Free Comic Book Day began as a whirlwind for me, as I had two in-store appearances lined up. The first was in central Phoenix at Samurai Comics and the other in the southeastern Phoenix metropolitan area at Atomic Comics in the Chandler Mall.
I arrived at Samurai at about a quarter to ten and within minutes found myself signing copies of Lions, Tigers and Bears for readers, as well as passing out multiple copies of our latest Lions, Tigers and Bears poster.
The adults were happy, the children excited and the store staff was going above and beyond to make the new comers feel welcome and the existing customers feel the same. Numerous parents brought their children in looking for a way to entice their little ones into reading some comic books and from the looks on the children's faces, it seemed to be working quite well.
A photographer from the Arizona Republic, the major newspaper in Phoenix, stopped by for a photo shoot to correspond with our upcoming Lions, Tigers and Bears serial that begins on May 22nd. This, of course, drew even more attention to the signing.
Although I was only at Samurai for a little over an hour, it was a great experience.
Forty five minutes later I arrived at Atomic Comics in Chandler, and joined Josh 'Dead@17' Howard, Marat 'Shatterstar' Mychaels and Patrick 'Marvel Adventures Spider-Man' Sherberger for the rest of the day.
With the Atomic Comics location in a mall, we expected there to be heavy traffic all day. While this wasn't the case, the store did remain busy for the most part. Much the same as with Samurai, there were loads of parents bringing their little ones in searching for comic books. The younger readers loved Lions, Tigers and Bears and were in awe of Patrick's Spider-Man sketches, while the older readers flocked to Josh Howard and Marat Mychaels.
The store owner, Mike Malve, brought in a trick yo-yo team, who gave yo-yo demonstrations to anyone interested and while not as busy as the year before, a good time was had by all.
Throughout the day the Atomic staff went to great lengths to explain just what Free Comic Book Day was to all the new faces and made sure everyone who entered the store felt welcome and left with a free comic.
Our signing ended at 5pm and I packed up to leave while Josh Howard and Patrick Sherberger were still hard at work creating sketches for the last of the fans.