Get It

Comics Friends Forever, First Second

Short introductions to a variety of all ages graphic novels by a number of different creators. The artstyles are diverse, though a certain degree of thematic similarity is on display. The stand out here is a too brief excerpt from Ben Hatke’s Zita the Space Girl, which is, coincidentally, a favorite with my niece.

Defend Comics, Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

The bulk of this is short previews of forthcoming all ages books, that generally could be described as “adorable” and are very intriguing, lead by a short that explains concepts of free speech and censorship in a kid-friendly way with only slightly obnoxious political overtones, and a short strip that could be viewed as a pointed reminder to the CBLDF itself in light of some of their recent actions that many people consider misplaced.

Die Kitty Die: I Love You to Death!, Chapterhouse

A mix of retro storytelling notes and just on the edge of risque jokes, heavily inspired by Harvey and Archie super-natural humor comics. It’s not quite as clever and funny as it thinks it is, but it’s interestingly self-aware and filling a niche not many other books out there are trying for.

Shadow Roads, Oni

Bunn and Hurtt’s sequel series to The Sixth Gun continues the vein of Weird West adventure stories, but also offers an introduction that doesn’t require knowledge of the previous series to understand the initial set-up and characters.

Sparks!, Graphix

Ian Boothby and Nina Matsumoto deliver a story of two cats that disguise themselves as a robot dog to rescue people. The illustrations are lively, and the story has a good mix of humor with a dash of pathos, and an unexpectedly diabolic villain.

It’s Free

2000 AD, 2000 AD

Adventure Time with Fionna and Cake, Kaboom

Amazing Spider-Man/Guardians of the Galaxy #1, Marvel

Avengers/Captain America #1, Marvel

Berlin, Drawn and Quarterly

Bob’s Burgers, Dynamite

Bongo Comics Free for All 2018, Bongo

A Brief History of Tank Girl, Titan Comics

Crush, Yen Press

DC Superhero Girls, DC Comics

Disney Princess, Joe Books

Doctor Who #0, Titan

Howard Lovecraft Big Book of Summer Fun, Arcana

Invasion, Chapterhouse

Invader Zim, Oni Press

James Bond 007: Vargr, Dynamite

Lady Mechanika, Benitez Productions

Malika: Creed and Fury, Youneek Studios

Maxwell’s Demons #1, Vault

The Metabaron, Humanoid

Miraculous, Action Lab

My Hero Academia, Viz

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Zero’s Journey, Tokyopop

The Only Living Boy, Papercutz

Overwatch, Dark Horse Comics

Pokemon: Sun and Moon, Viz

Relay #0, Aftershock

Riverdale, Archie

Shadowman, Valiant

Silver #1, Dark Planet

Spongebob: Freestyle Funnies 2018, Bongo

Star Wars Adventures, IDW

Street Angel’s Dog, Image Comics

The Tick, NEC

Transformers: Unicron #0, IDW

World’s Greatest Cartoonists, Fantagraphics

The Wormworld Saga, Cubhouse

Avoid

Barrier, Image

Ghost in the Shell: Global Neural Network, Kodansha Comics

The Mall #0, Scout Comics

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Shattered Grid, Boom

Overstreet Guide to Collecting, Gemstone Publishing

Starburns Presents #1, SBI Press

Strangers in Paradise #1, Abstract Studios

Ultra Street Fighter II #1, Udon

Worlds of Aspen 2018, Aspen

So, for quite some time, every year, I’ve read and reviewed the offerings publishers provide for Free Comic Book Day. And then last year, frankly, broke me. The quality to quantity ratio was so abysmal that I realized that I was killing myself to read and comment on, well, disposable junk.

So, this year, and for as long as I continue to keep doing this, I will just break books into the usual categories of “Get It”, “It’s Free”, and “Avoid.”

And if you’re in the Southern California area, be sure to swing by Sterling Silver Comics and Arsenal Comics and Games for your comics.

