Funko Fanatics: your Super Bowl has arrived. This week is SDCC of course, and as always, the makers of Pop have brought an obscene amount of exclusives to the show. The good news for everyone is that more of them are shared exclusives than ever before. So, without further ado, here is every single exclusive in one place, along with where to find them starting online tonight and in most stores tomorrow.
Pop! Television: Doctor Who – Pting (Barnes & Noble) (BBC AMERICA – Booth #4129)
Pop! Television: H.R. Pufnstuf (Funko Shop)
Pop! Television: Sigmund and the Sea Monsters – Sigmund (Funko Shop)
Pop! Television: Stranger Things – Demogorgon (Gold) (Barnes & Noble)
The Diamond Retailer Best Practices Awards: Summer 2019 will be announced as San Diego Comic-Con on the Friday. Submitted by retailers, the Diamond BPAs seek to identify and honour comic shops that demonstrate “best practices” in their stores, offering customers and community a consistently appealing shopping experience…
Nominations for the Summer 2019 Awards span four categories: Best Kids Section, Best Free Comic Book Day Event, Best Online Ad Campaign, and Best Movie Themed Display. Winners in each category receive $250 credit from Diamond.
Here are the nominations for the Best Online Ad Campaign Section.
It was a cold January afternoon and we just finished doing pulls at Packrat. It was that time of the year where we go through and remove any of the delinquent customers. While every store has their own risk tolerance for these types of accounts, we tend to make sure we do a quarterly cleaning. After this particular deletion, and seeing so many online discussions about how digital comics would hurt the retailer, we thought we’d offer a different perspective. It’s those pull customers who suddenly become ghosts in your shop, leaving you with comics you ordered just for them. We thought we would simply share the idea that having the retailer tie up money in product your forgot hurts the retailer more than buying a digital version. We also planned on promoting the post as an ad on Facebook to get our locals into the shop and pick up more comics. We weren’t prepared for what happened next. Thousands of comments, likes, shares and articles were written from that simple post. We quickly removed the boost option from the post as it wasn’t necessary. We even had a podcaster come in from out of town to talk about it. We heard from retailers around the world that shared the post and had the same positive feedback – delinquent customers picking up their comics or lost customers returning to just buy a few things.
It’s hard to pin down just one online advertisement that has been successful for Famous Faces. Most of our advertising is done online, and we pride ourselves on a thoughtful and frequent online presence. To be honest, the best online advertising we’ve done has been promoting the fact that we purchase toys, action figures, and Funko Pops. We use simple, colorful graphics to get the message across to those scrolling through Facebook and then we supply all the details in the body of the advertisement. The colorful square graphics are eye catching, and can easily be changed up for seasonal looks (we have a horror themed one we run in September and October). They also conform to Facebook’s advertising standards, so we never have to waste time adjusting them. We’ve also used the same images on Instagram and Google, which not only saves time by not having to adjust them for each platform, but gives our store a nice uniform look across social media platforms.
No one else locally really purchases collections, or if they do, they certainly don’t advertise it well. So us running colorful, informative advertisements really allowed us to get ahead of the competition. We keep the same posts running, and just adjust the target audience and the budget as we need to. We run the advertisements for a minimal budget per day (less than $5) and then put more money on them for one or two day runs every few months or when we think it’ll benefit getting a great collection in (Christmas, before Free Comic Book Day, MegaCon, etc).
The response to the advertisement has been overwhelmingly positive and we’ve bought hundreds of collections since we started running the ads. The few minutes it took to make the images set the ad parameters, and check it once it was running have definitely paid off and allowed us to get a lot of unique collectibles on the shelf and into customers hands!
This year for Free Comic Book Day, we were fortunate to also have it fall on Star Wars Day, May the 4th. With that said we really wanted to take advantage of this by utilizing the Star Wars brand to help promote our Free Comic Day. We did so by aggressively putting out daily ads for a week and a half leading up to Free Comic Day on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and our website.
