Culture

"We are also lucky to have a huge number of returning guests to this year's Free Comic Book Day," Munn continued, " With members of the 501st LEGION of STAR WARS RECREATIONISTS, phenomenal SKETCH ARTIST JESSE MUNOZ, the folks from the LAKEWOOD REGAL CINEMAS will be on hand to give out FREE POSTERS, comic book fans dressed up as a myriad of characters, including BLACK CAT, OUR COSTUME CONTEST a chance to meet some of Tacoma's Own Phenomenal Rollergirls, THE DOCKYARD DERBY DAMES and MORE! ...To celebrate the release of its widely anticipated Free Comic Book Day flip book featuring fan-favorite properties Mouse Guard and Fraggle Rock™, Archaia is excited to announce RED FRAGGLE will make a live appearance on Free Comic Book Day (May 1, 2010) at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles, Calif. ...FREE COMIC BOOKS DAY – BUYING & SELLING – Plus FREE APPRAISALS!!!WHEN: SATURDAY, MAY 1st from 10:00AM to 5:00PM WHERE: Phoenix Comics, 4 Gray Rock Road, Scarsdale, New York 10583 Joel Rosenberg, founder and owner of longtime Westchester institution, Phoenix Comics in Scarsdale, welcomes Joseph (The Avalanche of Wonder) Koch and Michael (Big Apple Conventions) Carbonaro to celebrate “Free Comics Day” with an unprecedented buying and selling extravaganza! ...Along with the free books and sketches, each location will be raffling off special prizes such as year long subscriptions to some of the most popular comics on the market today, autographed books, statues and toys plus there will be a “scavenger hunt” that will encourage people to visit all three locations for a chance to win a huge prize!

Top Cow Productions, Inc. is proud to announce today its plans for this weekend’s Free Comic Book Day, Saturday, May 1st, which takes place in comic shops across North America.  Free Comic Book Day is an annual event where participating direct market stores give out free comics to anyone that walks into their store.

Archaia Comics provided us with a list of their PCBD signings across the land:

http://www.youtube.com/v/6FxMcEZA-9k&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6 The result is often alarming, as Project Runway fashion expert and comic book dabbler Tim Gunn reacts for all of us to various Superman...

After a Minnesota mother challenged her school library on keeping Jeff Smith's BONE on its shelves -- citing smoking, drinking gambling and sexy innuendo as reasons it wasn't fit for kids -- the library board voted 10-1 to keep Bone on the shelves. The mother still objected to the books, but brought her two sons to the meeting, explaining that "It's important for them to see the process of how books are chosen," she said. Removing the book from 12 of the the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district's 18 libraries would have been a very rare step -- only 20 books have been challenged in the past 20 years, the last being "All But Alice," by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, which was removed in 1997.

Via Super I.T.C.H The Deadly Upas Tree of Wall Street by Joseph Keppler, from Puck Magazine August 30, 1882. Click for larger version.

In the spirit of cleaning out our email in-box, here is some promo art that came in yesterday that may be of some interest to Beat readers, including THE CRUSADES, MORNING GLORY ACADEMY, HAWKS OF OUTREMER, FCBD IRON MAN/THOR, DARKWING DUCK and SECRET PROJECT ROBOT.

While guest appearances in AMAZING SPIDER-MAN and SAVAGE DRAGON, among many other comics, helped President Obama become as sure-fire a sales enhancement as a...

News of two new comics-related web-sites, one featuring two veteran bloggers; the other a weekly newsmagazine.

A single gag is recycled in various settings. "What is it about Garfield that makes it so infinitely mutable? Seriously. You can't do this so...

Speaking of Stumptown, we were recently alerted to a local brouhaha, namely, last week's preview of Stumptown in The Portland Mercury. Shockingly, despite the...

Jim Rugg writes to tell us he'll be debuting a new mini comic at SPACE tomorrow, and -- as befits one of our most POPULAR categories here on The Beat -- gave us an exclusive peek: