the cool parts about FCBD for consumers is that not only are there free comic books to get, but there are usually some terrific deals on back issues and also collectibles at the shops. It is also important to remember that while the free comic books are no cost to the consumers, the retailers most definitely have a cost to pay for the comics.
Almost all comic publishers are participating in some form. Some comics are reprint material that is intended to give readers a glimpse of what the comic is about. Some are all new special stories and some are previews to upcoming events or books that the publisher is planning for this year.
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In the spirit of planning, we offer this post which highlights the comic books that will be available this year on Free Comic Book Day. This will let you know which books are of interest to your sensibilities. Check out the list of seventeen of the announced free comics below:
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Avatar The Last Airbender/The Legend Of Korra #1
Dark Horse Comics
Both your favorite avatars return in two all-new stories from Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra! Dive into the fun for Free Comic Book Day, and expect excitement, familiar faces, and a hefty helping of shenanigans!
Exclusive Original Material
PCS Notes: This is a welcome release of new material in this property. It is a slightly surprising in the best way.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Avengers / X-Men #1
Marvel Comics
OF DEVIATION AND MUTATION / BLOODLINE / LET’S TALK ABOUT KRAKOA
Written by Kieron Gillen with art by Valerio Schiti, JUDGMENT DAY will see the Avengers try desperately to avert a war between the Eternals and the X-Men. Fans will get their first glimpse at the conflict in FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: AVENGERS/X-MEN with a prelude story by Kieron Gillen and artist Dustin Weaver. Also coming this summer will be the X-Men’s second annual HELLFIRE GALA! Last year, mutantkind terraformed Mars and announced a new team of X-Men… what do they have in store for the Marvel Universe this time around? Find out in a lead-in story by X-MEN scribe Gerry Duggan and artist Matteo Lolli! FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: AVENGERS/X-MEN #1 will also mark the exciting debut of a new hero that Marvel has big plans for this year! Meet BLOODLINE in an introduction story by writer Danny Lore and artist Karen Darboe!
PCS Notes: This is one of those preview comics that we talked about earlier. You probably want to get your hands on this.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: The Bone Orchard Mythos #1
Image Comics
A troubled writer books a secluded cabin on a serene lake in an attempt to get away from his struggling marriage and his impending deadlines. But what he can’t know when he arrives is that he is already in the cabin. In fact he may have always been there.
Face-to-face with his own demons, the writer discovers the first terrifying pieces of The Bone Orchard Mythos a sprawling new horror interconnected universe from the Eisner Award winning team behind Gideon Falls and Primordial, Andrea Sorrentino and Jeff Lemire!
PCS Notes: Yeah. This looks like some good stuff.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: 25 Years Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Special #1
Boom! Studios
What better way to celebrate 25 years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer than with a high school yearbook!
This Free Comic Book Day special, in actual yearbook format, is a retrospective of your fan-favorite character moments from the past two decades.
Celebrate the Chosen One(s), the Scoobies, and your faves through yearbook photos, vignettes, and plenty of jokes and lighthearted moments from an array of artists and writers.
Plus you won’t want to miss a special look at the future of Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
Reprint Material
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Bunny Mask Tales #1
AfterShock Comics
Two chilling, brand-new Bunny Mask tales! The Snitch has been defeated and a truce has been struck with the mysterious creature known as Bunny Mask, so a hopeful Tyler Severin returns to life as normal, only to learn he’s still just a toy in the uncanny games she plays. Meanwhile, a criminally nosy neighbor deals with the consequences of seeing more than he’d thought possible, and far, far too much.
BUNNY MASK creators Paul Tobin, Andrea Mutti and Taylor Esposito return along with artist Roberta Ingranata to further the compelling legend of the strange force of nature fans love to fear.
PCS Notes: This is the kind of stuff that we love about FCBD. New one-off material in a property that just released issue #1 of it’s second arc.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Clementine #1
Image Comics / Skybound
The next big thing from Robert Kirkman’s THE WALKING DEAD is here! Get the complete first chapter of Clementine Book One, by award-winning author Tillie Walden (On A Sunbeam, Spinning)!
Plus, an extended look at Everyday Hero Machine Boy (by Irma Kniivila and Tri Vuong) and Sea Serpent’s Heir (by Mairghread Scott and Pablo Tunica), the next can’t miss OGNs from SKYBOUND COMET, our all-new imprint for Young Adult and Middle Grade readers!
Features an all-new FCBD exclusive cover by Tillie Walden
PCS Notes: This is hodgepodge of some interesting this you can find from Skybound.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Dark Crisis – Special Edition #0
DC Comics
Witness the rise and fall of the Justice League! The event years in the making is here with Dark Crisis. The Justice League is comics’ greatest super-team—made up of DC Comics’ legendary Super Heroes, they have saved the world countless times. No crisis was too much for them to handle…until now! The Justice League has been defeated by the Great Darkness and its army of DC’s most dangerous villains—now a new generation of heroes must rise to protect not only the Multiverse…but also the legacy of the DC Universe! A prelude to DC’s biggest story of 2022!
Includes a preview and art from Dark Crisis #1, coming in June! Don’t miss out on this Free Comic Book Day special featuring the blockbuster talents of Joshua Williamson, Jim Cheung, and Daniel Sampere! For free!
