David Brawley and Robert Miller of Sarge's Comics in New London, Connecticut sent their experience with this year's Free Comic Book Day:

This year's FCBD was as big an event as last year's.  It didn't come easy, and was, in fact, a huge amount of effort.  We talked it up to all of our customers and to everyone who even poked their heads in the door, we handed out fliers, put an ad in the local paper, and basically did as much promotion and cross-promotion of the event as possible.  All that work paid off.  There was constant foot traffic through the store, which translated into strong sales for the day.

The placement of FCBD in July this year was a mixed blessing.  It is hard to compete with a national holiday and a 3-day weekend.  While we had numerous people who don't live in this area come to the store, numerous people who do were away for the weekend long holiday.  On one hand it is great to get new people in the store, but it's better to get new people who live around here and don't already have a local comic shop.

The diversity of comics available was nice, from books for children to independent titles for adults.  I would have liked to have some Vertigo and Ultimates titles available to show the breadth of DC's and Marvel's comic lines.  It also would have been convenient to have some indication of which titles were being aimed at the older audience, and might be inappropriate for our younger customers.  Another thing, where's Bongo?  One of the most popular cultural icons of the last decade and a half, and for the third year in a row, it is MIA.

The biggest disappointment of the event was the tardiness in the arrival of the books and of the shirts.  While the books did trickle in over the past month, most arrived within two weeks of the event, and the shirts didn't even show up until that Wednesday.  The tees need washing for a non-itch fit.  Things like that make it difficult to build in-store enthusiasm for the day, but we persevered with smiles because it is what we do.

Here is hoping we substituted some books for a few video game hours with the children who partook of the comic feast.  We have little difficulty getting adults to read, but quite the battle in the sixteen and under crowd!

The opinions expressed in this Talk Back article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.

For an index of all of the Free Comic Book Day 2004 Talk Backs, please go to: 'FCBD Success Stories'