A reminder to check out and support your local comic book store (we’ve already swung by Fourth World in Smithtown, the best comic book store in Long Island.)
PAD
A reminder to check out and support your local comic book store (we’ve already swung by Fourth World in Smithtown, the best comic book store in Long Island.)
PAD
• 
Why support just one? I’ve been to every store in the Houston city limits.
FCBD is an interesting phenomenon. Michael’s comment above illustrates why.
Now, what is the purpose of FCBD?
Is it so that comics fans can go around and collect the FCBD editions of books?
Is it so that people who are rarely if ever interested in comics or who may have read comics in the past but don’t do so now might, after seeing or hearing some promotion of the event, seek out a comic book store and obtain some free samples, the object of which is to interest them enough so they return?
Let’s take a survey.
we’ve already swung by Fourth World in Smithtown, the best comic book store in Long Island.
…since FlashPoint closed down.
Due to what laughingly passes for ‘gainful’ employment, I unfortuantely was unable to attend any FCBD events this year. 🙁
Hope everyone else was able to.
I spent the day volunteering at my usual comic book store. I would be curious to know, of those who hit a comic shop today were you given your choice of one free comic, two, as many as interested you? How many different titles did the shops order and put out? Did you hear if any were surprisingly popular? What other promotions if any did they have?
Marshak’s had staff at the two theatres multiplexes handing out flyers in the evening the last couple days. There was also a plan to have comics and a poster at the public library where people would get a comic and be directed to the store. Tickets to Spider-Man 2 were given away along with a couple sets of movie posters.
Marshaks didn’t order every free comic possible but had quite a few choices. I thought there could have been a Vertigo title of some sort, and maybe more options in the way of superhero/adventure. “Teen Titans Go” was very popular as was the “Barry Ween” give away.
I was hoping PAD would put up a post on this topic.
Our store (Heroes, in Campbell, CA) had a sign up asking that people take no more than 1 free comic per person. I particularly liked the addition “please take only what you’ll read, and please read what you take!”
It also has a sale going on this weekend to help encourage people to come back. We stopped in this afternoon (after seeing Spider-Man 2, which was terrific), and the store was busier than I’ve ever seen it. A lot of them looked like new customers rather than regulars, too.
Personally, the actual free offerings this year seemed a bit thin to me, but I love the idea!
TWL
Having missed the first two FCBD
Whoops! Make that THREE stores that included the TokyoPop book! I just opened up the stash from Midtown Comics East (didn’t get a good look at everything they stuffed in there when I was there), and there was a copy in there two. By far, Midtown East had the biggest full set, with a staggering 22 books.
Sleep of Reason comes in second with 13.
Midtown Comics Times Square comes in third at 10 books (and both Midtown branches included a tiny Spider-Man HeroClix figure).
And A&S Comics at 71st & Bergenline, near where I live in Jersey, had 7 in their set.
It should be pointed out that this is the same number of books Jim Hanley’s gave me, even though I didn’t count them with the “full set” ones.
There was only 1 Free Comic Day offering I was interested in, the Gemstone reprinting of 2 Carl Barks stories. I had to go to 3 stores before I found that one.
However, I was also pleasantly surprised by the Image Comic offering, which had four new stories, including a new Savage Dragon story.
The Marvel and DC offerings were especially disappointing. I am glad they put out all ages books for FCBD, but Teen Titans Go and Marvel Age Spider Man are just not very good comics. I don’t think they will bring new readers to our hobby.
My local comic shop (the only one within about 250 kms of me) are waiting until next week as they’ve just moved to a bigger store. Looking forward to it though.
I had to work the exact hours my store [Elite Comics] this year, but the previous years, they’ve always had people doing signings, sales, and all sorts of cool stuff. The shop’s usually packed pretty full most of the day. Someone above mentioned handing out flyers at a movie theater. The one in my area wouldn’t let us do that. Always thought that was kind of stupid.
Stopped by my favorite store in the St. Louis Area – All American Collectibles. I picked up Ballad of Sleeping Beauty, which looked intriguing. There was also a buy 1 get 1 free sale on all back issues. I decided to check out a few titles I wasn’t reading. So that ploy worked on me.
I’m one of those who used to be rarely if ever interested in comics, who recently due to circumstances only partially within my control have been bit by the bug. (Unfortunately, it wasn’t radioactive) The Free comic book idea I think is great to attract newcomers.
