Attendance was down a bit in our 8 stores this year, as we achieved less press coverage than in years past. In all, we distributed comics to over 3000 customers on Free Comic Book Day - that's down some from last year, but it's still a lot of folks that we were able to make happy! Over 40% of those attendees were under the age of 13, and hundreds of those children came from area schools and libraries. We ran a competition among the area schools and libraries to encourage them to send people to FCBD and tell us who sent them. We're still tallying all the numbers to find out which libraries won free graphic novels, but I can say that these outreach efforts were definitely worthwhile.
Of all the FCBD customers, a whopping 30% or more said they hadn't been to one of our stores before. I think this is one of the greatest strengths of Free Comic Book Day, as each year we gain more and more new customers and comic readers.
Next year, I think there are ways that we can improve on this year's performance. In particular, I would like to see the date move. I'm not suggesting that it move to a date that ties into a specific movie or anything like that, but I'd like to see it move to the 2nd weekend in May or the 1st weekend in June. The first weekend in May is already crowded with activities vying for the attention of the public and media outlets. Moving away from Cinco de Mayo and the Kentucky Derby can only help our outreach efforts, in my opinion.
As to the product offered, I'd like to see publishers, particularly Gold Level publishers, get back to 'self-contained' stories that do more than preach to our choir and provide .pdf's of the books' content before orders are due so that we can properly judge the outreach potential. Image Comics' 'Future Shock' was one of the 'sampler'-type books, and I think it did little for them with new readers. Dark Horse Comics' Conan / Star Wars Flipbook still mystifies me, as it dramatically limited the potential of one, maybe both. Wizard's failure to make any changes to their 'Top 100 Graphic Novels' book, despite advertising it as 'revised' was very disappointing, too.
The usual suspects were on hand with great product, see Bongo, Archie, Gemstone, Marvel, and DC for examples of what to do - fun, all-ages stories with a lot of potential for outreach and promotion. DC's decision to offer 2 products this year was a FANTASTIC decision, and I'm glad we were able to take advantage.
Retailers -- If you'd like to share your Free Comic Book Day story with ICv2's readers, please e-mail us at Comments@icv2.com with your story and images.
