Comic shops and publishers will celebrate the independent spirit of local comic shops with “Local Comic Shop Day” on Wednesday, and Marvel is tying into the day with a character from one of this year’s movie hits.

Following up on the success of the “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” film, Marvel is offering a LCSD tie-in for its latest “Venom” comic book series.

Jonboy Meyers has created the variant cover of “Venom” #2 that will be available in participating local comic shops on Wednesday, featuring the Local Comic Shop Day logo.

The annual Local Comic Shop Day event is organized by ComicsPRO, the comics industry’s trade organization. The new “Venom” series is written by Al Ewing and Ram V, with art by Bryan Hitch.

This is the second year for Local Comic Shop Day to take place on a Wednesday, after beginning on a Saturday in 2011.

Marco Davanzo, Executive Director of ComicsPRO, said the move was to take advantage of existing comic shop traffic patterns.

“We moved Local Comic Shop Day from Saturday to Wednesday last year and more stores participated,” Davanzo said in a news release. “Because Wednesday is the day that new comics traditionally come out, it made a lot of sense to make that move”.

The goal of Local Comic Shop Day, according to a release from ComicsPRO, is to get comic fans into their local shop for the holidays — to celebrate the local comic shop.

Monsters, musicians, superheroes and more will be part of this year’s Local Comic Shop Day on Wednesday.

Writer/artist Jim Calafiore is releasing signed editions of his graphic novel “Ned, Lord of the Pit,” to participating Local Comic Shop Day stores. Ned is a struggling actor who discovers he is heir to a portion of Hell.

"The Walking Dead" first found its audience in comic shops, and Robert Kirkman, Charlie Adlard, and Dave McCaig's “The Walking Dead Deluxe” #27 Local Comic Shop Day edition will feature a foil treatment on the cover logo. The original edition of “The Walking Dead” #27 featured the first appearance of the villainous character known as “The Governor.”

Writer Brian Michael Bendis and artist Stephen Byrne will debut a LCSD edition of “Joy Operations” #1 for the day; 55 years in the future, Joy is a special agent of a corporately owned city.

Two releases focus on notable musicians:

Z2 comics will release “Chuck D Presents Apocalypse 91: Revolution Never Sleeps,” a graphic novel celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Public Enemy album “Apocalypse 91: The Enemy Strikes Back.”

The publisher 10 Ton Press will release the comic book “Metallica Special Edition” to coincide with the 30 year anniversary of Metallica’s “Black Album”.

Other issues receiving variant or foil cover releases for LCSD include:

“Radio Apocalypse” #1 from Vault; “Jim Mahfood's Grrl Scouts: Stone Ghost” #1 from Image Comics; and the YA crime thriller “Ed Brubaker and Marcos Martín's Friday” #1 Local Comics Shop Day edition from Image Comics.

Boom! Studios offers “Magic: Master Of Metal” #1 cardstock cover by Adam Gorham; “House Of Slaughter” #1 second printing cardstock cover by Jae Lee and June Chang, and “Regarding The Matter Of Oswald's Body” #1 cardstock cover by Ryan Sook.

From DC Comics come three cardstock, silver foil covers: “Detective Comics” #1045, “DC vs. Vampires” #2, and “Task Force Z” #2.

For more information, visit localcomicshopday.com.

Matthew Price, matthew@matthewLprice.com, has written about the comics industry for more than two decades. He is the co-owner of Speeding Bullet Comics in Norman. Price serves on the national Local Comic Shop Day committee for ComicsPRO.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Word Balloons: Local Comic Shop Day will be full of 'Venom'