Jim and Crystal Brown of Midwest Comics and Games in Quincy,
We have participated in Free Comic Book Day since the first one, and this is one time of the year that we look forward to. Spring is here, the kids are getting restless as the end of school nears, and the summer blockbusters are just around the corner (comics and games, I mean).
When we arrived at our store there was already a small line of (mostly) kids waiting to get their comics. Several had brought their own bags, including one kid who had several other bags stuffed into one large bag! Apparently he wasn't going to leave empty-handed.
And no one left without getting something. We encouraged everyone to take as many comics as they wanted, including several that we pulled out of our overstock boxes. Of course we gave away a lot of the HeroClix Wolverine figures and the Stargate SG-1 exclusive O'Neill figure plus lots of other goodies.
We have a long relationship with our local public library and they put up posters a few weeks before the event, and also distributed comics to the kids and young adults on Saturday. They also directed them to our store where they could get more comics.
Financially, it was one of our best days. We probably sold more trade paperbacks on this day than we do in a whole month -- and we sell a lot of trade paperbacks. A lot of regular comics were sold as were - surprisingly -- several board games and HeroClix packs.
After the final tallies were in, we gave away more than 1,800 comics, including most of our stock left over from the past few years. For a city our size, that is a lot of comics. It turned out to be our best FCBD since the first one.
My only complaint is that some of the mature readers titles weren't clearly marked as such, and since we don't have the time to go through each comic that might be questionable, we just put those titles on the 'Mature Readers' table. Perhaps the publishers that distribute the more mature comics could all label them?
But other than that slight problem, we had an outstanding Free Comic Book Day and we look forward to doing it again for many more years.
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