Get It

2000 AD, 2000 AD

All New Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Comics

The movie-fication of the characters is complete. And as someone who bought Rocket Raccoon books off the rack in the 80s, and thus should feel slightly put out by that, this is an enjoyable book, with lushly detailed art by Aaron Kuder that still has an engaging cartoony edge.

Boom 2017 Summer Blast, Boom! Studios

Colorful Monsters, Drawn and Quarterly

DC Superhero Girls, DC Comics

The very existence of this project I take as a personal vindication of me saying, for years, that DC neglecting the fact that Wonder Woman is both a super-hero and a princess, was leaving money on the table. The popularity of the concept with every little girl I’ve met is heartening. The stories are charmingly illustrated and told as well.

Hilda’s Back, Nobrow Press

The Incal, Humanoids

Time Shifters; Graphix

A fun looking book with monsters and time travel. I mean, this is a book that has Vampire Napoleon in it. That’s some good, mad, high concept comics madness.

Wonder Woman Special Edition, DC Comics

It’s Free

Bad Machinery, Oni Press

The Ballad of Franklin Bonisteel, Z2 Comics

Barbie, Papercutz

Bongo Free-For-All, Bongo Comics

Buffy the High School Years, Dark Horse Comics

Captain Canuck Year One, Chapterhouse

Catalyst Prime, Lion Forge

Doctor Who, Titan Comics

Dragonball Super, Viz Media

Drawn and Quarterly Presents, Drawn and Quarterly

Fresh off the Boat Presents, Boom! Studios

As much as I adore the TV series, the concept doesn’t really translate well into comics form, even as a jokey reference to an event within the show itself. Great art, and it does manage to capture some of the verve of the show itself.

Grimm Fairy Tales, Zenescope

Kid Savage, Image Comics

Keyser Soze: Scorched Earth, Red 5 Comics

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Viz Media

The Loud House, Papercutz

Malika: Warrior Queen, Youneek Studios

Miraculous, Action Lab

Monster High, Titan Comics

Rick and Morty, Oni Press

Riverdale, Archie Comics

An interesting companion to the TV series, but lacking the “oh I can’t believe they went there” raucousness that is a good chunk of what makes the show work.

Spongebob Freestyle Funnies, Bongo Comics

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Mirror Broken, IDW

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, IDW

Tex: Patagonia, Epicenter Comics

The Tick, NEC

Underdog, American Mythology

World’s Greatest Cartoonists, Fantagraphics

XO Manowar, Valiant Comics

Avoid

Attack on Titan, Kodansha Comics

Avatar, Dark Horse Comics

Betty and Veronica; Archie Comics

I generally like the work of Adam Hughes. And I’m not one to deny that Betty and Veronica have been portrayed in a cheesecake style more often than not, and that this has lead to some fun work in the past. But the combination just doesn’t work here. This feels rushed and sketchy in comparison to most of Hughes’ work, and it just lacks visual appeal.

Descendants, Tokyopop

Lady Mechanika, Benitez Productions

The Looking Glass Wars: Crossfire, Automatic

Secret Empire, Marvel Comics

Even setting aside the question of if the entire concept of “Captain America was secretly a Nazi a Hydra agent all along,” is offensive, what this book is, is yet another iteration of the “heroes fight heroes instead of villains” storyline, with a not at all unusual “secret traitor” twist. But that’s aside from the utter grossness and tone deafness and utter antagonism to fans that the writer and the publisher have pursued in the course of this story. Even apart from all that, it’s a boring, trite, done to death story. And this book only emphasizes that, with spectacularly ugly and unappealing artwork.

Steam Wars Strike Leader, Antarctic Press

Street Fighter V Wrestling Special, Udon

One of the strengths of horror as a genre is that it’s very malleable. There’s a lot of different types of films that you can comfortably call a “horror” film and still be fairly accurate. You can do horror as action, horror as mystery, horror as thriller, horror as sci-fi, cosmic horror, psychological horror, horror comedy, gross-out horror, etc. And this is, of course, without getting into the huge variety of theme and tone and subject matter that is open. This means there’s pretty much a horror film for everyone. It also means that sometimes you have to really stop and think, “wait, is this a horror movie?” And that’s part of what is happening with Adam Wingard’s 2014 film, The Guest.

