David Siegler of Ground Zero Comics worked hard to maintain the momentum for Free Comic Book Day  (see '2005 FCBD in the Books') without a major motion picture tie-in, and was able to mount 'a solid success:'

 

For the past three Free Comic Book Day events, we worked with the local theaters, distributing coupons that tied the event with the big film of each year (Spider-Man, X2, Spider-Man 2).  With no big superhero film opening the same weekend at FCBD this year, the challenge was to maintain the momentum of the previous three years by strengthening other areas of promotion.  This year we distributed the coupons to the area schools, something that unfortunately wasn't approved by the administration until just a few days before the event.  We still managed to get several thousand coupons to the schools in time.  The local newspaper ran a large story on us last year for Free Comic Book Day.  This year, however there were several other local events running on the same day, so our newspaper coverage was restricted to a fairly small story before the event.

 

Our attendance this year was in line with last year.  This year we focused on keeping people in the store beyond just the time it took to go through the line and grab a free comic.  To that end we held trivia contest every 30 minutes, with multiple prizes given away during each session.  This was, in some ways, even more popular that the free comics themselves.

 

We also had every people vote on the entries in our annual art contest while they waited in line.  This got people involved where they might normally have not been, and we heard more than a few say 'I need to enter this next year!'  While there didn't seem to be as many new faces this year as in years past, it was still a solid success for what has now turned into an annual tradition.