Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 08, 2016, 01:45:20 AMQuote from: irishmoxie on May 08, 2016, 01:00:44 AMQuote from: DeCarlo Rules on May 08, 2016, 12:29:06 AM
In general, there are three or four types of FCBD comics.
Thank you, Beard of Knowledge!
There are some cases where it's easy to be fooled even if you're savvy about these things. Darby Pop Productions released a FCBD comic this year titled BRUCE LEE: THE DRAGON RISES (Special Edition) #0. This had a different cover than the BRUCE LEE: THE DRAGON RISES #1 comic book (or its variant cover version) that was released the prior month, so you'd think... based on the numbering, this must be an original prequel story taking place before the events of BL:TDR#1, right?
Well, as I opened it up to read it, I realized immediately that it was a reprint of the BL:TDR#1 that I'd just read a week or two beforehand. Furthermore, pulling out that #1 issue and comparing both comics, the FCBD #0 issue is an edited reprint of #1, from which several pages of story deemed not crucial to the basic storyline had simply been neatly dropped out so that the story could be compacted into fewer pages. Pretty tricky, but I wonder what people who picked it up, read it, and liked it, and then went to buy a copy of issue #1 (assuming they didn't scan the interior story first, before paying for it) will think about it.
Now I'm not really griping about the #0 for myself, because I got it free, so no skin off my nose. If I'd opened it up prior to leaving the store to look at the interior story, I'd have realized it was a preview/postview/reprint of a comic I'd already purchased a couple of weeks earlier (and had decided not to continue getting) and left the FCBD #0 issue for someone else to pick up. The only reason I DID pickup the FCBD #0 issue after reading BL:TDR #1 and deciding not to follow that series is that I figured I'd give the people at Darby Pop Productions a second chance to change my mind about the comic with a prequel story, since it was free.
It occurs to me that if I HADN'T already bought the #1 and decided I didn't like it all that much, and had picked up the free FCBD #0 and liked it, and thought "I should buy this comic series when issue #1 comes out", and then found issue #1 when I went to the comic shop the following week, and purchased it (without flipping through it) only to get home and realize that I'd already read the same story for free (with the exception of the 6 or 8 pages that were dropped in editing #1 down into FCBD #0), so I just paid $4 for 6-8 pages of additional story, I wonder how I'd feel about buying issue #2. Maybe picking up a FREE FCBD comic, a reader might be just excited to discover that a Bruce Lee comic existed, and since the FCBD comic was free, they might tend to be a little less critical of the story and artwork, since they didn't pay for it. If you then DO decide to pay for issue #1, you might start looking at the story and art the second time around a little more critically, since you paid $4 for it.
Another FCBD comic giveaway this year that somewhat varies from the four types I described above is DC SUPER HERO GIRLS #1. While I'm hesitant to recommend any superhero comic to you, this one is so atypical of the mainstream superhero type of comic book that I think it would fit within the parameters of the type of comic you enjoy, because it's SUPER-girlie. It's certainly the girliest (I might have just coined a new adjective there) superhero comic I've ever seen. The reason this one doesn't quite fit the four types of FCBD comics I mentioned above is that it's in the format of a regular size and page-count floppy comic book, while the story pages that it previews are taken from (or at least I believe they are) an original paperback graphic novel (128 pages) that retails (on Amazon) for $5.59, DC SUPER HERO GIRLS: FINALS CRISIS. It's based on a line of superhero fashion dolls for girls designed and marketed by Mattel. The main characters are Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Batgirl, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and a plethora of other female DC characters, all re-imagined as teenagers attending Super Hero High, a school where they'll learn the skills needed to graduate into careers as young adult superheroes. (As for why super-villainesses like Catwoman and the others would be attending such a school, I can't tell you. I guess they're really still too young in this series to be deemed menaces to society as yet.) No more than a casual familiarity with any of those characters is really necessary for the reader, as the versions here don't necessarily adhere to specific details and backstories of the original comic book versions. The whole thing is aimed at young girls (who would be the target audience for Mattel's dolls) and drawn in the animated cartoon style (there's an accompanying YouTube channel with webisodes that act as an animated counterpart to the comic version as well, that will give you the exact flavor of the concept of the comic). You might consider ordering a copy of that FCBD comic if Midtown comics offers the FCBD issues as freebies with some minimal purchase from them, or at some nominal fee like a dollar or two.
I actually quite liked the Bruce Lee comic. I wish they kids had more of a role. They seem to be trying to please too many different audiences.
I'll look into DC Super Hero girls. That youtuber Nerdburger actually likes the sister series: Super Girl Comics Adventures in 8th grade.
It gives you something to look forward to. Plus you get to read it as soon as it's released at midnight, 2 am, etc. Why do people like to line up outside for Star Wars movies??? I also like to put a reminder on my calendar when certain comics are going to be released for the same reason. 