The Guest opens with a shot of a man running through vast, open fields somewhere in what looks to be the Midwest. He makes his way to the home of Laura Peterson, and introduces himself as “David” and claims to be a friend of her son Caleb, who died in Afghanistan. It becomes clear that the Peterson family has been largely broken by Caleb’s death, Laura and her husband Spencer particularly, but youngest son Luke and daughter Anna are clearly rebelling or retreating in various ways from the trauma of losing Caleb. Laura insists that “David” stay a few days, since it clear he has nowhere to go, and despite Spencer’s objections and Anna’s distrust, “David” quickly wins over the family. He fills Spencer’s need for a son he can relate to on an adult level, and Luke and Anna’s need for a big brother figure.  The Peterson’s are so happy to have “David” around they overlook some warning signs, such as a peculiar lack of sleep, and a capacity for extraordinary violence and emotional manipulation. Anna eventually realizes that “David” is not who he says he is after he kills two minor criminals and frames her drug-dealing boyfriend for the crime, and her investigations trigger the arrival of a clandestine military contracting group to retrieve “David” who is part of an experiment in creating “better” soldiers that went wrong. Their arrival triggers “David’s” survival mode, and he cuts a swath of destruction through the town focused on eliminating the Peterson’s, as the greatest risk to his continued freedom. With only Luke and Anna left alive, the three are trapped in a burning building when Luke stabs “David” fatally. “David” lives long enough to tell Luke that he did the right thing. The films ends on a genre-appropriate stinger, with Luke and Anna being treated by paramedics and Anna seeing a very much alive “David” leave the building and escape.

In many ways, The Guest is a tonal follow up to Wingard and screen-writer Simon Barrett’s previous collaboration, You’re Next. Both films occupy a sort of hybrid space between a horror film and an action film, and both have “mysteries” at their core which are mostly there for window dressing. Careful viewing of both films even indicates that, in fact, they take place in the same cinematic universe.  But while You’re Next played the action/thriller angle almost from the start and kept that tone throughout, The Guest builds up much more of a quiet menace, letting us know that something is very, very wrong with “David” and this situation, and releasing all that tension in an apocalyptic manner. It’s a smart difference given that the theme of this film is very much contrary to what you’d expect out of a “typical” horror movie. In many ways, “David” functions as a Mary Poppins-esque figure. He’s the mysterious stranger that arrives into the lives of this typical family and fixes them in ways that they many not have realized were broken. What they don’t realize, of course, is that he’s fixing things in casually violent and murderous ways. At one point, Spencer even likens a particularly tragic stroke of good fortune he’s experienced at work to wishing on a monkey’s paw.

Other than the “be careful what you wish for” semi-moral of the tale, the film is somewhat slight. Which isn’t a criticism, really, as the film is well shot, well acted, and features extremely relateable and sympathetic characters. The actions scenes are exciting, the scenes of menace are frightening, and when it’s funny it’s genuinely funny. But the film doesn’t aspire to be more than a slightly arch and smart horror-thriller, which occasionally comes across as an excess of self-awareness. That stinger, while tone and genre appropriate, almost doesn’t sit quite with the rest of the film. It turns much of what went before into something of a shaggy-dog story, and while I personally adore that ending, I can’t help but wonder if a less explicit version of the same revelation might have worked better. The smartest thing the film does, though, is leave that central mystery of who “David” really is unresolved. We know he’s not “David”, from a very brief glance at the real “David”, but we know he is unmistakably someone who did know Caleb, in some way, from the military. There’s some room for ambiguity in who he really is and why he really came, but ultimately it doesn’t matter, and the film-makers recognize this and leave it a question that can never be answered because, with this kind of story, there can never be a satisfying answer.

