All they had left at my store was the X_men and Shonen Jump one... next time I'll risk being late for my daughter's recital and go to the store first!
gdaybloke | Email | Homepage | 05.04.08 - 4:35 am | #

Yeah, I was late too, and all that was left was X-Men. Either that one was overstocked, or the stench of Greg Land's "art" was too overpowering.
roody kazootie | Email | 05.04.08 - 4:54 am | #

I'm consistently disappointed in my local store's attitude towards FBD. He only gets in the one or two books that feature characters he knows his customers already like plus several of the mainstream kids offerings. Yesterday my son and I were given the Hellboy comic and my son chose Gyro Gearhead. No chance to choose Owly which we actually like.
Aaron | 05.04.08 - 5:24 am | #

Without an LCS, I have to settle for out local bookstore with a comic rack. In previous years, they had a decent selection of the free books. This year was terrible by comparison. They had the All-Star Superman, Marvel Adventures and X-Men books -that's it. They supplemeted with a couple of other things, but if you're trying to find a good book to give kids to read I could suggest many issues other than Flash #13 where Bart dies.
cory | Email | 05.04.08 - 6:20 am | #

I went to Super Villains Inc. north of Baltimore and they did a very good job. A good selection of free books, creators in to sign and chat, lots of stuff on sale, toys out front on card tables so the kids could browse them as they came in and heroclix demos running out front of the shop. In each bag they had something clever, a fact sheet on the shop and some advertising for other local businesses like the pizza delivery place. I am sure they got something back for that, free pizzas at least and it is a nice way to support other local shops.

I got phone calls from a friend and his son who are also comic buffs as they went out to their local shop and they excitedly told me about their haul as well. The Dad picked up a couple of expensive Terry and the Pirate books as well so their shop made out well from him.

Got to talk briefly with Jeff Parker, who was very popular with the kids and is a really nice guy. Also signing was Arvid Nelson from Rex Mundi. I didn't look over Arvid's book while I was there but read his sample issue when I got home and added Rex Mundi to my pull list. It really was a great time and still rates as one of my favorite holidays of the year.
Brett | Email | Homepage | 05.04.08 - 6:21 am | #

Excellent, I'm glad it works!
lankyguy | Email | 05.04.08 - 8:27 am | #

Careful Mike. I hear solid gold pants chafe a lot.
eddie mitchell | Email | Homepage | 05.04.08 - 9:03 am | #

My LCS had the free comics spread out on the cases in the back of the store. This year they let you pick five books, in previous years it was only 3. In the past they've combined FCBD with a sale but this year they've pushed the sale to next week. While there were more people than an average day in the shop it didn't compare to the crush of the FCBD combined with a sale.

I also went to a second comic book store and they let me pick one free comic only. They had the comics in two stacks on a small case so you had to shift through the stack to see which one you wanted. I envy Mike's shop.
Kristin | 05.04.08 - 10:50 am | #

I have a question Mike. Did you get the FCBD Iron Man Heroclix figures? If so, how did you distribute them? Did they go over better then other FCBD clix figures (If you had the ones for past years)? Do you sell and or hold Heroclix events normally? My family used to be very active with Wizkids (My mom is a level 4 judge for Heroclix) so I was interested in knowing more about that in particular. Thanks!
Rocco | Email | Homepage | 05.04.08 - 9:23 pm | #

Too bad not every shop has the sense to run FCBD like you do. I wrote about complaints at:
FCBD Afterthoughts.

It's really pitiful. You would think that a Comic Shop owner would want to attract new readers.
allaboutduncan | Email | Homepage | 05.05.08 - 4:57 am | #

After a long day of work, I was able to stop by Comics Unlimited in Harlingen, TX. They only had three of the FCBD titles left: the Shonen Jump, Iron Man & Hulk & Spider-Man, and the Soliel preview. They were also giving some of the slower movers away, so I got some World War Hulk tie-ins. The friendly owners happily let me know all the giveaways I had missed so that I could properly plan my sick day I would take next year (still was able to get 10% off of singles, so I bought out the latest Blue Beetle to hand out to every one I can).
Paul | Email | 05.06.08 - 9:15 am | #