Tomorrow's Free Comic Book Day, that magical day once a year when you can just walk into a comic book store and get something for free. Books like these, which cover everything from The Walking Dead to Sesame Street. Here's a sleepy-seeming Hugh Jackman telling you about it, but mostly he wants to remind you that they're making another Wolverine movie to make up for how terrible the last one was. Take it away, sleepy Hugh!

Anyway, getting free comics is more fun than he makes it sound, promise. Being the comics haven that it is, not only are bunch of Portland's comics shops participating (Cosmic Monkey Comics at 5335 NE Sandy; Bridge City Comics at 3725 N Mississippi, Floating World Comics at 400 NW Couch, Excalibur Books and Comics at 2444 SE Hawthorne, Future Dreams at 1847 E Burnside, and all three local Things from Another Worlds locations at 2916 NE Broadway, 10977 SE Main in Milwaukie, and 4390 SW Lloyd in Beaverton), but a few will also have creators, signings, sales, storm troopers wandering around the store, whatever. Yeah. STORM TROOPERS! Hit the jump for details on what Cosmic Monkey, Floating World, and Things from Another World have planned.

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Stumptown didn't offer press passes to the Mercury this year—or send out a press release, for that matter—but apparently they did see fit to put up one of comics journalism's hotshots. (Cough, bitter? Not us!)

Over at the Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon has a massive recap of his Stumptown Comics Fest experience—in addition to a detailed breakdown of his day-by-day encounters, he identifies what is really the show's fundamental identity crisis: Does it want to be an indie, creator-focused small press show, like it was in the early days, or does it want to move in a bigger, more pop-culture oriented direction a la Emerald City or the Rose City Comic-Con?

Of all the shows that I've been to in the last year or so, this seemed the one where a natural direction doesn't present itself, where some basic identity issues, some primary elements of execution and even a general energy boost might be more at issue as opposed to "how do we maximize and channel what's special here?" the way other shows seems to be straining at any and all restraints.

He goes on to offer some suggestions for the festival—things like focusing their mission statement, refining the guest list, and streamlining the Stumptown awards (amen—far too much energy is invested in those things).

I wrote my own piece offering advice for the fest, and subsequently had some very interesting, very constructive off-the-record conversations with folks involved in organizing it. It's very clear to me that they're paying attention to this sort of feedback, and taking a hard look at how Stumptown should function moving forward. I'm really interested to see what happens in the next couple of years.

(h/t to theonetruebix.)

So much for Stumptown getting out of the convention center. From an interview with Festival Director Kaebel Hashitani:

But I can say that next year's Fest will be moving to a larger hall at the Convention Center (double the space), and that the dates are April 12 & 13, 2014. And we've already got a few guests confirmed that I'll announce at the Fest.

I have to say, I'm a little surprised they decided to move to a bigger space before seeing what attendance looks like this weekend. Apparently they're pretty confident in the guests they've already confirmed—looking forward to seeing who they've got on deck.

• Star St. Germain

The Stumptown Comics festival is this weekend—I've got an article about it in the paper this week, but the gist is that the festival has done some great stuff over the years, and that there are some organizational and institutional issues that need to be addressed moving forward.

I came close to not writing about the festival at all this year because their schedule wasn't released until Friday, April 19—for those of you playing along at home, that's a mere week before the festival itself, timing that totally fucks over any media outlet planning to preview the festival in a coherent way. It's particularly weird given that this is the festival's 10th anniversary, and that this year saw the launch of upstart new shows like Rose City Comic Con and the Projects. Good year to do a little outreach, maybe boost the show's profile a little, yes? But no.

But setting all that aside for a sec, the show itself is usually a lot of fun, and this year features some awesome guests (Becky Cloonan, Bill Willingham, Dash Shaw, Brian Hurtt), some solid panels (a Meathaus reunion, a Judge Dredd panel with a screening and fan film screening), and plenty of workshops and panels with great local writers, artists, and editors. The full schedule is here.

I've got four pairs of weekend passes to give away—email me with "Stumptown passes" in the subject line by 9 am tomorrow for a chance to win 'em.

• Private Eye #1, art by Marcos Martin

Everything about the following two paragraphs is fantastic. Because (A) Hey, cool, new work from Saga writer Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin, the same team behind the excellent miniseries Doctor Strange: The Oath! And (B) Hey, cool, someone found a non-terrible way to sell digital comics!

Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin may have officially set a record for quickest "teaser to release date" turnover. While many publishers tease books months before they appear, the creators have released theirs only hours after sending out their first batch of project hints.

As of today, readers can download the first issue of Vaughan and Martin's The Private Eye at PanelSyndicate.com. The comic is a serial story colored by Munsta Vicente and released at a Radiohead-esque "name your price" rate for a wide range of DRM-free digital formats including CBR, CBZ and PDF. (Via.)

