Celebrating Free Comic Book Day with Gail Simone

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Celebrating Free Comic Book Day with Gail Simone

05/25/2018 12:00pm

Connecting with fans and celebrating comics: acclaimed comics writer Gail Simone talks about her experiences with annual Free Comic Book Day festivities.

This year, Free Comic Book Day fell on May 5, and Dark Horse staff visited some of our own local comic shops to see the action, and to see the Dark Horse FCBD comics in the wild! This year, the two Dark Horse FCBD comics offered were Overwatch: Zarya Searching/Black Hammer: The Quantum Age, and--for all ages--The Legend of Korra: Lost Pets/ARMS: A Call to Arms. If you missed them on Free Comic Book Day, fear not: they are both available on Dark Horse Digital now, still free!

Local comic shops Things From Another World Portland and Things From Another World Milwaukie featured signings with acclaimed comics writer Gail Simone (Tomb Raider, Conan Red Sonja, Leaving Megalopolis), and we caught up with her to talk about all things Free Comic Book Day.

Dark Horse: What is your favorite thing about Free Comic Book Day? Why do you think it's important, and what would you like people to know about it?

Gail Simone: My favorite thing about Free Comic Book Day is that it gives people the chance to try something that they haven't had a chance to try before. Whether they have never read a comic before, or they haven't read a particular story, or a particular publisher or creator—it gives them a chance to try something new without having to fork out a bunch of money. That's what the day is for, and to bring people into the stores, and celebrate comics and all the things we love about them.

That's why I love it, and why I do signings every free comic book day that I possibly can, because I think that it's important for awareness. But I also think that customers need to understand that the stores pay for the comics, pay for the shipping, so it's not free for them—so don’t abuse it.

I've been to all kinds of FCBD celebrations, from huge fair-type celebrations where there are massive tents outside in huge parking lots with barbecues going on, and music, as well as comics and signings—all kinds of things. It’s a day to promote the whole industry, the whole creative part of it as well, just welcoming new people as well as those who’ve supported it all these years—it’s a really fun thing to do that’s different.

Dark Horse: Do you find that you get a lot of questions from people who come into the stores on FCBD? Are people mostly familiar with comics, or is this maybe their first time coming into the comic shop?

Gail Simone: I get both. People come in and they want to know what’s going on with FCBD, and they want to take advantage of the discounts that retailers offer—pick up some merchandise that they really wanted but have put off because they couldn’t quite swing it until then. So we see that.

But also today, for example: at the Portland [TFAW] store, this little girl came up, probably about 7-ish, with her dad. Her dad had me sign a comic, and I asked her if she liked comics. She said, "Oh yeah!" and opened up her backpack and spread out all her comics, showing me. "Oh yes, I like comics." And what was delightful about it was that there were that many comics for her age group! This has been the first time in a long time for that.

That's another thing I love about FCBD, that kids can come in and they can try things without having to pressure their parents too much. And then if they like it, they can come back and continue with the stories. Anything that gets kids engaged in reading and using their imaginations, I think that it's worth whatever we have to do to get that to happen.

Dark Horse: That’s fantastic. This year, as with recent events like Halloween Comics Fest, Dark Horse has had one free comic for adults, and then we have a selection for younger readers. This year it was great to see the response to The Legend of Korra—that’s what got people excited about it—but then there’s a second story. This year, it's Nintendo's ARMS, which is going to be a brand new series, so it’s not something anyone has seen in comic form yet.

Gail Simone: Yeah, it gets the awareness out there, too, that more of this material is coming out down the road, and it piques peoples’ interest, lets people know what the publishers are thinking and working on at the moment. And the retail stores I've been to have all been amazing, too. They’re all very friendly to everyone, brightly-lit, not the stereotypical thing that you see on TV when they do parody episodes of comic shops. So I think it’s a good way to get people into comic stores who might not otherwise have visited.

Dark Horse: Earlier in the day, you had [comics artist] Aaron Lopresti with you doing signings, correct?

Gail Simone: Yes! We signed together at the Portland store, and that was really nice. I signed a lot of Wonder Woman/Conan there with him. That was really fun, because we really hadn't had a chance to do that together. Although we work together on a lot of these properties and projects, we're not in the same room working together. So it was really nice to talk, and fan over each others' work. He was very complimentary toward my writing in that story, and of course I love his art in that story, so it was just really fun to get to say, "That was an amazing job that you did."

Dark Horse: Wonder Woman/Conan seemed to be very well-received.

Gail Simone: It was. People throughout the signing line were talking about it. Yeah, that was really fun. I wish I could do that more. I get to do signings with creators that I co-create things with, projects that are creator-owned, sometimes. But I don’t get to do signings together with other creators on some of the big, mainstream stories as much. So it was very fun.

Dark Horse: There are some Tomb Raider copies here on your signing table. Did people know you'd worked on Tomb Raider, too, or was that news to them?

Gail Simone: I think that some people knew, but some of the newer people who were coming through hadn't realized it. And we always get the "I love this book, but I didn't know that you wrote it!" comments, so they get to put the face to the name.

Dark Horse: Anything else you've enjoyed about this Free Comic Book Day?

Gail Simone: I also had a lot of people come in today who really liked Clean Room, for instance, and they would ask me what other horror comics are there, could I recommend something else, because they liked that. That’s really fun on FCBD too, because people will come in and ask you for recommendations directly. We don’t always have time for that at conventions, and of course the staff at comic book stores are well-equipped for those recommendations, but it's fun talking with fans who want to know what we (creators) recommend.

Thanks to Gail Simone for taking the time to visit with fans all day during Free Comic Book Day this year, and for talking with us about the event! We have signed copies of Leaving Megalopolis Vol. 2: Surviving Megalopolis and Tomb Raider: Library Edition Vol. 1 that we will include in a giveaway, along with copies of our FCBD comics, so stay tuned for that contest announcement next week.

About Free Comic Book Day

Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book specialty shops across North America and around the world give away specially designated comic books for free to anyone who comes into their shops. It is held the first Saturday in May each year. More details at freecomicbookday.com.

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Celebrating Free Comic Book Day with Gail Simone

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