PCS Notes: DC has a history of including important information in its FCBD previews to upcoming events.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Doctor Who Comic #1
Titan Books
Exclusive lead-in to an epic new Doctor Who story arc, launching May 2022!
An epic adventure with the traveling Time Lord, this issue serves as a lead-in to the explosive new story arc that reveals the very early years of the Doctor. Past, present, and future all collide in a Doctor Who tale that’s out of this universe!
PCS Notes: Fans of Doctor Who comics won’t want to miss this one.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: The Guardian of Fukushima #1
TokyoPop
March 11th, 2011: a massive earthquake off the coast of Japan triggered a devastating tsunami which, in turn, destroyed the three core reactors of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. This tragedy cost almost 20,000 lives and devastated countless more, including Naoto Matsumura, a farmer ordered to evacuate from the deadly radiation zone. Unwilling to abandon his beloved animals, Matsumura chose to return home to his farm, and to fight for the beauty of life. This powerful graphic novel from France intertwines Matsumura’s story of human resilience and compassion with the compelling mythology of Japanese folk tales.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: The Incal Universe
Humanoids, Inc.
Jodorowsky and Moebius’s The Incal was a shot across the bow of graphic storytelling, an epic explosion of staggering art, mind-blowing worldbuilding, and ambitious plotting that combined to make one of the most influential comics of all time. Now, 42 years after its initial publication–and with a major movie adaptation in the works from filmmaker Taika Waititi–the Incal-verse expands with three extraordinary new series: Kill Wolfhead, by Brandon Peterson and Pete Woods; Dying Star, by Dan Waters and Jon Davis-Hunt; and Psychoverse, by Mark Russell and Yanick Paquette. Get your first look here!
Preview Material
PCS Notes: There are some interesting things happening at Humanoids, Inc. and this is a good placed to get started.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Primos #1
AWA / Upshot Studios
The ultimate Latinx heroes for the 21st Century are here! Centuries ago, two Mayan brothers constructed a spacecraft that sent them hurtling into outer space. Returned to Earth only to find their culture and civilization destroyed, one of the brothers vows revenge and seeks to decimate the planet with intergalactic technology gathered on his travels. To prevent this, his sibling creates a contingency plan that activates the world’s protectors – three descendants of their own family who have been granted great power. Now, the fate of the universe lies in the hands of three cousins scattered throughout Central and North America who have never even met.
Preview Material
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Red Sonja Marvel Feature Stories #1
Dynamite Entertainment
Red Sonja comes to a town that is being attacked by a Gorgon, who is turning the townspeople to stone.
Reprint Material
PCS Notes: This is some older reprinted material but come with a sweet classic Frank Thorne cover.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Sonic The Hedgehog #1
IDW Publishing
Sonic’s racing into a brand-new adventure with his best buds (and co-stars of the hit new movie) Tails and Knuckles by his side! But Sonic’s not the only super-speedster in town… Get caught up with everything you need to know about Sonic’s evil counterpart Surge before she and Sonic go head-to-head in the epic issue #50, a story years in the making!
PCS Notes: Some content for the kids with this one.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Spider-Man / Venom #1
Marvel Comics
Spider-Man is gearing up for a brand-new era just in time for the character’s 60th anniversary! Fans who pick up FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: SPIDER-MAN/VENOM #1 will see the very beginning of the major storylines writer Zeb Wells and legendary artist John Romita Jr. have planned for their run on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, including Tombstone’s first steps towards becoming Spidey’s most terrifying villain.
FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: SPIDER-MAN/VENOM #1 will also give fans a chance to check out the thought-provoking work Al Ewing, Ram V, and Bryan Hitch are doing on VENOM! The groundbreaking changes this mastermind trio has in store for the symbiote mythos starts here!
PCS Notes: It’s not FCBD without a Spider-Man book.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Stranger Things / Resident Alien #1
Dark Horse Comics
Celebrating the weird and wonderful, we present stories both strange and alien! In Stranger Things, Eleven, Will and Jonathan go to a drive-in theater for a double creature feature, but the local festivities and scary costumes bring back haunting memories. In Resident Alien, Dr. Harry and nurse Asta help an elderly patient in the sleepy, small town of Patience investigate a ghostly presence in her house!
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1
IDW Publishing
The Ninja Turtles have broken out of the locked-down neighborhood of Manhattan known as Mutant Town . . . but which Ninja Turtles? As all new mutants terrorize NYC, enemies and allies of the TMNT alike prepare for a confrontation greater than any that has come before . . . the Rat King’s diabolical Armageddon Game! The TMNT event of 2022 starts here from Tom Waltz, Sophie Campbell, and Kevin Eastman!
PCS Notes: New Turtle adventures beginning in this freebie.
Free Comic Book Day 2022: Year of Valiant
Valiant Entertainment
Explore the Valiant Universe on Free Comic Book Day 2022! Featuring original BLOODSHOT, ARCHER & ARMSTRONG, and NINJAK stories, this issue is a must-read for Valiant fans and the perfect intro for new readers. Plus: Exclusive first looks at the future of X-O MANOWAR, SHADOWMAN, and more!
Exclusive Original Material
