A day of comic book heaven

It’s a big week for comic book readers. This weekend brings Free Comic Book Day, when comic book stores worldwide give away thousands of comic books for free to entice new readers and introduce veteran readers to new characters.

“It won’t be an easy day, but we’ll enjoy it,” said Jackob Sareli, an owner of Dizengoff Center’s Comikaza, the country’s first comic bookstore.

Comics N Vegetables, with branches in Tel Aviv and Ra’anana, is also hosting Free Comic Book Day on Friday.

Sareli estimates that several thousand customers will show up at Comikaza on Friday, given the 700 who already RSVPed on the store’s Facebook page and based on last year’s attendance.

In the US, Free Comic Book Day will be celebrated on Saturday, May 2, but Sareli said it made more sense to mark it on Friday in Israel.

The comic book shop, which opened in 2003, has always participated in Free Comic Book Day. The event was initiated by Diamond Comic Distributors, and first took place in 2002.

Each year, the major comic book companies offer lower-priced previews of their most popular titles. This year, said Sareli, Marvel is publishing a preview with Secret Wars #0, which is “very cool and very big,” he said.

DC Comics is offering “Convergence” while Archie Comics is launching its “Dark Circle” imprint. Comic book house Dark Horse published a preview of its wildly popular “Fight Club 2.”

“It’s for real,” said Sareli. “And they’re giving it out for free!”

At Comikaza, the comic giveaway is set to last six hours, but he’s pretty sure they’ll run out of that inventory within a few hours.

“It finishes quickly,” he said, with a reminder that there is a limit of two free titles per customer. There is also a large space where they also sell other comics,

Sareli said Comikaza has thousands of customers, most of whom are kids or teenagers, but there are many adults who have stuck with their comic-reading hobby.

“If you love comics, you love it all your life,” he said.

And while comic fans can now download comic apps or download digital comics online, there’s still something unique about buying a printed comic book.

“When comic books were digitalized, lots of people said this’ll be it, comics won’t be printed any longer,” said Sareli. “But it’s the reverse. We’re seeing an increase of comic books and graphic novels.”

He thinks that the Israeli trend toward comics is due to the movies based on comic book heroes. Once moviegoers see a series on the big screen, they want to understand the back story of the characters.

“That’s what’s unique about Israelis, where people don’t necessarily know the stories so they do it in reverse,” he said.

Comikaza will be giving away free comic books from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. on Friday, May 1, at its Dizengoff Center store.