I don’t know if this is a duplicate post, and if it is please delete it. But…
What did you think of the comics? “The Shield” had the most appealing cover, but the story inside those covers had nothing that would appeal to the viewers of that show. The TV show “The Shield” is like “Fallen Angel” in real life, only darker. You couldn’t put a comic accurate to the TV show in the hands of kiddies, free, without inviting lawsuits.
On the other hand, “Teen Titans Go!” was perfect for kids. It was entertaining, about a show that kids know about, and it involved the gimmick Mr. David started, putting “super-deformed anime versions” of the characters in the margins.
Perhaps saddest of all were the piles of “Archie” comics on the free table. Isn’t it time for John Goldwater’s right-wing teenager to retire to the Old Comics Home along with The Yellow Kid? (Or at least stick to the newsstand tabloids, and get far away from real comic books?)
I went late in the day to one of the local stores, who had a decent sampling of the FCBD books, but not the one I wanted (the Oni preview of the Rucka/Morse Mt Everest book).
They also had tables of quarter boxes, with people being able to get 10 for free and .50cents for each additional book.
The store where I used to work always has guest artists doing free sketches and a local actor with a Batman suit who poses for pictures with kids all day.
I’ll be curious to see how things go this year, since I was one of the people who thought it would be better done in May and not a holiday weekend, S-M movie or not.
“Perhaps saddest of all were the piles of “Archie” comics on the free table. “
Hmm… at my store in Oklahoma the Archie Comics were one of the most popular choices…
I think the only sad part is that people are so jaded, that they think there is no place for good clean comics in today’s world. There’s a reason why the three best selling graphic novels each and every single year are Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, and For Better or Worse…
So many people in the comic industry snub their nose and good, clean, family comics, and then wonder why comics are one of the few products selling less now than 30 years ago…while the sales of these comic collections has gone up.
Jerry
I guess, given my previous post, I oughta join in the revelations as well.
My first stop was Third Planet. They did something odd: three books, but a sort of potluck thing where the guy reaches behind the counter and gives you what’s on top of the stack. I drew the Image Comics Spectacular, The IDW sampler, and The Ballad of Sleeping Beauty. I also purchased the Empire TPB.
Next was over to Bedrock City, the other awesome comic store in Houston. They had a one per customer limit; I picked the Gemstone issue because, Sweet Christmas, Carl Barks.
While there, I learned of another, new BC store over on Old Katy Road. To the Pullmannmobile! Free comic: Oni’s Barry Ween. Purchase: Danny Fingeroths’s Superheroes on the Couch.
And, since I was in the area, I swung by Midnight Comics on Westheimer and picked up the Best of Dork Storm 2004.
I saw a pretty good representative sampling of all the books, and I’ll probably pick up some more at San Diego, if anyone there has a good stash of leftovers.
I didn’t go to FCBD this year. I was only interested in the Gemstone book, but I know that I would have found several other interesting books.
I must agree with Jerrywall. Too many people look down their noses at the G-rated comics. My two favorite comic books on the stands today are Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories. I usually read them one story at a time in order to prolong my enjoyment.
As a contrast, I very much enjoy the tv show “Deadwood”, which airs on HBO. It is crude, vulgar, profane, and sometimes just disgusting. There is room in my world for both types of entertainment.
My local comic shop is a dive. I refuse to support it. A friend of mine owns a shop near where my parents live. I’d rather support his business by emailing him a list of what I want every month and picking it all up when I visit my parents.
I’ve also always figured that FCBD was for curious non-readers or passive readers to experiment with some different titles. I know what I want from a comic, I’m willing to pay for it, and taking free stuff doesn’t support the shops anyway. So I skip FCBD as a general rule.
I went over to Comics America here in Winnipeg (just after seeing Spider-Man 2), and they were also having a Canada Day sale (which went on for three or four days, apparently). Good day for comics – excellent movie, free comics, and the rest of my comic purchases were 50% off.
Now, I was talking to the owner and asked about a particular title that wasn’t in the free stuff counter (the website for the book had indicated that this was one of the places the book would appear); he said he wanted to concentrate on titles that casual readers (i.e. the ones not normally in comic stores) would be interested in, rather than ‘preaching to the converted’ (hence the ‘take no more than two of each’ policy). I can definitely see the point being made (although I had gone down there for this particular book – no big deal, I was very happy with the Spidey book and Teen Titans Go!).
Anyway, between the sale and FCBD, the place was packed, and it seemed the folks buying stuff were buying lots (not just grabbing the free stuff and running), so it looked like a success to me. I woulda gone to more stores to see what was going on all over, but I ran outta time.
