Last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and I wandered down to my local comics shop, Silver Bullet Comics to see what this year’s offerings were. Here’s what I’ve read so far:

• Fantagraphics – I can’t remember the proper title of the offering from Fantagraphics this year, since I don’t have it sitting in front of me, but here are my general thoughts: the new stuff was great, but way too many reprints for my taste—of course I’m a big fan of most of Fantagraphics artists, so I’ve read a bunch of their stuff. Anyway, the new stuff was great—I loved Ivan Brunetti’s riff on Wally Woods “22 Panels that Always Work,” entitled “22 Panels that Always Work Sometimes” and the other strip by him was great. I’ve never been a big Brunetti fan–his cartooning is amazing, but usually the stories are so self-obsessed that I can’t really generate any interest in them, and often they rely on the “gross out” as a device, which gets pretty boring after a while…but this stuff is great and is from the upcoming Schizo #4, which I’ll definitely pick up.

  Likewise, the Kupperman stuff from his upcoming book was really good—although, he’s definitely a “you love him or you hate him” kinda cartoonist.

  Unfortunately, the rest of the stuff was pretty much reprints, and heavy on the “Love and Rockets” which has never been my bag. The most inexplicable inclusion was a 10-15 year-old Dan Clowes “Dan Pussey” story that pokes fun at the “comics collector” phenomenon of around a decade ago—it’s somewhat expired at this point, and there’s tons of better Clowes material they could have used. My guess is that it was included as a not-so-subtle barb at mainstream comics retailers—precisely the sort of smarmy, obnoxious gesture that the Fanta folks are known for.

• Flight by Image Comics – This one includes two stories: one from “Flight Vol I” and the other from “Flight Vol II.” I own the first “Flight” book and have mixed feelings about it. The artwork througout is beautiful, but the stories themselves tend not to be very substantive. In the case of the FCBD giveaway, though, they picked probably the best story from the fist volume, which was wise. The story from the second volume is, again, beautifully rendered, if a bit sacharine for my tastes. Did I mention that they’re beautifully drawn…with beautiful color? Well, they are…

More as I read them…