Another year has passed and a new one is here already and of course it don’t feel like a year has passed at all. What I’m talking about is not a holiday, though for me it really does feel like one. On May 1, Saturday, all day, it will be free comic book day. Wait, before you get excited thinking that you can go to your local comic book shop to get all the comics there for free I must tell you that it won’t happen. 
Free comic book day happens on the first Saturday in the month of May. This May 1 will be the 8th year that the event has taken place. Exactly what is free then on free comic book day, you ask? Well, the reason for free comic book day is to bring in new readers to comics and it also gives back a little something to all the people that have been collecting. There will be a wide assortment of free comics that are just for this day. That is, there will be some that are created just for free comic book day with a few that might be reprints of some of the more popular comics. That’s not all there is that will be given away, there is also a War Machine Heroclix that will be given away. There is also a few items like t-shirts and bags that are made for the day but are not free, those will cost some money and some shops might not carry them.
That’s another very important thing to know, which shops will be doing the free comic book day event. Not every shop will be hosting free comic book day. The reason for this is that even though the comics that will be given away are free to all the people that walk into the shop asking for them, they are not free for the comic shops. For the owners of the shops they have to pay for everything. Since I’m not a comic shop owner I have no idea how much they have to pay for the comics but there are 33 titles being given away this year. Considering the shops have to order a lot of them and some of the bigger shops in cities will be ordering thousands of them, well then even at 10 cents a issues gets to be expensive when you don’t get a return on the product. So, because of this reason there are some comic shops that will not be hosting free comic book day. To find out which shops are, all you have to do is go to the site, which I have put a link to at the bottom of this blog, then put in your zip code in the FCBD store locator to find the shops that might be hosting the event. Also, if you do go to a shop be sure to just throw out a thank you to some of the workers or the owner to let them know you appreciate them hosting the event and giving away the comics.
Over the period of doing these blogs I’ve been trying to come up with different things to talk about other than just giving a brief description about what happens in a certain title and then giving my thoughts on it. One of the things I’ve talked about some of the movies being made from comics, which by the way The Losers that just came out, based off a comic, and I’ve talked about my feelings of the price of comics, way too high, I now have a different topic to talk about that I like, the artists.
The first one up is the one that has caught my attention just recently, Cliff Chiang. What grabbed my attention with Cliff Chiang’s work is how he has taken some well known comic characters by drawing them as iconic album covers from the 1980’s. The fun thing about these covers are that they look almost just like the real albums looked only with comic book characters on them.
If you want to see more than the 2 that I have posted on here than you should check out his site here. http://www.cliffchiang.com/2009/06/02/shes-a-maniac/
Another artist to look out for and one that has been making the rounds in the comic world is Scottie Young. Right now he’s working on the title The Marvelous Land of Oz, which is the continuing story of The Wonderful Land of Oz. If you haven’t read The Wonderful Land of Oz then you should pick up the trade because the story is good and the artwork is extraordinary. Not only is he working on that title but he does a lot of covers for other titles for Marvel Comics. His work may not appeal to all, mainly the ones that are looking for art work that is a straight, hard line that looks like a typical comic because his work not like that. Scottie Young has a style uses shading to bring out the rest of the drawing. Just check out this cover he did for New X Men #43.
If this is not enough for you than you should also go check out his site here. Also for anyone that lives in the Charlotte, NC area or will be visiting Charlotte, NC for the Heroes Convention that’s happening June 4-6, 2010, Scottie Young will be there. I for one will be waiting in line to get his autograph and hopefully a sketch of Harley Quinn from him.
http://www.skottieyoung.com/
And my last 2 artists that I like both worked on Amazing Spider-Man. These two are Javier Pulido and Mike McKone. Both very talented artists and both very different from each other. With Javier Pulido he gives a look like it’s retro yet new. Spidey had this feel like I was reading the original issues but seeing the artwork for the first time instead of being in comics for years with expectations. It’s as if this was my first time in seeing Spider-Man and it made the character stand out.
With Mike McKone he drew Spidey in with a newer look. The lines are sharp, crisp, and give a lot of life to them characters in the work. It was as if the art work is jumping off the page to get the attention of the reader, which works really well with Spider-Man since he’s jumping, hanging, and swinging everywhere.
Ok, that’s about it for this weeks blog, though if you know of any new artists that are good let me know cause I’m always looking for some new comics.
Official DC Comics Site: http://www.dccomics.com/dccomics/
Official Marvel Comics Site: http://marvel.com/