The theme was to take famous quotes from the original Star Wars trilogy and change out key words to instead promote Free Comic Day. For example, Admiral Ackbar’s famous “It’s a trap!” line was changed to “It’s a free comic!”. This dialogue was represented over the image from the movie where he said that through a comic bubble.
We used secondary images to highlight different sales that we were going to hold for the day. Those images had the space background and the copy was in the same font and color used in the end credits for all the Star Wars movies to keep the overall theme consistent.
The ad campaign was promoted across all three of our stores in the South Florida region and was met with huge success. The creative play on words and use of the Star Wars brand really gave both laughs and appreciation by our customers and fans. The 2019 Free Comic Day has been our most successful to date and we feel the online ad campaign we did had a lot to do with that achievement.
Every Monday we do a social media campaign that usually gets over 500 interactions/comments/shares on our combined Facebook & Instagram pages.
We pick a handful of names, if your name is listed, you win whatever we’re offering that day. If that’s not your name, they say “that’s not my name” and we use that list next week.
People tag their friends if they see their names, hundreds of people comment, and best of all- the winners almost always bring friends and they all have a great time and spend money.
Benefits
1) Everytime someone comments, it shows up in their feed
2) Our followers grow by around 50 each week after the promo (7,000 new followers this year on all our accounts combined )
3) The winners bring friends and they spend money
4) People tag their friends, they advertise for us
Make your holidays holly, jolly, merry and bright with the cheerful residents and buildings of Holiday Town. No holiday is complete without Santa’s House complete with Santa and Nutmeg. Other buildings of note include the Town Hall with Mayor Patty Noble looking friendly and festive.
Populate your Funko Christmas Village with Pop! Santa Claus, Pop! Mrs. Claus, Pop! Mayor Patty Noble and a two-pack Pop! Randy and Rob.
The town Post Office with an adorable mailman Frosty eager to deliver holiday cards is available as a GameStop exclusive.
An adorable Crescent Diner with friendly Pop! Alice is available exclusively at Funko Shop online.
Will you be at San Diego Comic Con this weekend? If so, come spend an hour with us Saturday night! After a full day of walking the convention floor you are going to want to rest your feet before heading back to your hotel or next event! Why not take a break from the hustle and bustle of the con and treat yourself to a fascinating conversation with some amazing folks in the toy and collectibles industry? We have a GREAT line-up of esteemed panelists this year and a topic that I can wait to dive into! One hour won’t be enough to contain this conversation! You won’t want to miss this.
The Panel: “Behind the Plastic: Licensees, Licensors, and Buyers: How Your Favorite Action Figures and Collectibles Are Made”
This year we look behind the curtain and see how collectibles get made by talking with the license owners of your favorite properties, the toy makers themselves, and the retail buyers that decide what you see on the shelf. We explore the relationship between the licensor, licensee and buyer so you can see how toys get made and into your collections. And as always, we’ll get some great anecdotes from the people on the inside. Come ask any burning questions you’ve ever had about the collectible business and be a fly on the wall as some of the top names in the industry sit down together, as they only do once a year at this event and talk toys.
We hope to see you there… oh, and did I mention there will be free toys given out to the people that ask questions during the Q&A part of the panel? Awesome conversation AND FREE TOYS? Why would you miss this?
Avengers: Endgame is coming to digital streaming on July 30th, and 4k blu ray and dvd and all that jazz on August 13. To celebrate, Marvel Studios is partnering with Best Buy, Funko, and more for the “WE Love You 3000” campaign, where MCU stars and directors Anthony and Joe Russo will meet with fans, sign autographs, and Funko Pops will be given out. Photo booths, giveaways, prints and more will all be available as well. The fun starts this week at SDCC, and multiple events are planned for Best Buy stores, a San Francisco Giants game, and Funko HQ. For the full schedule, including dates and locations, and more info, see below or click here.
