This weekend was a great one for people who love comic books: Free Comic Day!

I used to be the manager of a comic book store, and one of my major problems was always getting comics into the hands of people I felt would love comics, but just didn't read them. I felt that if I could only get them into my store, I could find a comic book they would love.

A few years ago, some enterprising retailers and publishers, and a clear-eyed distributor banded together to create Free Comic Book Day. The hope was that if lots of stores gave away free comics on one particular day that the media and potential customers would hear about it, and walk into a local comic book store.

For the first few years the plan didn't seem to work. I would see comic book fans out in full force getting freebies, but I didn't see a lot of fresh faces. Then, thanks to good weather, good press and good will, I started to see a major shift. Last year The Beguiling had many creators sitting outside the store, doing free sketches for passers by. It turned into a cool little street fair, with a real 'university student' feel. Down on Queen St. the Silver Snail was giving away thousands of comics to a young fashionable crowd who had never been in a comic book store before.

This year promised to be a good year, given that the Iron Man movie is opening this weekend.

BTW- there is a great website that will tell you what retailers are close to you, so if you missed it this year, check it out next year!

::http://www.freecomicbookday.com/fcbd_locator.asp

::Check out pictures tagged with "Free Comic Book Day" on flickr.com