Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by Steve Bennett of Super-Fly Comics and Games in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett reviews this year's selection of Free Comic Book Day comics.
 
By now I would have assumed the story of how Janelle Asselin received rape threats after criticizing a comic book cover would have gotten a lot more traction in the mainstream media (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Oh, Not This Again...").  At the very least I expected pieces in Slate and Salon (well, Salon anyway) but so far the only outside press attention it's gotten has been a Daily Beast piece by Tauriq Moosa titled "Female Journalist Gets Rape Threats Over Comic Book Criticism" that got picked up by Yahoo News.  That and one over at the PolicyMic site by Hilary Miller titled "Rape Threats Are Not the Way to Defend Comic Book Misogyny."
 
Some good may actually come out of all this awful ugliness though.  The "We Are Comics" campaign was started on Tumblr and Twitter last weekend by comics writer and editor Rachel Edidin.  She invites comics fans to demonstrate their love of the medium by photos of themselves along with the phrase "we are comics" to demonstrate that "We are comics, creators, publishers, retailers, readers, professionals and fans.  And we are a lot more diverse than you might think."  Eddin has been quoted as saying the campaign is supposed to "show--and celebrate--the face of our community, our industry, and our culture, to promote the visibility of marginalized members of our population, and to stand in solidarity against harassment and abuse."
 
And what better place to take those photos than at your local comic shop on Free Comic Book Day, not just because it's, you know, America’s coast to coast comic festival, our very own fun sized Christmas, but because FCBD embodies everything the "We Are Comics" campaign is about.  This year there are sixty FCBD offerings this year and I can safely say that among them there is something for absolutely everyone.  Usually that phrase is just a trite cliche, a bit of harmless hyperbole, but this time I can confirm that it is absolutely accurate.  I can say that because I got to see copies of most of the comics ahead of time for review purposes thanks to Deborah Moreland, PR and Marketing Associate of Diamond Comic Distributors who was good enough to send me copies of most of them for review ahead of time.  I often worry in print that I may be getting a bit jaded about comics but I can happily report that I still get a bit of a visceral thrill when somebody gives me that many free funny books all at once.
 
They range from oversized (2000AD, Street Fighter) to undersized (Les Miserables: The Fall of Fantine, Archie Digest).  If you want European comics there's Magic Wind which offers a preview of an upcoming graphic novel.  Old comic strips?  There's Buck Rogers.  And if you want eclectic, well, you can't get much further afield of superheroes than Showa: A History of Japan, Les Miserables: The Fall of Fantine, a manga adaptation of the Victor Hugo novel, and Hip Hop Family Tree.
 
Of course there are lots for the tots that are also suitable for older readers like me.  Such as, The Smurfs, The Tick, Hello Kitty and Friends, Kaboom! Super Blast, Spongebob Freestyle Funnies and especially Walt Disney Uncle Scrooge, which features a Don Rosa story.  And of course Archie Digest is intended primarily for kids but adult Archie aficionados will appreciate the fact that among the reprints there are a couple of stories drawn by Harry Lucey as well as a She's Josie story by Frank Doyle and Dan DeCarlo.
 
I was pleasantly impressed by the Armor Hunters Special, Worlds of Aspen, Guardians of the Galaxy (though I have to say I wish Marvel would let their space comic be a space comic; inserting Iron Man into the proceedings almost made "sense" but Venom?), and Rocket Raccoon (though mostly for the Ty Templeton Ultimate Spider-Man story).  But my personal favorites would have to be Atomic Robo & Friends and Project Black Sky which features a neat little team-up between Captain Midnight and Brain Boy that also includes the debut of (to my mind) the breakout new character of 2014, Ape-X.
 
But the FCBD selection I was most interested in seeing would have to be Red Giant Entertainment's Giant-Size 4-Comic Bundle.  It offers four slightly undersized flipbooks, Giant-Size Thrills, Giant-Size Adventure, Giant-Size Action and Giant-Size Fantasy.  Not so much for the comics themselves, but the intriguing idea behind them; they're #0 issues for a line of free weekly 68 page comics scheduled to launch in July.  The comics are a mixed bag (my favorite being Tesla in Giant-Size Action) but they're good enough that I would like to see more of them, especially for free.
 
And I'm sure you're all aware comiXology removed the in-app purchasing function from its popular tablet apps.  Meaning comic book guys like me will have to buy their digital comics at the company’s web-based storefront then download and read them on an entirely different app.  Which admittedly seems a tad inconvenient, yet strangely I find myself incapable of joining in on the grand group overreaction currently going on online.  I just honestly don't think the change "kills," "cuts," "guts," or flat out "neuters" the best part of the app, as so many online reports would have it.
 
And maybe it's the $5 eGift card that I (and everyone else who's ever shopped at comiXology) was given to help me get over the shock but I only experienced either "ire" or "outrage" when unsuccessfully trying to download the new app.  Thanks to Erin from Community Support for being so patient with me while I figured out what I was doing wrong.
 
And, finally, I know that I have had nothing but snide things to say about Marvel's Original Sin event (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Seek and You Shall Find").  But something made me buy a digital copy of #0 written by Mark Waid, and it quickly had me in tears. I know it should be creepy but instead it was kind of nice, knowing that Uatu was up there on the moon, watching over all of us.
 
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.