In celebration of the in-home release of “Avengers: Endgame,” Marvel Studios and directors Anthony and Joe Russo have teamed up to launch the “We Love You 3000” Tour as a way to thank the fans who have invested so deeply in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), making it the single most successful franchise in film history. Special guests from Marvel Studios and the MCU will visit nine U.S. cities — beginning in San Diego at Comic-Con International on July 20 and ending in Anaheim at D23 Expo 2019 the weekend of Aug. 23-25— greeting and treating fans at each tour stop. A total of 3,000 MCU Funko Pop Vinyl Figures will be distributed to fans throughout the tour as well as additional giveaways ranging from exclusive “Avengers: Endgame” prints to McDonald’s vouchers for a free Happy Meal® plus an Avengers: Endgame Happy Meal toy to a MCU inspired sundaes and recipe cards courtesy of Ben & Jerry’s. Best Buy will serve as the location for five “We Love You 3000” Tour stops, hosting in-store fan events to celebrate the nationwide release of Marvel Studios “Avengers: Endgame” on Blu-ray™ Aug. 13. Events will feature signings with Marvel Studios filmmakers and/or MCU talent; a special digital photo booth; specialty promotional giveaways, including MCU Funko Pop! Vinyl Figures and exclusive “Avengers: Endgame” prints; and much more. Fans can also get their hands on the exclusive, limited edition “Avengers: Endgame” SteelBook and other collectable SteelBooks from the MCU at Best Buy stores across the country and on BestBuy.com.
July 20 SAN DIEGO, Comic-Con International – Directors Anthony & Joe Russo, Writers Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and a special guest from the MCU
July 30 EVERETT, WA, Funko HQ – to be announced
Aug. 8 SAN FRANCISCO, Giants vs. Phillies at Oracle Park – Directors Anthony & Joe Russo at the San Francisco Giants’ Marvel Night
Aug. 13 MIAMI, Best Buy store – to be announced
Aug. 13 CHICAGO, Best Buy store – Directors Anthony & Joe Russo
Aug. 13 TORRANCE, CA, Best Buy store – to be announced
Aug. 14 MINNEAPOLIS, Best Buy store – Directors Anthony & Joe Russo
Aug. 20 CLEVELAND, Best Buy store – Directors Anthony & Joe Russo
Aug. 23-25 ANAHEIM, CA, D23 Expo 2019- to be announced
The Diamond Retailer Best Practices Awards: Summer 2019 will be announced as San Diego Comic-Con on the Friday. Submitted by retailers, the Diamond BPAs seek to identify and honour comic shops that demonstrate “best practices” in their stores, offering customers and community a consistently appealing shopping experience…
Nominations for the Summer 2019 Awards span four categories: Best Kids Section, Best Free Comic Book Day Event, Best Online Ad Campaign, and Best Movie Themed Display. Winners in each category receive $250 credit from Diamond.
Here are the nominations for the Best Movie Display Section.
With Avengers Endgame coming out we knew it was going to be the movie of year. The anticipation for this release was eating at everyone since Infinity War. We really wanted to capitalize on this by converting our main display in the front of our store to feature only everything and anything Avengers.
We ended up with a four tiered shelf of amazing items starting off with key Avengers comics, trades and hard covers. We wanted to make sure that fans could really dive into the Avengers mythos beyond what they have seen on the screen to get a better appreciation for the characters and maybe even become subscribers to the books.
With Funko Pops being a huge fan favorite we of course had to have those included. We had various pops from multiple different MCU movies including Avengers on display for fans to get their hands on.
Action figures, from Marvel Select to Marvel Legends, we had a our fair share of Avengers toys on display and ready for people to grab.
Finally, for those who wanted to cosplay or just have fun at home pretending to be their favorite hero or villain, we had life size replicas of key items such as Captain America’s shield to Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet that people could wear and interact with.
The display was well noticed by our customers and made for great sales on our end.
We create a rotating display of movie related graphic novels, comics and related toys. We display material for each upcoming movie. Examples: Shazam, Captain Marvel, Pokemon, Avengers, Dark Phoenix, Spider-man, etc.
To help create fun & pizazz, we added a red carpet that runs from the front entrance to the display. As well as theater style gold poles and velvet ropes. These add to the theme and frame the entire display.
To connect the movie to the comics, we include in each display a poster from the actual movie, and a poster of a similar comic cover. We incorporate logos from both the movie and from the comics.
