FCBD 2016 Boom Summer Blast Review

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I had been avoiding this comic for as long as possible, but eventually it was time to take the plunge. This one brings several comics with it, but unfortunately none of them looked very good. Still, maybe they would have potential right? It didn’t get off to a good start though as the first comic is about a guy who catches a cold. He asks people for help, but nobody knows how to help him. Someone gives him tea, but it doesn’t work. The art is quite bad and the story is not engaging for an instant. Let’s hope that it gets better from here.

The next story is about a mouse who is alone and doesn’t like to be alone. The main reason why this comic is bad is due to the very hard to read font. You’ll be very tempted to just skip it all since the dialogue doesn’t add anything to the story and simply wastes your time. The art isn’t very good here either and comes across as lazy since the panels aren’t too large and don’t have a lot of details. Yep, another strike for the comic. The next story was from Cloud and at least it had an actual plot, but the art was reeeeeeeeally bad. I really can’t emphasize enough how poor the whole comic looked and that hurt quite a bit. The actual premise has potential as a prince wants a wishing stone to change something from the past as well as the future, but a thief shows up and steals the orb. The Prince will now have to try and find the thief to get it back. This could be fun, but the art ensures that I won’t be checking this series out anytime soon.

Adventure Time got a story next and naturally it was about the heroes going to a place that stinks. The dog doesn’t want to go, but he’s coerced into doing so and as a result, he loses his job to hit it big as a writer. Them’s the breaks I suppose and he should have known better than to have gone to an interview like that right after jumping in a swamp to fight the living embodiment of filth. Still, this story was relatively decent and it had the best art yet so that’s a good thing.

The next story was about a group of hikers who decide to tell each other ghost stories after eating plants all day. It’s about the Shining so everyone dies and that’s the cliffhanger. I know that the story was (not) thrilling….but that’s not much of a cliffhanger since it is all just a story. The main characters seem incredibly unlikable as well and bringing up the fact that they may have just eaten something disgusting doesn’t help the issue either. The art was decent though so that’s something.

The final story is a mystery title that seems to be similar to Nancy Drew and a Suite Life on Deck. The art is fairly good and the main character seems decent. I don’t like the little kid and his lollipop since he seems like a huge ingrate, but luckily he’ll probably never appear again so that’s not much of an issue. Once the cases actually start, I could see this story actually being good. It’s easily the best one in the batch if you ask me. Unfortunately, it certainly cannot save the rest of the stories in this collection. Free Comic Book Day 2016 has ended on a rather low note, but it was still a decently good batch overall. I look forward to seeing what the next batch has in store!

Overall 3/10

Ten Year Celebration 2015 Free Comic Book Day Special Review

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It is time for the final Free Comic Book! I left this one for last because the one from last year bored me to be honest and anthologies are really hard to get into. This one features a lot of stories, but most of them are extremely short so you aren’t able to really get into them. That just doesn’t seem like a winning formula. The readers won’t be enticed to buy any of the issues and I doubt that the writers like to be confined to such a small area to show off their artistic talents. I suppose that it is supposed to just be a fun little comic to read to celebrate 10 years of…something, but it just doesn’t work.

There are a bundle of stories here. The one that is the longest and also the most boring is about a few mice who listen to a story about the days of old. Nothing happens and you wonder why the story is being told. Adventure Time’s short is about a card game tournament that is about to begin and this was one of the best comics. Had we actually gotten to start the tournament, it likely would have blown the rest of the stories away. I love a good card game tournament! Snoopy got one where he is trying to write a book, but one of the kids keeps criticizing him. I would give this one points for effort, but this comic feels like it has been ripped off panel for panel from other Snoopy issues. The plot is not new or original so no points for effort.

Garfield’s story is cool because he now has the title of fastest cat in the world. It was a comedy story as he did it for the pizza, but it was still satisfying to see him take the win. I thought that his owners would lose the money somehow, but they actually kept the 10000 dollar reward. That’s pretty great! There is a story about a Kirby ripoff who decides to fight a two headed dragon, but realizes that he doesn’t have any deodorant on. That’s certainly a dicey predicament when you are about to enter the fight of your life eh!? There are a few other stories, but you get the jist and the others were all extremely short anyway. Although, the story about the Red Cardinal giving people a chocolate milk drink when they thought that they were drinking coffee was decent. It was only about a page or two though so it really went by quickly.

The art really varies as each comic has a different art style so it’s really hard to talk about it. Some had good art like Garfield, Adventure Time (Gimicky, but still good) Snoopy, and the Cardinal, but others like the Mice story had art that was very sub par. By and large, it depends on the issue, but more issues have good art rather than bad so that’s always a good thing. The writing is typically in the same boat, but I’d argue that it is the opposite. More comics have poor writing than the kind of writing that will make you grin.

Overall, This collection was just as (not) good as I expected. You simply can’t hope to cram in like 10 different stories in a comic that is only slightly bigger than the typical one. There simply isn’t enough time to develop all of the tales and a lot of them will just tend to be unlikable or uninspired. We ended the free comics on a low note, but I did leave this one for last on purpose. I knew what to expect and I put it off for quite a while. No worries though as my next comic reviews will be about much better comics. You likely won’t see another comic with a score so long in quite a long while. If you like anthologies then maybe you should pick this up, but I still recommend skipping this comic and just reading a Justice League issue.

Overall 4/10