Shawn Demumbrum of SpazDog Comics in Gendale, Arizona writes in to share his store's Free Comic Book Day experience:

Free Comic Book Day started at a 7:45am Saturday when our subscribers started showing up for the 8am Subscriber VIP Early Open.  It didn't take long for more people to start filing in.  By 10am, Derrick West, Scott Shehi, Matt Goodall and David Odams were sketching for FCBD attendees.  David Odams (drawntoperfect.deviantart.com) contributed to and put together the layout for our SpazDog Comics Sketchbook, so it's no surprise that a lot of sketches left the store on the front of those sketchbooks.

The crowds were constant.  The patio was full of people taking advantage of our 10 cent comic sale.  At 12 noon, the second shift of creators took over with nine fresh creators taking their seats.  Dave Baker and Eric Esquivel (www.modernmythologypress.com) raised the bar with their velvety table cover and suits.  Brain and Kristy Miller (www.hifidesign.com) were selling copies of their essential guide to digital coloring, Hi-Fi Color for Comics and providing impromtu portfolio reviews for aspiring artists.  Daniel Davis provided what is probably one of the coolest FCBD exclusive, 100 limited 4"x6" prints of his webcomic, Monster Commute (www.monstercommute.com) featuring our store.  Jeff Marriotte was signing copies of Presidential Material: Barack Obama. I was almost teary-eyed when he told me that he missed out on the Star Trek premiere to come to our FCBD.  Such a great guy.  Christian Vilaire and Scott Godlewski never put down their pens the whole time.  Scott Godlewski (scottygod.deviantart.com) is one of the best kept secrets that Phoenix has.

Things slowed down enough for us by 4pm for us to have lunch.  Although we saw some of our regulars, most of the people we saw today were people who had never been to our store and lived near the store.  Great people.  Free Comics.  It doesn't get better than this.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.