Here’s the Lineup for Free Comic Book Day 2017

As 2016 winds down, the folks behind Free Comic Book Day have announced next year’s lineup, which will include everything from Barbie to Bad Machinery. Free Comic Book Day will be Saturday, May 6, 2017, and on that day, comic shops will offer a selection of specially produced comics for free as a way to invite the public to come in and look around (and hopefully buy some comics as well). Here’s a quick look at some of the kid- and teen-oriented titles for 2017:

Bad Machinery, by John Allison, is a webcomic about British middle-school kids solving supernatural mysteries, which Oni Press is publishing in expanded print editions. The writing is witty, and it’s laugh-out-loud funny for readers of all ages, including adults. The FCBD comic is an excerpt from the seventh book, The Case of the Forked Road.

Animal Jam is a comic based on the National Geographic multiplayer game of the same name.

Drawn and Quarterly focuses on Colorful Monsters from several of its series, including Anna and Froga, the Moomins, and Shigeru Mizuki’s Kitaro.

Bongo Comics gathers some Simpsons stories into its Bongo Comics Free-For-All.

BOOM! Studios has a three-fer comic with selections from David Petersen’s Mouse Guard and two new series, Brave Chef Brianna, about a girl starting her own restaurant in Monster City, and Coady and the Creepies, about a band that doesn’t realize one of their members is a ghost.

Time Shifters is the featured comic in the Scholastic Graphix FCBD selection. This story sounds like a weird dream: Luke, the hero, investigates a strange blue glow and finds a ghost, a scientist, and… Abraham Lincoln riding a dinosaur?

The manga publisher Viz promotes two updates of classic series with a comic featuring Dragon Ball Super and Boruto, the latter being the son of Naruto, and they also have an FCBD comic featuring an excerpt from the manga The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

Dark Horse has an all-ages comic featuring the Buffy the Vampire Slayer spinoff Buffy: The High School Years as well as Plants vs. Zombies, which is based on the video game.

Papercutz presents a Barbie comic featuring the energetic teen working as a fashion intern and (in another story) flying off to save a planet from ecological disaster. Also coming from Papercutz: Loud House, based on the Nickelodeon animated cartoon.

We picked Luke Pearson’s Hilda and the Stone Forest as one of our Top Ten Graphic Novels of 2016, and as those of you who read it know, it ends on a cliffhanger. Nobrow’s FCBD comic, Hilda’s Back, picks up the thread of the story with Hilda, now a troll, waking up in a troll cave.

Tokyopop’s Disney Descendants is the first chapter of a manga featuring all the villains from Disney movies.

Action Lab’s FCBD comic features Ladybug and Cat Noir from their Miraculous series. Also keep an eye out for FCBD comics featuring Sonic the Hedgehog, Spongebob Squarepants, and Underdog, as well as more teen-oriented stories about Star Trek and Attack on Titan.

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