Confessions of a Comic Book Guy is a weekly column by retailer Steve Bennett of Mary Alice Wilson's Dark Star Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  This week, Bennett takes a look at Free Comic Book Day.

We've barely gotten through January, but retailers all over the country are undoubtedly already thinking about Free Comic Book Day in May; which in a roundabout way has started me thinking about last year's FCBD, by far the best one Dark Star ever had, financially and otherwise.

It was definitely an improvement over previous years.  Sure we could always depend on the same group of (sometimes increasingly desperate) completists who just had to have every single free comic book being offered by publishers, even if it meant visiting every single comic book shop within easy driving distance.  But when it came to 'civilians,' well, sometimes even giving them a comic book could prove to be a struggle,

But in 2005 customers of all ages started coming to Dark Star early, and were both actively interested in and appreciative of our display of free comics.  We quickly ran out of official FCBD day offerings and had to break into some of our '10 random comics for $2.49' packs to supplement our supply of freebies and make sure no one would go home disappointed.  Maybe it was all the promotion for the upcoming Batman Begins and Fantastic Four movies, but there seemed to be a palpable feeling of 'comic book consciousness' in the air.

Right now we're deciding whether to get FCBD temporary tattoos, stickers, postcards and even postage stamps (truly we live in an age of miracles and wonders) and next month we'll be choosing which free comics we'll be getting in May.  Most of this year's publisher offerings are about as predictable as Devil's Due releasing a special edition of GI Joe Sigma and Dark Horse doing a Star Wars/Conan flipbook (me, I'd have loved to have seen the publisher release a special Little Lulu comic).

But the highlight is, unquestionably, Marvel's X-Men/Runaways, including in its 40 all-new pages an Ultimate Spider-Man story, while the lowlight is DC's reprinting of Justice League Unlimited #1.  In looks like in all the hustle and bustle of keeping Infinite Crisis on schedule and launching the upcoming weekly 52 DC has forgotten two important facts.

1)     The animated series Justice League Unlimited has been all but canceled by Cartoon Network and by the time the FCBD edition of JLU #1 arrives in stores the series is likely to have been given a traditional CN burial; dumped onto a late night slot on the schedule of sister network Boomerang.

2)     There's a Superman movie coming out this summer.  I hear it's supposed to be pretty good.

So, wouldn't it have made much more sense if DC instead offered, say, a reprint of All-Star Superman #1 instead?  Or if you're hindered from using Superman because of complicated legal reasons, wouldn't it be a perfect opportunity to promote such titles as Jonah Hex or Warlord?  Heck, I'd prefer seeing reprints of Sugar & Spike or Stanley and his Monster than Justice League Unlimited. Not that it's any of my business.

Oh, wait; it is my business; there's no such thing as a truly Free Comic Book Day because retailers have to pay for the comics we give away.  Speaking just for Dark Star, it's a promotional expense we're happy to absorb.

But it would be nice if publishers, especially the big two, would put more of an actual effort into their selections (like Marvel, this year anyway), as opposed to just sending out something all-ages appropriate that's convenient for them.  Maybe it's time they actually start consulting with us about what we'd like to see.