ComicsPRO, the comic book retail trade association has announced that retailer registration is now open for Local Comic Shop Day, which will be held on November 19, 2016.  Retailers are encouraged to register for the event by August 19 in order to be eligible to order all the special Local Comic Shop Day items that include an exclusive hardcover edition of Doctor Strange: The Oath by Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin.  Local Comic Shop Day calls attention to locally owned independent comic book specialty stores and celebrates their unique role in the dissemination of pop culture.  This year’s date, November 19, is the weekend before Thanksgiving (see “Local Comic Shop Day Moved to Weekend Before Thanksgiving”) and will also coincide with the theatrical run of Marvel’s Doctor Strange movie, which debuts on November 4 (see “Doctor Strange Comic-Con Trailer”).

Brian K. Vaughan and Marcos Martin’s Doctor Strange: The Oath was published in paperback in 2013 (and is still available in that format), but the new exclusive Local Comic Shop Day hardcover edition comes with bonus features that include the original series pitch, script, page layouts, pencils/inks, character sketches, and promo pieces.  Retailers need to register with ComicsPRO by August 19 to be able to order the Doctor Strange hardcover, though if they don’t care about that volume, they have until August 31 to register for the November 19th event.

Local Comic Shop Day® is open to all qualified local comic shops. A Local Comic Shop is defined as a brick and mortar business that sells a substantial amount and/or percentage of comics and graphic novels. Qualifying comic specialty shops must be locally owned, not be publicly traded, and not have more than 35 storefronts. The licensing fee to participate in Local Comic Shop Day is $40 for single storefronts and $65 for multi-store operations. This fee helps ComicsPRO alleviate production, promotion, marketing, web design, auditing and other expenses.

Publishers who have expressed interest in participating in the event include Aftershock, Black Mask, Boom, Dark Horse, DC, IDW, Image, Marvel, Oni, Titan, and Valiant.