While the top section promotes the movie material, the lower section includes other hot media tie-ins, to make it easier for new customers to find familiar products like Umbrella Academy, Sabrina, Happy, etc.
An artist on our staff paints our outside windows with movie related characters. Each window is created before each movie to add to the promotional timing and anticipation. See pictures below.
To add to the display we used a rotating lighting unit. The DJ style lightshow helped simulate a movie premiere style.
The most ambitious crossover in movie history deserves to at least be our featured section for a month. Located at the front of the store, so you’ll see it as soon as you walk in, seeing Endgame is inevitable. We tried to keep at least one title for each principle hero and one shelf for the villains, stay perfectly balanced, as all things should be.
You can find a movie display every day at Famous Faces! We have a red colored rack directly in front of the front counter that we use as a staging ground for all our movie displays. Currently, you can find Godzilla, Spider-Man, Dark Phoenix/X-Men books, a little bit of Captain Marvel still since it’s just now out on DVD, and a few comics that reminded us a whole lot of Brightburn! Before that, you would have found Shazam, Avengers, and more! We often have a display of Pops right to the side of it with whatever correlates to the rack best. Each change of the rack goes on Facebook, usually with a deal where if you bring us your ticket for Avengers, for example, from a local theater you’ll get 20% Avengers or Avengers team-related merchandise including anything on the red rack.
It isn’t the flashiest display, but it gets the job done. Keeping it right up front allows us to engage customers with it and answer any questions they may have. When Umbrella Academy dropped its first season, we were constantly selling out of both volumes off this rack until we were sold out completely. The same thing happened with a few different Miles Morales titles when Into The Spider-Verse released. Just having the books out where people can see them is enough to sell them. It helps that they’re popular titles (UA probably being the less well known of the last year); some of them sell themselves such as Infinity Gauntlet.
So, with that in mind, we keep it simple. We just change it out as we see fit, and always make sure it’s well stocked without being overwhelming.
We also have a constant display case we frequently change out featuring comics, graphic novels, toys, and Pops at our local movie theater just four minutes down the street from us. We bring our prize wheel where we give away several Comics, graphic novels, and other prizes at every movie premiere weekend where we are promoting our Free Comic Book Day and other store events. We have a great relationship with Cinemaworld over the last 20 years and it helps get new people in our store after every comic movie!
Chimera’s Comics has always strived to be a safe, welcoming environment to all our customers, whether it’s a typical business day or a special weekend for comic fans, like Wonder Woman’s release was for so many of us! We created displays that featured content for all reading levels, toys for collectors, and back issues at a discount for those who wanted to take a look at Wonder Woman’s history. Alongside our display, we invited and promoted several local comic creators, all women in various fields of the industry and the fandom, to host a panel and sell their wares (for free of course) in a makeshift artist alley! We had wonderful turnout with supportive customers who partook in activities like DIY tiaras, coloring stations and photos with Diana herself!
We are getting hyped for the Bloodshot movie and so have made a large display with all of the Bloodshot and related material we can find: graphic novels, figures, Promo material, standees, posters and vintage key comics. Many thanks to Valiant for helping us with items to make this display.
The Diamond Retailer Best Practices Awards: Summer 2019 will be announced as San Diego Comic-Con on the Friday. Submitted by retailers, the Diamond BPAs seek to identify and honour comic shops that demonstrate “best practices” in their stores, offering customers and community a consistently appealing shopping experience…
Nominations for the Summer 2019 Awards span four categories: Best Kids Section, Best Free Comic Book Day Event, Best Online Ad Campaign, and Best Movie Themed Display. Winners in each category receive $250 credit from Diamond.
Here are the nominations for the Best Free Comic Book Day Event Section.
Here in Miami Florida our comic book store has 3 goals: Great Customer Service, Great Customer Experience and Quality Books, and in the past 2 Years we has strive towards this and worked hard for our community here in Miami. The community has embraced us and because of this we have an ever growing comic book community.
One of the ways we have tried to pay back our community we strived to give everyone the best experience and Free Comic Book Day is one of them.