2000AD
This is always one of the highlights for me, as there usually is very little as creative and entertaining, with as good a mix of older and new material, as what 2000AD puts together. This year is no exception, and this is easily one of the better offerings this year.
Get it

Archie
Well, the art’s nice. I’ll chalk this up to very much Not For Me and leave it at that.
It’s free

Assassin’s Creed
I always forget that this franchise has a silly, sci-fi conspiracy story as a framing device. I can’t see this appealing to anyone outside of existing fans of the franchise, as pretty much nothing happens in the two short stories here other than people talking about things that will only make sense if you’re a fan of the franchise.
Avoid

Attack on Titan Anthology
Previews of various works inspired by the manga and anime series that I absolutely fail to see the appeal of. Some of this is quite nicely done, but it’s Not For Me.
It’s free

Avatarex
If you asked someone to describe a parody of a Grant Morrison comic, you might get something close to this.
That it’s actually written by Morrison is either brilliant or depressing.
It’s free

Awake
Action Lab does some nice kid’s books, and this is a promising start to a sci-fi series with some interesting characters.
Get it

Bob’s Burgers
I still don’t get the appeal of the show, but this is pretty good, occassionally inventive all-ages fare.
It’s free

Bongo Comics Free-For-All
Excellent cartooning, but every time I look at a Simpsons comic I’m struck by how much less verve they have then even the “shadow of its former self” TV version has.
It’s free

Boom! 2016 Summer Blast
A really excellent collection of nicely illustrated and genuinely entertaining all ages comics.
Get it

Bruce Lee: The Dragon Rises
While this is well done, the “Bruce Lee unfrozen in modern times” conceit is just a little too ghoulish. It leaves me wondering who exactly is the market for something like this.
It’s free

Camp Midnight
Visually arresting, unfortunately to the point of unreadability at times. But if you can make out the action, it’s a cute kids books about a summer camp for monsters and the one human girl who goes there.
It’s free

Captain America
A really well illustrated story about Captain America punching some Nazis. Which, really, is all anyone could really want.
Also, some back-up nonsense about Spider-Man, but you can skip that.
It’s free

Civil War II
The worst thing Marvel intentionally published gets a sequel. It’s Bendis and Cheung, so the competence is there, and of course if you have any intention of following Marvel’s latest semi-annual mega event that changes everything forever for six months, you’ll need to read this.
As super-hero fare goes, it’s inoffensive, but absolutely not for me.
It’s free

Comics Lab
A completely random sampler of what I’m presuming are comics published by Z2 comics. This is the sort of sampler I intensely dislike, because it leads with a bright kid-friendly appearing comic of the aggressive whimsey variety, and then gets progressively darker and more violent, meaning it’s really not appropriate for anyone.
It’s free

Dark Lily & Friends
A strange little assortment of general ages books, mostly in a kid-friendly horror/magic tone. It all falls squarely in those realms of being neither dull, nor offensive, nor particularly compelling either.
It’s free

DC SuperHero Girls
Well, if the completely and totally decimated shelves carrying this merch in Target is anything to go by, this will probably be in short supply. It’s quality is fairly typical of DC all-ages material, but the cliff-hanger ending leading into an ad for a graphic novel that isn’t out yet is pretty disappointing.
It’s free

Defend Comics
A good assortment of kid’s comic’s stories, most loosely themed around the concepts of free speech, that does a good job of explaining it to younder readers.
Get it

DreamJumper
Scholastic’s graphic novel line puts out some remarkably good books on a regular basis, that mostly get overlooked, it seems, by the online comics community because, well, there’s not much to gripe about with them. The story here isn’t the most original, but it’s well done and the art is very nice, so this could be worth looking out for.
It’s free

Doctor Who
Brief, fun enough, stories, but, and bear in mind your source in this, I think I’m full up of just about all I need of anything related to post-relaunch Doctor Who.
It’s free

Grumpy Cat (And Pokey!)
While this isn’t as shameless a Garfield rip-off as I suspected it would be. If you have kids who like dumb jokes and cute animals, maybe they’d like it. It’s really not for anyone else.
It’s free

