Saturday, May 7 is Free Comic Book Day.

The annual event is the perfect opportunity to introduce your friends and family to the many worlds of wonder available at your local comic book store. From superheroes to slice-of-life to action/adventure and beyond, Free Comic Book Day has a comic book for everyone!

"When I was growing up, comics were a huge part of my life. Free Comic Book Day is a wonderful way to share the unique qualities of our work with new readers and to share the diversity of the artform with current readers," said Andy Runton, creator of Owly, one of the books featured for FCBD. "I'm honored to be a part of it and I'm thankful to the retailers for the opportunity to share Owly with a wider audience."

"Free Comic Book Day is an awesome opportunity to reach out to new readers," said John Clark, Editor-in-Chief/Disney Comics for Gemstone Publishing. "There's been a lot of excuses made about how comics have difficult times competing with other media. That's a bunch of baloney. It's all about getting the comics in front of the new readers, particularly kids. Put a comic in their hands and they're very often hooked on reading for life."

Gemstone, among the many participating publishers, is offering a free Disney comic, Uncle Scrooge.

"The exciting thing about the annual Free Comic Book Day event is that it's effective in bringing new readers to comics,” said Top Shelf Productions' Chris Staros. “For us, this means that on May 50,000 people will be introduced to Owly, something that wouldn't be possible without the time and effort of the direct market retailers."

Click here to see our FCBD feature article from last week.

To find a participating FCBD comic book retailer, visit http://www.freecomicbookday.com/fcbd_locator.asp and enter your Zip code.