FCBD 2018
(Record Attendance in Miami at 330 People in Attendance throughout the day)
FCBD 2019 was the BIGGEST and most addended
(Record Attendance in Miami at 380 People in Attendance throughout the day)
We also had a HUGE Comic Book Artist in Attendance Appearing and Signing: Mr. Ryan Ottley (Amazing Spider-Man, Invincible) and an unexpected guest from Mr. Skottie Young and since it’s Star Wars Day we had the 501st Legion (Vaders Fist) – The official/unofficial Star Wars Cosplayers
Our Free Comic Book Day is unlike any other therefore we refer to it as Miami’s BIGGEST Free Comic Book Day, and the community respond in kind and embraced us even more.
We also do something no other comic book store does, everyone who came get 1 book per title…not 2 to 3 books….1 book per title ie. if the there are 2 titles out for Marvel 1 customer can get both of them. And of course kids ages 5-12 can get as much as they want!
The Community love our Free Comic Book Day so much we order thousands of Free Comic Book to accommodate everyone in attendance every year.
Free Comic Book day is for our community; present and future readers so we do not limit anyone to free comic books.
Free Comic Book Day 2019 coincided with Star Wars Day. With that in mind, Zia Comics set out to get the neighboring businesses to buy into the event as well. Next door on our right, Little Toad Creek offered The Dark Side and Yoda Soda drink specials all day. Next door on our left, the Rio Grande Theater played the original Star Wars trilogy for just $4 a movie. The Farmers Market set up on Main Street had plenty of vendors dressed up in Star Wars related gear.
Members of the 501st Legion, Mandalorian Mercs, and the R2 Builders club kept the attendees entertained. The R2-D2 unit is a functional, remote controlled R2. The kids love to take pics with him. The Zia Comics staff even cosplayed. Our manager, Susy, dressed up as Hannah Solo!
Zia Comics VIP reward members and those actively cosplaying were allowed into the store early to peruse the goods. They really appreciated it because there was a line down the block to get into the store. A couple thousand very happy attendees came through the Zia Comics doors for FCBD. It was the first FCBD in our new larger location. It was also our highest sales day EVER! This was the first year we have ever run out of FREE COMICS. We even burned through our leftovers from Halloween Comicfest, Hellboy Day, and last year’s FCBD. We had to pull out long boxes of our $1 comics to give away. Really looking forward to making it even bigger and better next year!
There were three local artists set up inside Zia Comics and they were kept busy doing sketches for attendees all day long. The local artists start asking to be part of our FCBD months in advance. The costume contest was held at the end of our FCBD event. There was a winner for the adults and the kids.
Plans have already started for the 2020 FCBD. We are working with the city to have the whole downtown participate. We are planning on having free spaces on the Plaza across the street for any local artist to take advantage of.
We had an amazing Free Comic Book Day this year with it falling on May the 4th, Star Wars Day. With this being the case we went out of our way to incorporate Star Wars as much as possible into everything we did.
First off was the promotion of the event, we did so through heavy online and in store promo of the day by taking famous Star Wars quotes and replacing key words with new words to promote Free Comics Day. For example, instead of Darth Vader saying “I find your lack of faith disturbing”, he says “I find your lack of Free Comics disturbing”. We also utilized the end credits looks from all the movies to for our sale and event promos.
Next came the ambiance of the store. When you walk in immediately you hear John Williams’ iconic score from the Star Wars Saga, from the main theme to the Imperial Death March, you knew it was Star Wars. All of the monitors in the store were playing Star Wars movies as well throughout the day.
We offered incentives to people that showed up in Star Wars cosplay. Anyone that came in dressed as their favorite Star Wars character received a free Star Wars Funko Pop. We had a great number of people come out for this.
We also wanted to put all of our Star Wars merchandise on sale. We did so with deep discounts on action figures, comics and more. Customers were able to get items for up to 75% percent off.
If you were a Star Wars fan, it was definitely the place to be. Having Free Comic Day on Star Wars Day really added to the day as a whole and made for our best event yet. Customers whether they were fans of the Saga or not, enjoyed their time with us, got their Free Comics and more!
Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy® Austin has been hosting our Free Comic Book Day event since its beginning, and it’s grown into a huge store-wide family-friendly event for all ages. This year we had dozens of volunteers and cosplayers, a little over 1100 guests through the door, and several thousand comics given away.
FCBD is always an exciting all-hands on deck event for our staff here, and everyone gets a role during one of our biggest days of the year.
From snow cones, to checkout, to comic re-stock, and line management, everyone plays a part! Outside we had a bouncy castle for kids and free snow cones for the families while they wait, with fans, chairs, and canopy tents for guests to stay cool in the Texas heat.
Our volunteers and cosplayers help throughout the day. Many of them are our own comic subscribers and frequent shoppers who love to come dressed as their favorite comic super heroes and talk with fellow comic fans in line while they wait. This year our line started in the wee-hours of the morning and wrapped around the building before we even opened the doors.
Once inside, guests may take one of every title we have available until they run out!
This year our FCBD celebration hosted a signing by Bill Williams, author of the FCBD Punchline comic. Inside we also had activities such as face painting with the Avengers logo, green dragon, and space galaxy being the most popular designs, Star Wars Trivia for Star Wars Day, a local artist with prints of comic, cartoon, anime, and movie characters, and representatives from the Greater Austin Comic Con, and CASA Super Hero Run.
Free Comic Book Day is always one of our biggest community events of the year, with lots of buildup and anticipation. It’s a tradition for many local families, comic enthusiasts, and even a local comic creator or two to visit us each year, and we’re always excited to have such a successful event in our store!
For all 15 years of our store’s existence, I’ve allowed our customers to take whatever free comic day books they like. As long as they’re truly interested in the titles, they may help themselves with no limit.
For the last 2 years, we’ve invited the Sandy, Utah School of Rock to perform in the parking lot as people wait in line. School of Rock also runs a foundation, which raises a good amount of money at the event to help less fortunate kids with scholarships learn their instruments and perform publicly.
This year we had 3 creators signing. Phillip (Tomb Raider, Freeze) Sevy representing the national scene, Chris (Salt City Strangers, Craptionated) for the local scene, and Andy (Danger to Self, Alphabet of Sorrows) Sebastion. Andy is a new creator whose books focus on mental health and trans issues, and really helped bring a more diverse crowd to the event.
The line this year was nearly around the block, we had 2 separate news crews here, and several comic journalists and podcasters in attendance. We felt it was a true celebration of the comic world.
All in all, it couldn’t have been a better event, but we’ll never let that stop us from trying to top it next year!
Every year we run a create your own Super Hero contest for kids 12 and under during FCBD. We provide an area for the kids, templates, crayons, pencils and pens and let them have fun. We encourage the drawing and an origin story. All the entries are posted to social media for the public to vote. The top 3 from each store are given a prize and the winners from each store are pooled and the managers and owners decide the overall winner. That Super Hero (or villain) is our mascot for the year in all of our marketing. We have a professional artist rendering printed and awarded to the winner and we save them examples of our marketing material of they want. The contest has gained enough momentum that schools use it as a project and kids come on FCBD with their entries already done. This years winner is also being recognized at the local library. Attached are images of this years drawing, renderings and some past years as well. You can see more about this years winner, Book Keeper at fantasybooksinc.com.
Comikaza – Haifa, Israel
For our store, FCBD is much more than any event, not only in terms of sales but mainly as a great way to bring new customers and expose people to comics.
During the event, we take the free issues and other merchandise outside, to the street in front of the store, to make sure it will be seen by as much people as possible.
We can see the results, as each year the event brings more and more interest to the community in our area- new customers appear and different businesses around us ask to join and collaborate during this day.
We’re never satisfied with only giving free issues during FCBD and try to organize as many items as possible for giveaway- posters, shirts, figures and more.
FCBD is also a great opportunity for us to promote local artists and we invite them to sell their art and make original paintings for the crowd.
This day bring something very fresh and different to our community- a combination of comics, art, people of all ages and a unique collaboration between different businesses.