Sadly I had to work on comick book day but my store put aside some stuff in the pull and hold. They also arragned for a free midnight screening of Spider Man 2 for about 20 or the regulars. (they had arranged a deal with the theatre to combine a promotion for the other midnight screenings, but the thatre didn;t promote the midnight screening very well so the main thatre was only half full. we will see what business they get from it, still seeing SM2 in a private theatre? very very cool.
I’m a self publisher and this year am not only premeiring a new series but have expanded to publishing other talented cartoonists.
I used FCBD to publish a preview of six new titles that I’ll be publishing this fall. I expected a small order but was surprised and happy to get an order of over 11,000 copies.
I hope that with FCBD I’ll be able to reach many new potential readers that I may never had the opportunity to attract before.
I, too, went to FCBD at 4th World, around 4:00 p.m. I had my 18 month old daughter with me, which turned out to be a mistake because I had to keep a very short leash on her (I kept her in my arms) and it is difficult to look through the back issue bins that way. You are right Peter, it is the best comic shop on LI. I picked up the Gemstone Mickey/Uncle Scrooge reprint, it was a great read.
I thought I was going on too long yesterday so I cut off a couple things. The Slave Labor Graphics book was the first to run out and the one I heard people ask for after that. Marshak’s allowed people their choice of any two, no force involved. We tried to encourage people to try things they hadn’t read before. The Archie book was chosen by (I think) adults entirely. The Disney books where mostly chosen by adults. Some of the behavioral dynamics were interesting. Some individuals when told 2 per person still tried to help themselves to everything that looked good. Others seemed to think that if they were free they weren’t worth having. One young man was so excited that the Teen Titans Go was a #1 that he told his dad that dad would be jealous one day when he was rich. A lot of people took a look at the IDW sampler but didn’t follow through. Not sure what about it didn’t hook them. Marshak’s also had out the 10 cent Batman and Superman issues, the 9 cent Fantastic Four issue and the 25 cent Hellboy. Hellboy was popular and adults went after the Batman, Superman and FF. There were a few people we couldn’t persuade to take one, a few who couldn’t find two they wanted to try.
FCBD is an industry wide partnership and the publishers and distributors are getting the comics to the stores at a big discounts, but the stores are still having to buy the comics. Its interesting how many stores found it within their budget to give away a handful or more to each person. I know it isn’t cheap for the publishers to do, and the samplers might be the way of the future, but I’d like to see something like a joined forces sort of issue with maybe a Strangers in Paradise and Bone story. There were folks who that would have been just right for (yes, mostly women) and nothing we could really show them that suited them. I like my share of alternative titles, but for a lot of people alternative art styles are not what they think of when you say comics and they need to take baby steps to get there. In years of trying, I’ve only been able to get one customer at my work to try “Goodbye Chunky Rice”.
Luigi: How many different titles makes up a full set?
Darn it! Still forgot a couple things:
Badger and Nexus writer Mike Baron was there for a few hours to sign things.
and:
http://www.marshaks.com/
Ian Sokoliwski (see above) was quite correct about our attitudes to the FCBD program.
From what I’m reading, it’s mostly current comics fans (at least on this forum) posting about their own successes or failures at procuring the various “sets” of free comics.
Not the purpose of the program people!
What Ian didn’t mention was that we spent a couple of thousand dollars on advertising for both the Canada Day Event AND FCBD as a prominent component of it.
The greatest feeling of accomplishment was seeing people come in, ask where the free comics were, and then go something like, “You mean we can just TAKE these?” Yup. Incidentally, there was no limit or restriction within reason. The concept of someone trundling in and scooping handfuls for the local scout troop would not have been allowed because the idea was to attract potential individual readers.
We were very pleased when many of those who came in proved to be parents with kids in the 6-8 year old demographic, grandparents getting a few books for their younger grandchildren, or best of all, just average folks who themselves had never been in this or any other comic store and were coming to check it out and availing themselves of the books to “sample” what’s out there. The former two cases being potential fans for the future, and the latter being potential new current readers.
So…seeing as how most posts here refer to fans going from store to store, let’s redo the survey question and ask something like this:
From your observations, would you say that the event attracted significant interest from folks in your local area who are not currently themselves comics readers, or who have family members who are not current comics readers and would be interested in the offerings? I’d like to see what the feedback on this question is.
As a personal aside to everyone from our local area, we wish to say thanks for participating in the event as well as the FCBD component of it.