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom
H.P. Lovecraft has infiltrated pop culture consciousness to the point where he’s now fodder for an exploitatively cute kid’s comic.
Take that as an condemnation or an endorsement as you will.
It’s free

Lady Mechanika
The 90s are back! In steampunk form!
Avoid

Legend of Korra
Some nicely illustrated and written stories tying into children’s media franchises I really am not interested in.
Avoid

Love and Rockets
At this point if you don’t know that this is going to be the best book in stores for Free Comic Book Day, well, I don’t know what to tell you.
Get it

March
Beautifully illustrated and absolutely essential sampler of John Lewis’s autobiographical comics about the height of the civil rights era activism.
Get it

Mix Tape 2016
A sampler of titles published under the resurrected Devil’s Due label? Remember them ? I do, but I’ve cared far too much about comics for far too long.
Anyway, this is a mixed bag. I liked Squarriors, a nicely illustrated tale in the genre of ultra-violent small rodent warriors, the most. And only one story made me slightly embarrassed for the comics industry as a whole.
It’s free

Mooncop
Starkly beautiful, engaging, and funny comic work by Tom Gauld, otherwise known as “that guy whose cartoons you see without attribution on Tumblr all the time who isn’t Kate Beaton.”
Get it

Oddly Normal
Really charming, and lushly illustrated, story of a half-witch girl dealing with school, family, and the usual all-ages fantasy fodder.
Get it

One-Punch Man
Well…they tell me it’s good, but I’m not persuaded. Granted, my tastes in boy’s manga runs more to the likes of Assassination Classroom than “we must fight to be better fighters so that we can win the next fight” stories, so I’m not the auidence here anyway.
It’s free

Overstreet’s Comic Book Marketplace
And, once again, nothing misses the mark for what this day is supposed to be about more than Overstreet’s offering. Rather than put something out that celebrates comics as an art form, or a form of entertainment, they once again treat comics as an investment, as a damned collectable. And now, joy of joys, they’re even applying that mindset to cosplay. It’s gross.
Avoid

The Phantom
The Phantom is one of those properties that I might be interested in some good, quality reprints of, especially given some of the artists that have worked on it over the years. But the quality of the material that Hermes Press puts out is just ugly, with muddy colors and poor reproduction. It literally hurts my eyes to try and read this.
Avoid

Pokemon
These are just absolutely peculiar Pokemon gag cartoons. I mean, I suspect the translations are a bit…generous, but it’s just silliness.
It’s free

Rom
Literally no one wants this.
Avoid

Sanjay and Craig
I am…not a fan of this kind of humor in kid’s cartoons.
It’s free

Science Comics
Hey, fun, well drawn, actually educational science comics for kids. And actual science, not the “fuck yeah, science!” type of “science.”
Get it

Serenity
With all the really great stuff Dark Horse has put out in the last year, they lead with the thing that suggests they’re feeling the pinch from losing the Star Wars license.
Anyway, there’s a Hellboy story illustrated by Richard Corben in here that’s worth looking at.
It’s free

Sonic Sampler
Sonic comics: Yes, they still exist.
It’s free

Spectrum
Very nicely illustrated book that largely consists of a collection of sci-fi cliches.
It’s free

Spongebob Freestyle Funnies
The usual eclectic mix of rather corny comics, saved by really good cartooning.
It’s free

Strawberry Shortcake
Hey, it’s the revival of the toyetic 80s media property that hasn’t been ruined by horrible nerds because of an ironic joke taken too far!
Anyway, this is cute fun, and a really good example of how to make an appealing kid’s comic out of a licensed property based on horrible puns.
It’s free

Street Fighter V
Udon’s books always look pretty.
I never have any idea what’s going on in them, but they look pretty.
It’s free

Stuff of Legend
It’s beautiful, of course, and it’s nice to see the original story again. If you haven’t gotten it before, this is as good a time as any.
It’s free

Suicide Squad
A reprint of the not terribly impressive first “New 52” relaunch, done in the name of corporate synergy.
Avoid

