Simon Davies of Comix Shoppe in Swansea, Wales describes his store's successful day, and offers some comments and suggestions for publishers:

Some initial comments about FCBD 2004 from the United Kingdom:

This year's event was again a big success for us, with thousands of free comics given away to old, current and new customers.  In addition to the specially provided comics, we also use the opportunity to pass on some of our overstocked back-issues, which, with a bit of thought to currently-available graphic novels has proved a great way to free up space and promote graphic novel sales.  We have always found FCBD to be a great tool to promote sales of comics and graphic novels, and we order the FCBD titles heavily so that we always have more than we expect to give away on the day.  They are great to hand to casual customers who don't know exactly what they are looking for, even weeks and months later.  This year we also ordered hundreds of extra Marvel Previews to give away.  We also make sure all our standing order customers get plenty of free stuff.

Publishers who got it right this year, for shops and customers, and deserve a special mention: Slave Labor (spot on as always); IDW; Tokyopop; Astonish; Oni and Dark Horse.  Marvel and DC, from my point of view, are pushing the wrong properties with their offerings.  They have much better, more representative and more appropriate titles to offer for Free Comic Book Day.  Perhaps they should produce more than one comic, aimed at different audiences, for example Vertigo, Marvel Knights, etc.  Maybe Marvel Age: Spider-Man and Teen Titans Go sell well in the US, but here they are very low-selling titles.  Marvel gave us much better material previously with Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man, and DC seems intent on promoting cartoon properties, disappointingly.

We gave away plenty of their comics, (hey, a free comic is a free comic) but I feel they have missed an opportunity to really push sales for us.  Some suggestions for publishers (some publishers already do these things, but you'd be surprised at those who don't):

Publish FCBD comics that contain adverts for your currently available graphic novels.  Inform shops which titles you will be promoting, so that we can have those titles in stock, ready.  Publish FCBD comics that contain adverts for your currently available or upcoming series.  Include an order form for the customer to fill in and give to their local comic store with a list of your titles.  Some original material, not previously published is nice for current customers who already buy your comics.  Include a short explanation about Free Comic Book Day.