Free Comic Book Day

Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) is an annual promotional effort by the North American comic book industry to attract new readers to independent comic book stores. It usually takes place on the first Saturday of May and has historically been cross-promoted with the release of a superhero film. Over two thousand participating stores give away millions of comic books annually. The event was proposed by Joe Field in the August 2001 issue of Comics & Games Retailer magazine and Free Comic Book Day was launched in 2002, owned and coordinated by the industry's single large distributor, Diamond Comic Distributors. FCBD has become an official Children's Book Week event and has inspired similar events for German- and Dutch-language comics industries. Following Diamond's bankruptcy and liquidation in 2025, rights to FCBD were acquired by Universal Distribution, with competitor Penguin Random House holding a parallel event called Comics Giveaway Day.