The Tick
Some entertaing and peculiar Tick comics. As usual, this is one of the better books offered for Free Comic Book Day, and consistently has been.
Get it

Valiant 2016
Lots of people whose opinions I trust keep talking up the current Valiant books to me, and honestly? There’s a lot of good looking, promising stuff here. But I am not getting into yet another super-hero universe. I’m not sure anyone, anywhere, needs another super-hero univer, to be blunt.
But if you have to, these look pretty good.
It’s free

We Can Never Go Home/Young Terrorists
Two really strong, surprisingly effective stories here. They verge into the “grim and gritty” territory that, yes, we all say we’re tired of, yet continue to buy. But the samples here have strong, unique voices that make them something really quite impressive and worth seeking out.
Get it

Worlds of Aspen 2016
Aspen Comics: still exist
Avoid

Latice: A Kickstarter backed game a friend picked up, Latice is very much like mainstay-gateway game Qwirkle, only if someone decided that what the later game needed was less straight-forward tile-playing and more thematic artwork. It’s a fairly light abstract game where the goal is to be the first person to play all your tiles. And, like many self-published Kickstarter games, it has issues that become so obvious early into the game you wonder how the designers failed to notice them. In this case, it’s a tremendous reliance on luck, in the form of tiles that allow a player to break placement rules, that can give a single player an insurmountable advantage over others, one that would have been very easily avoided by simply…not randomizing player’s tile pools.

Wombat Rescue: A Kickstarter game I backed, though one from a publisher I generally give the benefit of the doubt to. It fell within my remit for backing games: under $30 with an interesting, non-violent theme. In this case, the players are all wombats trying to find their babies, who have been scattered around the wilderness, all while avoiding dingoes. The game takes advantage of the ubiquity of small wooden cubes in gaming and the fact that wombat poop is square (google it if you don’t believe me) to its advantage, making the game…extremely thematic. It’s a fun game that appears light but has some nice strategic depth, even if, again, it has a couple of rules issues that seem to have escaped the designers.

Codenames: I avoided this New Hotness game for a long time, as I detest “Werewolf”-style games (despite owning at least two) and every description made it seem like one of those. It’s not, at all, it’s more like The $10,000 Pyramid as a party game. In other words, absolutely stupid and boring.

Concordia: A worker placement/area control/drafting style of economic game, only set in ancient Rome instead of medieval Europe. Gameplay-wise, it’s a very well designed game, with multiple paths to victory and enough going on that even a player who is falling behind has things to do. But there’s a little too much going on, and about a dozen different things that give you points at the end of the game, and it’s too long for what it is. I don’t mind games of this sort, but I prefer them to be both shorter and simpler.

Buccaneer Bones: A small-box “push your luck” style dice game to play in fifteen minutes because you don’t have the time or interest to play something meatier. It’s fine.

Mysterium: The English-language adaptation of the Polish game that finds something better to do with “Dixit” style cards than play “Dixit.” There’s an interesting blend of intuition and deduction that I enjoy, but like any game where you’re using abstraction to lead people to concrete answer, the group you play the game with makes it or breaks it. With my group, this is going to be a “once in a while” game, I suspect, as it’s just long enough that most of the people who do enjoy it would rather play something else, and the people who don’t enjoy it would rather play anything else.

Cthulhu Wars: One of the bigger New Hotness games around lately, both in terms of sheer size and popularity, and, despite theming and aggressively unapologetic “Ameritrash” aesthetics, this is actually not a Me game, but rather a Husband game, as the gameplay is, essentially, an asymmetrical take on Risk. The essential simplicity of the rules is part of the appeal, as it gives players something to dig their teeth into once the novelty of huge ass plastic figurines as playing pieces wears off. In fact, there are times that the aesthetics of the game are probably a detriment to it, as the suspiciously yonic 80s metal-band takes on Lovecraftian monsters are, out-of-context, extremely silly. So my advice would be not to play this unless you’re only going to have colossal nerds over to play, which, uh, probably goes without saying.