Glen Soustek of Westlake Cards, Comics & Coins, Inc. in Roselle, Illinois reports in to share his store's Free Comic Book Day experience.

Due to the nature of our business (sports cards, comics, gaming and rare coins--plus a few other things) we're prone to have at least one "hot" area at any given time--and Free Comic Book Day 2012 was, to say the least, the perfect storm.  Some combination of Free Comic Book Day, The Avengers movie premier, the long awaited Major League baseball debut of Bryce Harper, the latest Magic: The Gathering release Avacyn Restored, the continued "Cash for Gold" craze, a full moon and maybe a touch of Cinco de Mayo led to the largest crowds I've seen in 38+ years in business.

There wouldn't be any way to estimate the total number of people we had; but we set new records for single-day sales of comics, Magic: The Gathering and sports cards--all leading up to a new overall single-day retail record.  What started out as 30 feet of counter space devoted to mounds of FCBD books at 10am dwindled down to a handful of books by 5pm (memo to self-- We're gonna need more books next year).  The months ahead will determine just what kind of a lasting impact FCBD 2012 will have for us; we can always count on the "regulars" to be there long after the first Saturday in May, but hearing the phrase "We'll be back!" from hundreds and hundreds of new faces is (hopefully) something to count on in the future.

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