FREE = AWESOME (usually)

Get ready, comic book fans and yet-to-be comic book lovers:  This Saturday, May 1, 2010, is Free Comic Book Day!  To find out if your local comic book shop is participating, go to the Free Comic Book Day website and search for your location.

Why is this so important?  Chances are, if you are a regular reader of Paper Spaceships, you already are into comics.  But what about your other friends?  Your younger siblings?  Your second cousin twice-removed?  Free Comic Book Day was started as an initiative to get people into comic books who may not otherwise read them.  In all honesty, I am still a comic book noob, so I love FCBD.  You can pick up a stack of various genres and see what your favorite might be.

Want to know what they’re giving away this year?  Check the full list out.

No he can't read my comic boooook...

My pick for most baffling free comic book of 2010: The Lady Gaga origin story/S.E. Hinton original story split.  S.E. Hinton wrote one of my all-time favorite novels, The Outsiders, when she was a teen.  Lady Gaga probably grew up as an outsider and is now loved by teens.  Is that the connection here?

Badassery!

My pick for the possibly most awesome free comic book of 2010: The Mouse Guard/Fraggle Rock split.  Mouse Guard is a badass series.  You will never again look at a rodent without imagining it in a tiny cape, brutalizing a predator.  And let’s face it, Fraggle Rock was full of badass Muppets.  I’m interested to see what they can do with the series.  The world of the Fraggles is so richly imagined, I hope that this one stands up on its own, versus just being a licensed comic.

Speaking of licensed comics, Free Comic Book Day also will feature titles like Toy Story, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Shrek.

You might  also be able to pick up The Tick, Iron Man, and the Green Lantern.

I’ll be hitting up my local comics shop on Saturday, even if it’s only to pick up some free issues and make comic book guys nervous because there is a girl in the store.   Are you excited for Free Comic Book Day?  Picking up anything special?

I wish I had a time machine...

Sometime long ago it seems I picked up a small volume from Oni Press because the cover caught my eye. It was Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life and I was hooked. The art style seemed plugged into my nerd reference/video game fueled/indie sensibility brain and nested there. I had recently been dealing with some family tragedy and this small volume made me smile and laugh and proceed to pass it out to my friends (first going to my fellow astronaut Shaka). Luckily I was a little late to the Scott Pilgrim game (hey I was a broke college student when the first one came out and then I was living in Korea…cut me some slack) so I had a couple more volumes to pick up.

What followed was an experience that hooked into the nerd zeitgeist and the general malaise that comes from being in your early twenties and all of a sudden facing a world that isn’t as safe as you may have once believed. The characters were great and the art was amazing. Wallace is probably one of my favorite roommate characters ever. I finished the next three volumes like hot cakes. I went out and started buying Oni Press releases and discovered Queen and Country and Local and a ton of other insane and awesome things. In some ways Scott Pilgrim turned me back into a comic book nerd (I also rediscovered my love of Vertigo titles around then). Then Scott Pilgrim vs. The Universe came out and it was bittersweet. By far the most mature and serious volume of the comic, it was also one of the most interestingly told. Most of Scott Pilgrim’s fights and antics take place in the background as the relationships around him change (and not always for the better) as his friends grow up. Alas it was also the penultimate volume, and I knew the journey was soon to be over.

Today the folks over at Oni Press announced the final volume’s release date. So take out your pens and mark this down: July 20th. I’d just like to salute the people over at Oni for giving comics out of the mainstream a platform to find success, and Bryan Lee O’Malley for creating a world and a character that has provided me and my friends with laughter (and sometimes a little sadness) over the past couple of years. Three beers to you ser.