Free Comic Book Day 2026

If I can be honest up front, my non-blogging life has been in a bit of a tizzy recently.

I was on vacation in the middle of April. Came back to a full work schedule as I covered for many off work while their young kids were on school vacation here. And then, I just closed on a new house and have been moving things on my own as well as setting up a new life there.

Whew!

So a side effect of all that was Free Comic Book Day 2026 sneaking up on me. I usually am more prepared for this and plan a whole day of hitting various stores to soak in the celebration. This year ... not so much. Just a quick visit to my store.

I was thrilled to walk into the store about an hour after it opened to see the place filled with people not only perusing the free stuff but walking around the store looking at other stuff.

I grabbed the DC Next Level book mostly because I haven't planned on reading any of the three books highlighted here - Batwoman, Lobo, and Deathstroke. So why not use the free book as it was intended, allowing me to sample the titles before committing to buying the title.

With 'Next Level' being the big push of new books, I am not surprised that DC focused on this effort rather than promoting any of the bigger, more classic titles. It also is worth noting that Superman Day is just 2 weeks before FCBD and had all sorts of free Super-books.

I don't know if I will be getting any of the titles here but I would recommend Firestorm!

My store has a very very VERY strict policy of 2 free books per person. So I had to be choosy about the second book. I was looking for Flash Gordon #0 but didn't see that one anywhere.

Even though this Jem freebie is a reprint of the fantastic book from a few years ago (a book I collected and loved), I had to support it again so grabbed this.

The two book limit is one of the reasons why I like to hit other stores. But no luck this year. There are often leftovers so I will be looking over the tables today.

I also realize that 'free' comic book day isn't free for the stores. And even though I hit the store weekly, I try to buy something that day to show my support for the FCBD efforts. So I grabbed the Jeph Loeb/Jim Cheung Batman/Wonder Woman book off the racks. I also bought the second trade of Absolute Wonder Woman. I got volume one for Christmas and enjoyed it very much so figured I would read more.

I would love to hear about other people's FCBD adventures as mine were so muted!