5 out of 5

You normally can’t go too wrong with 2000 AD, and then if you get a free one packed with tons of thrills…?  Come on.  As Dredd states on the cover: “There ought to be a law against it!”

With Tharg clearly telling us which are new and which are classic thrills in the editor’s corner (I feel like I maybe criticized this in the previous FCBD…?) and a nice new / old split, the 2015 edition offers a wonderful package that gives a sense of history and discovery.  And as Free Comic Book Day is intended to get people simply reading comics – not necessarily acting as ad-spots or pitches, as the collector’s nature of the limited offerings of the event has sort of turned it into – I appreciate that we don’t see any subscription ads or overt money grabs beyond ads for toys, t-shirts – but that’s fan stuff, and not “here’s a cliffhanger, now buy the book.”  Instead, rockin’ editor Matt Smith has employed the device he used last year, of ending each comic with a QR code that links to another free comic, presumably on the 2000AD site, thus acting as its own portal to further browsings…  It’s a nice, unobtrusive way to make it clear that there’s more without yelling it at us.

Each strip here has a light-hearted note to it, even the hilariously bloody Death Rock by Barry Krishna and Ben Willsher, which is also good reader-bait.  It’s easy to brush 2000 AD off as geek reading, so letting some self-aware jabs slip in opens up the tone.

I even enjoyed the Slaine strip.  If I’d had to pay for it, this still would’ve been a great collection.  For free?  C’mon.*

*While writing this I suspected I’d said it about other FCBD books.  I’m not bothering to check.  It’s more than likely true.  My awareness of this combined with my laziness toward changing it is certainly indicative of a steep decline in quality of these reviews, so since I have no possibly chance of reprieve, I’m going to go full bore and just start copying and pasting the same review and letting my rating be decided by die, which does mean that we’ll occasionally have 6 out of 5 but who gives asd  akjads lcik here