The History of Free Comic Book Day!
How Ice Cream Cones Inspired This Sign of Summer: Free Comic Book Day
May the fourth, or the Free Comics, be with you! The first Saturday in May has become a major event in the comics calendar: Free Comic Book Day. It’s coordinated by Diamond Comic Distribution and started in Joe Field’s August 2001 column in Comics and Games Retailer Magazine.
In the one and a half page article, Field proposed an industry wide ‘open house’ to invite more people into the stores. He’d made the proposition a few years earlier, but in 2001 he discovered that not only did Baskin-Robbins do something similar with its “Free Scoop Night” as a thank you and charity event that brought people into the store and walking out happy. He saw the high traffic that his local Baskin-Robbins had served and asked: Why can’t we do that?
Field’s prior experience with giveaways included when he worked on the radio, and he knew that the distributors were key. The great thing about comics is that Diamond Comics Distribution, Inc. has a virtual monopoly, which in this case eases the implementation of a new idea.
He knew it wasn’t just distribution; publishers, retailers, and creators all had a role to play. The article listed several points each part of the industry could undertake including producing sampler comics, stores stocking the sampler comics as well as “make our stores as clean, organized, and accessible as possible to make a solid first impression on so many potential new customers”. Clearly, he was a retailer!
And he encouraged creators to join in events at their local comic stores.
Diamond posted an addendum to the article, saying “the Free Comic Book Day concept is an idea worth getting excited about!” and issuing a call to arms to “deliver a powerful thank you to current customers and bring new and lapsed readers and fans into comic shops!” (Roger Fletcher (then) VP Sales and Marketing)
The first Free Comic Book Day happened less than a year later on Saturday May 4th to springboard off the release of Spider-Man in the theaters. This started a trend where FCBD was tied to the launch of comic movie including four Spider-Man movies, three Iron Man movies, X2 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine as well as Thor and the Avengers. This approach tied the kick off of summer movie season with the paper version of the tales.
For this year’s event, Diamond has over 50 different comic samplers from not only the two major publishers (Marvel & DC) but also Archie Comics, Bongo Comics, Boom! Studio, Dark Horse Comics, IDW Publishing, and Image plus a number of smaller houses like Capstone, Topshelf Productions, Valiant, and Montreal’s Drawn and Quarterly.
Every retailer purchases the sampler comics, which are at a discounted price, and thus each retailer sets their own rules on how many comics visitors can take. The Toronto comic book stores hold all manner of events in conjunction with the give-a-way. There will be artists doing live sketching and signings, some have prizes for the best costumes, in the past the Silver Snail has had local musicians play comic inspired music.
