Cal Johnston of Strange Adventures Comic Bookshops with two locations in Halifax and Fredericton, Canada sent in his Free Comic Book Day report.

We rent out a church hall for our FCBD event.  It's around the corner from our Halifax store and allows us to make the event more of a fair and festival atmosphere.  More than 800 people took away 20,000 comic books.  We let folks choose up to 25 comics as we not only have the FCBD offerings, but a lot of donations from our customers and comics from our own backstock.  Separated into three sections, all ages, teen and mature; folks can browse through the piles on the tables and choose a stack.

My daughter and her pals set up a bean bag toss game for people to play and win some of the prizes we had to give away, HeroClix, some action figures bought off the liquidation lists, t-shirts, and other cool stuff. 

About a dozen local artists were on hand to do sketches for folks.  Cartoonists Mike Holmes, Faith Erin Hicks and Darwyn Cooke among them.

All in all, another fine promotion.  I do have some qualms about some of the comic book offerings.  No space for store stamp, flip covers (which result in people taking the same comic twice), and issues that were more catalogue than comic book.  I'd like to see a change in promo to "Comic Book Day," where we celebrate the form and the history of comics -- and still give away free stuff but just not focus on it as the central point.

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