SCRANTON — Comics on the Green is taking part in Free Comic Book Day, an annual event on the first Saturday in May that brings together the community.

The comic book shop in downtown Scranton has participated in Free Comic Book Day since the beginning, owner Dave Romeo said.

“It’s a nationwide, industry-wide event where publishers make comic books, especially for that day, usually as promotion … to either bring attention to an existing series. Many of them, they’ll use them to launch new series and upcoming events," Romeo said.

Comics on the Green has a limit of three Free Comic Book Day books per person, but there’s no purchase necessary to get the books and there’s no entrance fee. The store is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, May 2.

This year DC is highlighting three of its new "Next Level" titles, Deathstroke, Lobo and Batwoman. Marvel is releasing a new X-Men and Avengers story, which is launching their Armageddon event this summer. Both Marvel and DC have comics geared toward kids as well. Marvel is previewing “Spidey and his Amazing Friends,” and DC has a sampler of “Aquamanatee,” a kid-friendly graphic novel.

Some comic books from Marvel, BOOM! and other publishers will have the Comics Giveaway Day tag on them because of distribution rights, but they are still free and part of the event.

“It’s a great way for people to try new things, existing customers to either try new things or be kept up to date on what’s coming up,” Romeo said.

There’s something available for everyone, even if you don’t like superhero comics. Publishers such as Image and BOOM! have popular titles like “I Hate Fairyland” and “Garfield” available for people to try. There are also books for manga.

Along with free comics, there are sales on almost everything in the store. Some of the sales are 30% off graphic novels and manga, 20% off back issues, variant and incentive covers, and T-shirts, and 10% off any toys.

“It’s our Black Friday,” Romeo said.

The day is big for the little kids in the comic book community. Employee and artist Beckie Henderson said the kids are her favorite part of the day.

“The little littles, it's the real littles. They get super excited,” Henderson said. “It’s the ‘oh my God, yeah!’ when they see a book or a character they know and they get really excited.”

Comics on the Green has a designated kids corner. Romeo said they’ve slowly expanded it over a couple years with the popularity of kid’s titles. Henderson said the kids corner makes it easy for parents who have never been in a comic book store to pick a book for their kid without worrying if the book is age appropriate.

Joshua Klien, an employee and senior at the University of Scranton, has attended Free Comic Book Day since he was 11. Klien said he looks forward to seeing what the companies have planned for the rest of the year.

Although it's a busy day for the store, Romeo said his favorite part of the day is seeing the community interact with each other.

“What I’ll notice are like the little pockets of conversations that pop up between people that never met each other but they’re here for free comic book day and they’re out there looking for back issues throughout the racks. They’ll just strike up conversations about their similar shared interests. It’s a nice community thing for comic book fans. New and old,” Romeo said.