Right now there are two main ways I read comics digitally: Via the Comixology app, which is slick and easy and boasts comics from most major publishers, but has drawbacks—namely, obnoxious DRM and prices that usually match what one is expected to pay for a hard copy of the comic. I also read some stuff using Dark Horse Comics' app, which functions much the same way as Comixology's, except—for me at least—it's a lot slower and crashes a lot more. Wheee! In either case, you're stuck reading the comics you buy inside the app, you can't lend them to friends, you can't save them to a hard drive, and you've gotta pay whatever publishers decide to charge you. (Which, more often than not, is now a fairly ridiculous $4 per 22- or 20-page issue.) It should be noted that, like most DRM-shackled digital purchases, these drawbacks only affect those who legally buy things—if you illegally download comics, you won't have to deal with this annoying shit.

So: Not only does The Private Eye sound great—it's a "a detective story set in 2076" from two excellent creators—but Panel Syndicate's pay-what-you-will and read-it-how-you-want freedoms both respect the customer and provide a far easier reading experience than found elsewhere. This is something worth supporting. The further away we can get from the onerous, overpriced models that currently define digital comics, the better; the fact we can do so with work from the likes of Vaughan and Martin seals the deal. I just gave 'em $2.99. And, just like I do when I buy things from Radiohead and Louis CK, I felt good about it.

The Stumptown Comics Festival has commissioned some great posters over the years, from artists like Craig Thompson, Brandon Graham, Farel Dalrymple, and more. This year's poster by Mike Russell and Bill Mudron—plus lettering from occasional Mercury freelancer Dylan Meconis—is no exception:

Hit Russell's Tumblr to check out a draw-your-own variant cover. Stumptown runs April 27-28 at the Oregon Convention Center, more info here.

• Image from this year's poster, by Mike Russell and Bill Mudron

Good grief. THERE IS SO MUCH TO TALK ABOUT TODAY!

The Stumptown Comics Fest (April 27-28 at the Oregon Convention Center) just posted their full lineup of guests. Notable out-of-towners include Bill Willingham (Fables), Dash Shaw (Bottomless Belly Button), Brian Hurtt (The Sixth Gun), and Becky Cloonan (Demo).

Stumptown's also got a very solid lineup of locals attached, including Greg Rucka (Stumptown), Matt Bors (War Is Boring), Erika Moen (DAR), and plenty more. Go see for yourself.

• Hawkeye #1, cover art by David Aja

Two things:

1) ROSE CITY COMIC CON. If, unlike me, you didn't throw your entire savings account at Veronica Mars, tickets for September's Rose City Comic Con are now on sale. This is a convention worth going to—not only was last year's inaugural show a big success, but, unlike another show that sets up shop in Portland, this is one that we want to, you know, keep happening.

2) HAWKEYE SIGNING. Tonight at Floating World, writer and all-around great guy Matt Fraction* will be signing copies of the first collected edition of his Hawkeye series, illustrated by David Aja. Not only is Hawkeye well worth reading—it's of the best books on the shelves right now—but the proceeds from tonight's event will go to the Red Cross to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy. Artists Steve Lieber and Jesse Hamm will be around too, drawing sketches in exchange for Red Cross donations. So there you go! It all starts at 6 and goes until 8 at Floating World (400 NW Couch); this first collection of Hawkeye is 17 bucks and collects the series' first five issues.

*CONFLICT OF INTEREST ALERT, SORT OF! Fraction's participated a few times in the comics reading event Alison and I put on, Comics Underground. He really is a great guy, though.

• ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN #1 VARIANT COVER BY CHRIS SAMNEE

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece about how DC Comics was facing backlash for hiring militant bigot Orson Scott Card to write a story in a Superman comic. Following those reactions, the artist for the comic, Chris Sprouse, has backed out of the project, explaining, "The media surrounding this story reached the point where it took away from the actual work, and that’s something I wasn’t comfortable with." The issue's now moving forward, but without Card's story.

(Would a comment from Sprouse saying, "You know, I just didn't want to work with a homophobe," or a comment from DC saying, "So... ah... we shouldn't have hired a gay-hating weirdo to write a character who stands for tolerance and freedom. Our bad!" have been better? Yeah. But the end result's likely the same—sure, DC's claiming Card's story will still run at some point, but the more likely scenario is that DC will sweep this thing under the rug in a while by giving Card a kill fee.)

But where does this leave local comics shops? In the case of Floating World Comics—which had planned not only to host a signing with one of the book's other writers, Jeff Parker, but also to donate their share of the issue's proceeds to an LGBT charity—things haven't changed.

"Our event was a response, to try an turn an ugly situation into something positive," says Floating World's Jason Leivian. "Also to demonstrate that if Card wants to aggressively pursue his agenda, it won't go unnoticed. He can expect people to speak up against him. Good for Chris, and his response which effectively led to the story's cancellation.

"No reason to cancel our show," Leivian continues. "It turns our party into even more of a celebration. And people can buy the book knowing that the only compensation Card got was a kill fee."

Parker also weighed in. "As far as I know I'm still going to sign that Wednesday! I think Jason has hired dancers or something." Parker also points out that Vancouver's comics shop, I Like Comics—one of the first stores to announce they wouldn't be selling the issue due to Card's participation—is now ordering 200 copies of the comic.

Meanwhile, one person's been noticably silent through this whole thing. Daniel D'Addario at Salon tried calling Card, but was told Card wouldn't be commenting. "He thinks that it always makes these things worse," a woman at Card's home explained.

Wait. Card somehow making things worse when he opens his mouth? Nah. That's crazy talk.