Free Comic Book Day Roundup!
Another Free Comic Book Day has wrapped up at Stadium Comics, and I can honestly say it was the most successful day we have EVER had in the history of our little comic shop. Take a look at the links on the bottom of this page for pictures of the event! Those who missed out can also take a look at our event details here. Keep reading below for a summary of the action!
Anyone who came by this past Saturday knows exactly what I mean. Did you ever think we could fit that many people into 590 square feet of space? Not to mention the hoardes of people crowded around the artists in attendance? It was insane from start to finish, and we couldn't have been happier!
Let's start inside the store. People were immediately drawn to the $5 Action Figure blowout, and the sale on Trade Paperbacks and Graphic Novels. Our longboxes filled with .50 cent back issues were also a hit. The lines were long, the customers were patient, we were all having a blast! Vince Sunico's exclusive Wolverine FCBD print found its way into a lot of customers hands.
And let's not forget the Free Comics! The hot books were definitely Green Lantern Blackest Night, the Avengers, Wolverine, and Cars (due in large part to the fact Marcio Takara was in attendance and had an Incredibles story in that book). Aspen comics were also very kind and sent us a bunch of Francis Manapul's Iron and the Maiden, since Francis was also in attendance.
We had ordered a TON of free comics, and we had a bunch left over from last year. But by the end of the day, they were gone! We must have given away about 2,000 free books.
Outside our store, we had arranged a mini "Artist Alley" in the corridor of our shopping mall. We had a total of nine artists in attendance: DC Comics' Francis Manapul, IDW Transformers artist Alex Milne, Marcio Takara of 'The Incredibles', George Todorovski and Chris Hatzopolous of 'The Bear Stories', Vince Sunico and Arnold Trinidad of Spent Pencils Studio, Agnes Garbowska, and Daniele Procacci. You can see some of their sketches from that day here.
The lineup of artists we had definitely helped bring the crowd out to our store on that day. With many of them offering sketches for free, they were inundated with requests from the start of the day to the finish. They worked so hard all day, I honestly felt bad for them! But they had a lot of fun, and you could see that in the work they were churning out!
Norman Antonio, from Heroes-In-Tights was showing off his costumes to the delight of those in attendance. Norman himself was dressed as Nightwing, and he had our very own Vicky wearing a Supergirl costume.
There was a lot of interest in our raffle prize packs that we were offering. We also held a "Best undiscovered artist" contest, and some of the entries we received were outstanding! You can take a look at the contestants' work here.
Our local news station sent a reporter and a cameraman out to cover the festivities, and they interviewed yours truly, some of the artists, and our customers. The segment was apparently really cool, and I am hoping to get a copy of it sent over from the network.
We met a lot of new faces in our store on that day who skipped over a bunch of other comic shops that were much closer to them because of our impressive guest list, our sale, and the amount of promotion that we put into the event by way of flyers, our facebook page, and twitter. We went into it with the mindset that it would be like Boxing Day (or Black Friday in the US) - it would be our busiest shopping day of the year.
Honestly, comic shops that are not taking advantage of Free Comic Book Day and making a huge event out of it are missing out on something really special. It's a wonderful opportunity to raise awareness of your store in the community.
We have learned a lot from this year's event, and we can promise you that our 2010 Free Comic Day will be even better!
PS - A special thanks goes out to all our friends who volunteered to help out for the day. Also, to the hardest working artists in the comic industry, who volunteered their time. We can't thank you all enough!
Free Comic Book Day at Stadium Comics Photos - Part 1
Free Comic Book Day at Stadium Comics Photos - Part 2
- Kevin Hickey's blog
- Login or register to post comments
KingKRule
Id have to say the one thing that stuck out the most out of everything was the fact that everybody was so nice. I half expected to walk in there and have people pushing their way through crowds and all that jazz but it was the total opposite. I really felt a sense of community that day. Ha and Kevin with the enthusiam... keep it up. This small shop is an inspiration to me.
Simonc1138
I ended up dropping by Square One afterwards, and Planet Hobby was really dead. Aside from a few Free Comic Book Day issues at the front counter, it was business as usual. Shame too, they got a great location in one of Canada's largest malls.
Kudos for breathing life into Shopper's World for a day.
Kevin Hickey
What was your favourite memory of this year's Free Comic Book Day?