With Free Comic Book Day approaching quickly, I thought this would be a good time to gather some news and reviews. Keep your eyes open for a special FCBD ComicList that will be published later this week.

Zenescope Entertainment, publisher of the highly popular series Grimm Fairy Tales and the critically acclaimed Se7en, regrets to inform fans and retailers that Dyno Force #0 will not be shipping on Free Comic Book Day. Due to undisclosed legal reasons, Zenescope is working with Diamond to relist the issue along with #1 at a discounted rate of .50 a book.

It’s that time of year again — Free Comic Book Day is next Saturday, May 5, 2007. I’ll be helping out at Richmond Comix in Richmond (Midlothian), Virginia, so come on by! Here’s brief coverage of some of the many many comics that may be available (with the exception of the Bongo and Gumby titles, which I don’t have copies of yet):

Lots of discussion already about the Free Comic Book Day comics I covered yesterday, but I wanted to raise a related question… and I can’t believe it took me this long to notice:

What am I supposed to give girls? FCBD has never been strong on titles for women (neither is the direct market, so that’s not a surprise), but in previous years, there were good choices for the younger female. This year seems to have gone backwards in this area.

Mike Banks of Samurai Comics in Phoenix told the Arizona Republic the event is a great time for the industry to show how positive comic books can be in encouraging kids to read.

On Free Comic Book Day, Banks said, fans come to the store dressed up as their favorite heroes and have their books signed by authors, actors and other celebrities. Comic book stores across the nation have caught on to the trend of Free Comic Book Day, the newspaper said.

If you're a longtime comic reader, it's a good opportunity to pop in and support your shop on some day other than a Wednesday. If you once read comics and gave them up, this is a great opportunity to pop back in and see what's going on in the comics you read once upon a time. And, hey... if you've never picked up a comic book in your life, why not take advantage of the event to see the inside of an honest-to-God comic shop and see that comics are just as much fun on the page as they are in the movies. Plus, you might just be surprised by all the myriad forms the comic book can take.