Hey Exfanders, welcome to the weekend! I’m coming to you pretty much live this morning (if you’re reading this in the morning, that is), and I am in the middle of thoroughly enjoying a lazy, useless Saturday.Yep, nothing to do today but sit around and--hey, wait a minute!
Is it the first Saturday in May?! Hang on a sec, lemme go check the old calendar and--yep. First Saturday in May. Today. Right now. As I am typing this.
So the only question I have for you is, what the heck are you doing here, reading this blog, when you should be out picking up free--FREE!--comic books from your local comics shop!?
Did I mention that they’re free??
Today only (and on specially ordered titles only--the whole store’s not free, Bucky), comics shops around the country will be participating in the annual Free Comic Book Day celebration…uh…day. Thing.
Wherein participating stores get a whole bunch of books (usually one-shots, promotional titles, or reprints) from the publishers and hand them out to customers for free.
Many times, stores will have a signing or a sale coincide with FCBD, but I have heard from several retailers that doing such things on a day with so much foot traffic tends to be hectic and problematic.
Especially when you consider the fact that many non-comics people traditionally find their way to a store on FCBD, you can imagine how crazy and confusing things must get at places with limited staff.
I’ve been to a few of these things, dating back to the second annual event, and each time I’ve had fun. Mostly I go to pick up a handful of the free books. The first year I went, though. Yikes, but did I get everything.
Gotta have ‘em all, and all that.
Since then? I’ll get a handful of titles, including the releases from the bigger companies. I’ll usually go through the row of books, though, and grab one or two smaller press issues that look intriguing.
I always have a good time, even though most shops tend to get pretty crowded, pretty early in the day. One thing’s for sure, though--there will be plenty of like-minded folks at your shop today mingling it up with flat-out newbies.
Remember, every newbie is a potential new fan to our little world, so be nice to them (read: don't bite a newbie), and most importantly, have fun out there, everyone!
What are you doing still here?? Get going already!
3 comments:
My store used to use Free Comic Book Day as a way to get rid of old back issues they didn't want to keep because nobody would buy them. While it seems like a bit of a gyp, it's probably better than Captain America and The Avengers in The War on Drugs or something.
I picked up a signed copy of Green Goblin #1 once on Free Comic Book Day.
Yeah, I think stores use FCBD as a way to get rid of merchandise--either by flat-out giving it away, or by having a sale of some kind.
Did stores outside of the US do anything?
I didn't see anything in Japan, though there aren't really comic stores per se outside of larger chains like Animate. Everything's manga-centric and the idea of giving away free manga boggles my mind, since it's so expensive.
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