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 shares his best Free Comic Book Day ever.

I don’t know about all of you but personally I had a pretty busy weekend.  Between Saturday and Sunday I managed to squeeze in a screening of Thor, Free Comic Book Day, Mother's Day and a Charity Concert that raised money for Japan Relief (amongst the Japanese music that was played was the theme from director Hayao Miyazaki’s anime classic Castle In The Sky).

I saw Thor in 3D, but only because it was the next available showing.  I'm not a 3D hater, just someone who objects to having to pay $3.50 extra for something I didn't ask for, not that I'm under the delusion that my opinions matters (there were representatives of The Nielsen Company in the theater who wanted me to comment on trailers of upcoming movies... until they learned how old I was).

Probably the most interesting thing about the movie was the trouble I had convincing my female significant other to see it with me, which is odd since it’s basically a chick flick.  Thor is, after all, the story of a privileged, devastatingly good-looking, good-at-heart bad boy who 'meets cute' (she hits him with her car!) an unlucky-in-love career woman who teaches him how to be a man.  Jane Foster's wisecracking intern Darcy (played by the always wonderful Kat Dennings) seemed like the standard issue 'best friend' straight out of a romantic comedy.

Which brings us to Free Comi Book Day.  There was a line to get into Super-fly Comics & Games when they opened at 10am, an hour earlier than they usually open on Saturdays.  I arrived at 11am then proceeded to 'work' for a couple of hours in my usual pivotal role of  the guy who stood near the FCBD comics and repeatedly said "Everything here is free."  Yeah, I know it was fairly obvious, what with them all being marked "Free Comic Book Day" and everything but I’ve found it never hurts to go over how things work, especially with the uninitiated.

And admittedly I was saying it mostly to Mom and Dad types and anyone else who looked like being in a comic book shop might be outside their comfort zone.  These were also the people most likely to inquire if all the FCBD selections were all-ages appropriate or might need some help picking out which ones to get.  Sometimes the sheer volume of choices can be overwhelming and this is where an informed comic book guy (such as myself) can come in handy.

I also said "we've got a really good selection this year" quite a bit, partially because it's good salesmanship (and let’s face it, you’re selling comics even when the customers don’t actually pay for them), and partially because I actually meant it.  I hate to descend into comic book guy-ese but I believe this year's FCBD titles to have been the best ever.  I mean, what else could they possibly be when Marvel gives us what amounts to another issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger by Roger Langridge and Chris Samnee, co-starring a WWII era Captain America?

As previously established (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--Read The Comic, See The Movie (Maybe)") I’m totally in the tank for Super Dinosaur so it was hard to not recommend it, not when you got a whole complete other issue of it for free.  Second runner-up would of course belong to this year's Red 5 Comics sampler featuring yet another hilarious Atomic Robo story featuring his self proclaimed arch-nemesis Dr. Dinosaur.

But I must confess I had completely forgotten about the FCBD comic featuring the Silver Scorpion even though I previously wrote about it (see "Confessions of a Comic Book Guy--For Truth, Justice and Understanding").  It’s a character that was created during a summit hosted by the Open Hands Initiative between disabled American and Syrian youths and it features his origin by Ron Marz and Mukesh Singh in a story that avoids the shortcomings of most origin stories.  It's just terribly sad that a comic that, in the words of the Initiative's Co-Founder Jay T. Snyder is "an act of public diplomacy, a gift from the young people of America and Syria to the world" should come out now given what's going on in Syria at the moment.

And if that doesn’t seem like a lot I also passed out Free Comic Book Day bags to all of the people weighed down with huge, honking piles of FCBD comics.

So, in summary, Super-Fly had another strong year, the FCBD comics were devoured and I spoke with an incredibly wide cross section of people from Soccer Mom to tattooed girls.  One of the latter even told me she had gotten her very first comic on a Free Comic Book Day, so mission accomplished, I guess.

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.