My Free Comic Book Day
My Free Comic Book Day
May 07I decided to celebrate Free Comic Book Day by visiting a new store (well, new to me), Geoffrey’s Comics in Gardena, CA.
As I approached in my Saturn, I could already see a line extending out the door. Was there some sort of artist appearance? Nope. That was just the line to get in and enjoy comics. Sweet.
I would have jumped right in the line, except I was immediately diverted by the 10-cent bins positioned right outside the front door. I was also slightly grooving to the tunes of a live music combo. The lead singer’s voice would get progressively more raw as the day went on, leading to some painful notes, but it was still a nice touch.
I spent over an hour pawing my way through the ten-cent bins, selecting forty books that were actually good to great finds–a couple complete miniseries, a couple nice holes filled, and even a copy of JLA Classified #1, which I’d expected to have to go to my normal shop and pay three bucks for. Instead, I got a near-mint copy for a dime. Again, sweet.
Once I finally made it inside, the free comics were actually gone. Bummer. It was only assuaged by the presence of more cheap comics–fifty-cent bins with some really choice stuff inside. Since I wanted to keep my spending very very low (I believe Free Comic Book Day should stay as close to “free” as possible), I only selected a handful of issues. Still, good stuff.
Then I jaunted over to my regular local comic shop, where I do most of my buying, which is just five minutes from home. They had a Simpsons artist from the comics doing free sketches…with purchase. They did have the FCBD issues easily displayed by the door in neat stacks, but no great sales–and thus, no great crowds, either, although it was late in the day by this point. Me, I got my stack of freebies, snagged some extras for the wife’s second-grade class, and I bolted.
You can probably tell by my report which of the two shops seemed to get it “right”–Geoffrey’s Comics had great sales, a fun atmosphere (I almost forgot the Christopher Reeve lookalike they recruited from in front of Grauman’s Chinese in Hollywood to take pictures with the kids dressed as Superman!), live music–AND free comics. My usual shop (unnamed so they don’t google this and find out I’m bitching about them) had an artist in store, which is nice, but a sketch with purchase?! Come on. That’s no different than the signings I could attend any time at any other store.
Make Free Comic Book Day SPECIAL and fun. At Geoffrey’s, I saw a kid dressed in his Thing halloween costume, and plenty of other kids digging through the dime boxes alongside me, deciding just which books they’d pick up for their valuable coins. THAT is a good thing, ladies and gentlemen. Unless you’re hoping that comics remain the hobby of ever-aging men in their twenties and older, wallowing in nostalgia every Wednesday night. In which case, I guess it sucks. I certainly enjoyed it.
I went to my store and the place was packed. Ethan had three local artists on hand with their work – my roommate Toren chatted with one of the artists for awhile about professional stuff, like pens and inks, and such. Ethan had a sale where you buy any three things, get the lowest priced one free (sweeeet) and the weekly Hero Clix groups was there playing with the FRICKIN SPECTRE clix. He’s big, like Galactus big. It was awesome.
Aw, I should go to Geoffrey’s! The kid dressed as Thing is priceless. Husband and I went to three places: as you may have guessed, we also went to Comic Shop Which Shall Not Be Named. I concur with your assessment! We also checked out a place in Culver City that I dug a lot — great selection of both mainstream and indies, clean, well-stocked, etc. This particular establishment wasn’t actually participating in FCBD — the owner had an explanation, but I wasn’t really listening. But! He did offer a free pack of neat mini-reprints — pocket-size books reprinting the first few issues of several classic Marvel titles. I thought that was cool because it was still very much in the spirit of FCBD, encouraging new readership and the like. The final shop we went to was eh. They had a few artists signing, but the free comics were nowhere in sight and the staff didn’t seem too interested in helping with anything.