The Comicbookguy's favorite time of the year is once again upon us. 

Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world are giving away comic books absolutely free to anyone who comes into their stores.

If you're new to comics (or if all you remember of them is from your childhood), pop by your local comic book store and check it out. Who knows...you might even see the Comicbookguy while you're there.

I read over at ScurvyDawg.com that Comely Comics was bringing back Captain Canuck for a three-issue limited series titled Captain Canuck: Unholy War. you can read more about it here.

For those of you who enjoyed the original from the 70's here is a scan (from the Comicbookguy's own collection) of Captain Canuck #1 circa 1975.

Free Comics became popular in the early 1930's due in large part to the depression. During hard times it was important for publishing companies to keep the  presses running since shutting down and starting up the printing presses was so expensive. Thousands of different comics were given away as companies used popular comic strips for advertising purposes. 

One such publishing company Eastern Color Printing became very important in the formation of the comic industry. Eastern's sales manager Harry I. Wildenberg was responsible for coming up with ideas to keep the color presses going. In 1932 he noticed that the color comic strip sections of newspapers were popular and thought they would be good for advertising.

He suggested the idea of a comic book used for advertising to Gulf Oil Company, one of his clients. They liked the idea and hired a few artists to create Gulf Comic Weekly. The entire comic was 4 pages long and had a format of 10 ½ by 15 and was given away at Gulf Gas Stations. 

Much to everybodys surprise, the comics proved a very effective draw to the gas stations. People were quickly coming in and snatching them up. Gulf decided to print 3 million copies a week and had the name changed to Comics Funnies Weekly. The series remained in tabloid sized and lasted 422 issues, ending on May 23, 1941.

A few weeks after coming up with the tabloid sized comic, Wildenberg came up with the idea of doing a comic book. He said he got it when reading a tabloid sized comic strip page, folded it in half, then in half again. He noticed it was a convenient size for reading comics. He also thought publishing it with 32 or 64 pages would be a good size.

The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck is widely considered the earliest known comic book. It was originally published in several languages in Europe in 1837. It was reprinted in New York on September 14, 1842 making it the first comic book printed in America.

Odadiah Oldbuck was 40 pages long and measured 8 ½" x 11". The book was side stitched, and inside there were 6 to 12 panels per page. There were no word balloons but there was text under the panels to describe the story. A copy of it was discovered in Oakland, California in 1998.

The comic was created by Switzerland's Rudolphe Töpffer, who is considered by most historians as the creator of the picture story. He created the comic strip in 1827 and the comic book/graphic novel. 

Töpffer created several graphic novels that were extremely successful and reprinted in many different languages. Several of them had English versions in the United States in 1846. The books remained in print in the US until 1877.

The number of Victorian Age Comic Books in existence is relatively unknown. This era of comic book history referred to as the Platinum Age is still being discovered, researched and catalogued.

I came acrosss an interesting stroy today over at Cinescape. Former Monty Python alumni John Cleese and Kim "Howard" Johnson (author of MONTY PYTHON: THE FIRST 280 YEARS) have teamed up to tell the Jolly Good tale of an English Superman.

In this new take on the Man of Steel the last son of Krypton's rocket ship crashlands in a small English town. Kal-El is adopted and raised by British parents as a proper Englander. The Clark's teach their adopted son "Colin" to hide his super powers and not to draw attention to himself. But as he grows up and sees the need for a hero, his desire to don a cape and spandex will bring him into conflict and of course to the attention of the British tabloids.

For more info visit Cinescape or the DC Comics website.

Sounds like fun!

And for all of you comic book fans out there July 3, 2004 is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY. Go to a (participating) comic book store and get a free comic...it's that simple.

For more info go to http://www.freecomicbookday.com/.