Pat Thompson of 8th Street Books & Comics in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan shared his Free Comic Book Day experiences:
FCBD was a hit here at 8th Street Books & comics in beautiful Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. It was a lot of work and a little bad timing but all came together.
I did a lot of advertising for this event, as I use it as my biggest single push to get new customers into my store. On Thursday I had five minutes on a local TV station's noon show. When I got back to the store I had people coming in for their free comic. I guess stressing that it was on Saturday wasn't enough. Maybe I should have had a calendar as a visual reference.
Friday I spent two hours on the most popular FM radio station's morning show. That was probably the best advertising and it was free. Friday afternoon one of the other TV stations showed up to get the scoop for FCBD and that was shown during the evening news. I host a show about comic books on the community radio station on Fridays. I put in a very good plug about FCBD. Actually half the show was about FCBD and the quality of the comics offered this year. Later one of my staff (Doug) and I handed out about 800 copies of Ultimate X-Men at the smaller theatre showing X2. I don't think I'll bother doing that again as I don't feel it was all that effective. After the show there were at least 30% of the comics left behind by the theatre patrons.
Saturday was big. My staff went beyond anything I expected from them as far as getting ready for the day. I really didn't have to do anything other than show up. We had spent the preceding weeks making sure everything was clean. The Monday before we had the carpet shampooed. Holly hosed the winter's dirt from the outside of the store and I had the canvas awning replaced. Doug took the time to sweep the sidewalk for the whole length of the building my store is in. The store looked good. All Saturday we had people in the store. There didn't seem to be a lull in the day. At one o'clock Tom Grummett began doing sketches of comic book characters. We charged a fee for this with all money going to the Big Brothers and Big Sisters organizations. There was a line up before he started and we eventually had to put a cut-off on the line. A few people went home disappointed but anyone that got a sketch done was very happy. Tom is incredible with people and it sure is a lot of fun watching him sketch so many different characters.
On the whole, FCBD about matched last year. I gave away 800 comics. Maybe 75 more comics than last year, but I think this was due to the better selection of titles. The Archie, Walt Disney, Batman and Leave it to Chance were the best choices. Metallix got some good reviews this week from returning customers as did Peanut Butter & Jeremy and Milk & Cheese. I'm afraid that Ultimate X-Men didn't go over well at all. Anyone need any more copies?
The single most asked for comic that I didn't have was Spider-Man. Last year's Ultimate Spider-Man was a bad choice. There is something so very sad about having a four year-old boy crying because the Spider-Man comic his mom is trying to give him doesn't have Spider-Man in it. Next year I hope Marvel puts a bit more thought and effort into their selection.