The next big thing? WWE is doing two live shows back to back here in Winnipeg. The first is Raw on Monday, July 5 (live on Spike TV and TSN), and Tuesday is Smackdown (which may be taped for later broadcast…I’m not sure.) Anyways, RVD will (I believe) be here and maybe Al Snow as well. I e-mailed RVD a few days ago at his store to invite him and his colleagues to come and say hello, so I hope the message was passed along. We shall see if he shows up, and I’ll let you all know.
First Robin Williams, next maybe RVD and Al. It’s shaping up to be an interesting year at Comics America!
cal: Luigi: How many different titles makes up a full set?
Luigi Novi: Like I said above, depends on the store. I got 22 different books at one store, 13 at another, etc.
I dutifully went to my local comic book store on Saturday (I even paid a cab to get there!) and they didn’t have any free comics. 🙁 The guy at first said that they hadn’t ordered any, to which I basically responded “You’ve got to be kidding me?!?” Then he clarified that they had indeed ordered the comics, but they were shipped to the wrong store. Which is more understandable, but I was still peeved. I wonder if they will get them eventually and give them out then… I hope so!
I haven’t seen it mentioned yet (not surprising) but did any of you get my book, “A Bunch of Baboons”?
Just curious to see how it was distributed.
Thanks.
Jerrywall, you’re upset over nothing. I wasn’t suggesting kids would be happier reading Penthouse Comics rather than Archie Comics. There were many very good kid-friendly comics out there. It’s just that the Archie comics aren’t terribly interesting to kids.
Especially because John Goldwater was a political and religious conservative, people seem inclined to protect him from criticism of his creative output. (It’s the same kind of thing that went on when Walt Disney was still alive, and his tired and predictable 1960’s live-action films were seen as the only bulwark against nudity and Satanism in grade school.)
If Archie Comics were so vital and interesting to kids, how did Hanna-Barbara so easily rip off the concept with Scooby Doo’s Mystery, Inc.? Because the Scooby gang have vibrant personalities, and Archie’s gang never did. (One clear difference: Scooby’s gang are about a real activity – solving mysteries – while the Archie gang are mostly about dating and one-upmanship. “Archie’s Weird Mysteries” was too little, too late.)
Thomas E. Reed,
Don’t put words in my mouth. For one, I never claimed to be upset, and two, never said anything about penthouse. Taking things to extreme is a cheap way to make a point.
All I basically said was this:
“. at my store in Oklahoma the Archie Comics were one of the most popular choices…”
Now I’m just speaking from the level of a comic store owner, a person on the front line. You may have some other special avenue of information. Or you may be in an area that’s different. But all I was saying is that I disagree that people aren’t interested in Archie.
RJM:
Marshak’s did have copies of “A Bunch of Baboons”. I’m sorry I didn’t get time to look at it.
If you watched RAW this evening, you saw a reasonably good wrestling program live from Winnipeg. I say “reasonably good” because I don’t necessarily agree with the “Eugene” storyline, or the “Lita Pregnancy” angle right now. I think WWE needs to get back to more basic stuff with some sinister angles thrown in to spice things up. Forget the lunacy and sex angles.
Anyway, Smackdown will be “live” tomorrow, but you’ll see it on UPN and TSN on Thursday night.
Which brings me to the subject of RVD, who you may know is a huge comics fan (both figuratively and literally I might add…what a physique! You have to see him up close to appreciate it. I could only dream of such a build, but that’s another story.) At about 2:30 this afternoon he called and I went over to the hotel with my son Isaac to pick him up. We spent a very pleasant time visiting at the store, after which we went back to the hotel and met Booker T as well. Booker is very imposing, and a complete gentleman when out of the wrestling angles. The boys had to drive to Kenora, Ontario for a house show, so Isaac and I wound up leading them to the quickest way out of town, so they’d make it on time. I’ll find out Tuesday if they did so, assuming that RVD makes a return visit.
Come on folks. I still don’t see your observations on FCBD. Is your sense of the event that it attracted potential new readers or that it was just a bunch of current fans running around to different stores to accumlate freebies? Post your replies here and let’s discuss it.
I had to work Saturday, so I missed Free Comicbook day; but my grandmother and I saw “Spider-Man 2” on Sunday. Good movie. She liked the story, but not all the noise, and also liked Tobey Maguire, though she didn’t know who she was. She doesn’t see movies often, so doesn’t keep up with who’s who in Hollywood.
I have to agree with those who say “Spider-Man 2” is better than the first. And I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the third, especially given certain information that’s come to Harry’s attention.
Rick