Ilan Strasser of Fat Moose Comics and Games in Whippany, New Jersey saw the column by Steve Bennett on customer service and Free Comic Book Day (see 'Confessions of  Comic book Guy -- Make an Effort'), and lays out his rebuttal:

I'm not going to get into a detailed defensive posture with Steve Bennett, but I have to say that I resent his implications that those of us who had a less than stellar FCBD are necessarily part of the problem.  My store has had many and varied promotions for all the FCBD events to date.  I have increased the level of advertising each year including a full month of cable TV advertising leading in to this year's event.  I could enumerate many more details on our efforts to make FCBD as terrific as possible, but as has been pointed out before, 'sometimes even the best laid plans....'

I am sure there's a small percentage of retailers that exhibited the least effort possible and imagined that people would swarm into their stores just because the doors were swung open, but that was not the case here.  Steve's sweeping generalization threw the decent retailers into the same pot as those who don't even have a clue -- and I am insulted that he chose to make his statement the way he did.  Maybe next year will be a great FCBD if I choose to participate again -- but if it isn't, it won't be for lack of trying.  No brick and mortar store, especially in our industry, makes it 24 years (as I have) without learning the business and without making a real effort.

Sometimes things just don't go your way.  I wasn't going to post my reactions to FCBD precisely because I didn't want to hear someone who had a great day tell me about my supposed lack of effort.  But I did because I felt seeing and hearing different stories might be a valuable learning experience to the ICv2 readership at large.

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