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Someone tell Hallmark to make a card because there’s a big holiday coming up – Free Comic Book Day. The annual event celebrated at most every comic shop around the world returns on May 7, providing – you guessed it! – free comic books for pretty much anyone who shows up to get them.
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As usual, 2022’s Free Comic Book Day will coincide with the theatrical release of a Marvel-based comic book film – in this year’s case, Marvel Studios’ Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, maybe the biggest comic book movie of 2022. Free Comic Book Day will have a full array of comics from dozens of publishers in every genre for all ages and most every taste.
And yes, lots of superheroes. Marvel superheroes, especially.
At current count, 46 different comic books will be available … again, for free … on Free Comic Book Day. And if that’s a lot to wrap your head around, let us help with our guide to Free Comic Book Day.
What comics will be offered on Free Comic Book Day?
The comics available on Free Comic Book Day are an assortment of new comic books, samplers of comic books, and even magazines about comic books.
For many, the main event will be the three DC and three Marvel comic books available for the 2022 Free Comic Book Day.
Marvel is offering Avengers/X-Men/Eternals: Judgment Day #0, Spider-Man/Venom #1, and Marvel Voices #1, and DC is offering Dark Crisis #0 and sampler editions of Galaxy: The Prettiest Star and DC: League of Super-Pets.
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Judgment Day #0 is by writers Kieron Gillen and drawn Dustin Weaver, and is a set-up for the upcoming Judgment Day crossover event between the Avengers, the X-Men, and the Eternals.
Spider-Man/Venom #1 will offer readers a glimpse at what Marvel has planned in the coming month for Spider-Man including the return of the big new supervillain Chasm (he’s Peter Parker’s clone Ben Reilly gone bad), as well as a sampler of the current Venom series by Al Ewing, Ram V, and Bryan Hitch.
Finally, Marvel’s Voices #1 will be a sampler of the various anthologies by that name that have spotlighted creators and characters from under-represented cultures, communities, and identities across Marvel’s “diverse and ever-evolving universe.”
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DC, for its part, is kicking off its big 2022 summer event Dark Crisis with a special #0 issue by the events’ creators Joshua Williamson and Daniel Sampere, along with co-artist Jim Cheung.
The publisher is also publishing sampler editions of its upcoming yourg readers graphic novels Galaxy: The Prettiest Star and DC League of Super-Pets.
Here’s a complete list of the 2022 Free Comic Book Day titles:
- 10 Ton Tales (Ten Ton Press)
- 25 Years of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (BOOM! Studios)
- An as-yet-unrevealed comic (AWA Studios)
- An as-yet-unrevealed comic (Humanoids)
- Avatar: The Last Airbender / Legend of Korra (Dark Horse Comics)
- Avengers / X-Men #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Barbaric #1 (Vault Comics)
- Best of 2000 AD #0 (Rebellion Publishing)
- Bloodborne (Titan Comics)
- Bone Orchard Mythos Prelude (Image Comics)
- Bunny Mask Tales (AfterShock Comics)
- Carriers/Beorn/Dragon Whisperer (Red 5 Comics)
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- DC League of Super-Pets
- Dark Crisis #0 (DC)
- Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man & Friends Supr Comic Teaser (Graphix/Scholastic)
- Disney Masters Donald Duck & Co. Special (Fantagraphics Books)
- Doctor Who (Titan Comics)
- Enemies (Yen Press)
- Equilibrium (Lev Gleason Publications/Comichouse)
- Fuzzy Baseball Triple Play (Papercutz)
- Galaxy: The Prettiest Star (DC)
- Hollow Preview (BOOM! Studios)
- It Won’t Always Be Like This: A Graphic Memoir (Ten Speed Press)
- Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters (Oni Press)
- Kaiju No. 8/Sakamoto Days (VIZ Media)
- Kult Cable featuring Jack Black (Behemoth Comics)
- Marvel Voices #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Max Meow: Cat on the Street Comic Spectacular (Random House Children’s Books)
- Neverlanders (Penguin Young Readers)
- Nottingham FCBD Special (Mad Cave Studios)
- Pokemon Journeys/Pokemon Adventures: XY (VIZ Media)
- Red Sonja Marvel Feature Stories (Dynamite Entertainment)
- Sonic the Hedgehog FCBD 2022 Special (IDW Publishing)
- Spider-Man/Venom #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Stranger Things / Resident Alien (Dark Horse Comics)
- Street Fighter Masters: Blanka (UDON Entertainment)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles FCBD Special (IDW Publishing)
- Tex: In the Land of Seminoles (Epicenter Comics)
- The Best Archie Comic Ever! #0 (Archie Comics)
- The Electric Black: Children of Caine #0 (Scout Comics)
- The GUardian of Fukushima (TOKYOPOP)
- The Overstreet Guide to Collecting Comics (Gemstone Publishing)
- The Rema Chronicles: Realm of the Blue Mist (Graphix/Scholastic)
- The Three Stooges FCBD Celebration (American Mythology)
- The Walking Dead: Clementine #1 (Image Comics/Skybound Entertainment)
- The Winchester Mystery House: 100 Year Curse (Source Point Press)
- The Year of Valiant 2022 FCBD Special (Valiant Entertainment)
- Trese (Ablaze)
- Wandance & Black Guard Sampler (Kodansha Comics)
What is Free Comic Book Day?
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Free Comic Book Day is an annual comic event first launched in 2022 by Joe Field, owner of the comic shop Flying Colors (of Concord, California). It’s usually planned to coincide with the first major superhero film of the summer, which usually occurs the first weekend of May, and is almost always a Marvel Studios film.
The idea behind Free Comic Book Day is to get new and lapsed readers back into comic book shops to check out some of the best comics currently available.
Originally launched as a North American event, Free Comic Book Day has grown to be celebrated in comic shops across the globe – including Canada, Mexico, Australia, Asia, and Europe. To find out if there’s a store near you participating, use this official comic shop locator for Free Comic Book Day (opens in new tab).
When is Free Comic Book Day?
The 2022 Free Comic Book Day will be held on Saturday, May 7, coinciding with the May 6 release of the Marvel Studios film Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness.
Check with your store of choice for the specific hours.
How do I get free comics?
There’s the easy answer, then the hard answer.
The easy answer is that it’s simple, you just show up to a comic store participating in Free Comic Book Day and get some of these free comics.
But the hard answer is that there are only so many copies of these Free Comic Book Day comics available. Although they’re intended to be free for readers, there are costs involved in both creating and printing the comics for publishers and purchasing and shipping for comic book shops and supplies can sometimes be limited, so our advice is to get there early for the best selection.
Each individual store makes its own policy as to how to distribute them to visitors to their stores.
Are Free Comic Book Day comics available online?
The intent of Free Comic Book Day is to encourage comic readership through comic book shops, so generally comic publishers don’t make digital editions of the free comic books available. Some eventually do appear online through either the publisher’s digital app, website, or a service like comiXology.
Let us help you find the comic shop that fits you.