Truly a great celebration we are happy to be organizing!
We always go big for our Free Comic Book Day events and this year might’ve been our biggest. We hosted over 60 vendors and comic creators and featured also as many activities. We had an arcade with new and retro games, two pinball competitions, the finals for our month long game tournament, Cosplay Contest, Jedi training with free lightsabers for kids, and more!
We also took advantage of it being Star Wars Day and teamed up with our local chapter of the Special Olympics to raise money by trying to break the Guinness World Record for Star Wars Cosplayers in one area. We didn’t break the record but raised several hundred dollars!
Free Comic Book Day is, without a doubt, the biggest event all year at Famous Faces. We jokingly call it our Superbowl, but it really isn’t a laughing matter. We put everything into this event, and each year it’s managed to grow. Free Comic Book Day 2019 was our best FCBD event by far, and what a great lead into Free Comic Book MAY. Yup, you read that right. We love FCBD so much that we expanded it all across May giving out 10 free comics each Saturday to everyone, even the Saturday we’re at MegaCon. We’re that devoted to giving people free comics!
But, back to the main day. We invited two of our favorites, and our customers favorite, guests: Karl Moline and Matt Santorelli to come out and do free sketches for our customers on May 4th. We also invited over ten local artists to draw sketches of customers favorite characters throughout the day. We put the artists in the back of the store, along with the free comics. This lets the line for comics and sketches flow through the back, and the line for the register flow through the front. The last thing we want is 300 people in the store and no one feels like they can move. It’s a setup that works, and we were able to see over 1,800 people throughout May 4th.
It was also our best day in sales, beating out Christmas Eve and last years Free Comic Book Day. Long ago we decided not to run sales on Free Comic Book Day; we simply don’t need to. We just offer the same great product and customer service, and people are happy to shop with us and grab their free comics. While anyone can grab free comics, without a purchase, we do a punch card throughout May that lets people get a free graphic novel for spending a minimum of $3 each Saturday in May. It really helps get people back in the door for the subsequent weekends.
The last thing that really made this FCBD wonderful was our friends at the 501st Legion. They came out in their trooping gear and took hundreds of photos with customers, sometimes out in the hot Florida sun. They are the most selfless people we know, and they really add an extra touch of the Force to Free Comic Book Day. As successful as our event was, we were able to donate a check to Give Kids the World for $501 in their honor. We couldn’t do it without the support of our amazing community!
Since 2011, Comics Zone has hosted the Free Comic Book Day every year, and always had the biggest events in the country. At first the only comics that were given were the regular FCBD books in English, but in 2014, We managed to negotiate with the publishers of Marvel and DC in France, so that all the French readers would have FCBD issues in French too. This year, every French comic book publisher were on board (11 publishers). At Comics Zone we had all issues from the regular US/UK publishers alongside all issues from French publishers as well as a book published by La Boite à BD, a Canada based comic shop and our very own self-published Sketchbook with art by 65 Artists like Joe Jusko and many others.
This year, we gave away 9000 comics in both French and English to over 1200 customers from all over the country, willing to wait over 2 hours in line to get their free comics, and get signatures and sketches from 15 artists. We also organized a raffle and a cosplay contest with 5000€ worth of prizes.
It was also possible to get a Comics Zone exclusive variant cover by Gabriele Del’Otto for the French Spider-man Monthly magazine.
Every cosplayer was given, alongside their comics, an exclusive CD of Bernard Minet, who sang the French theme song for most mythic 90’s animated series.
Every year, we try our best to make the Free Comic Book Day bigger and bigger thanks to a passionate, inventive and dedicated team.
Amazing Stories in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan puts on the best show for FCBD! With over 20 different community groups coming out to entertain the masses as we give away 10,000 comics, no one can top us.
This years free Comic Book Day event was our best one ever. Lots of people showed up and brought friends and family with them. Parents bonded with their kids while eating our free homemade Superhero cup cakes, brownies and hot dogs. Some dressed in Cosplay outfits while others sported their favorite Superhero T-Shirt. Comic Artist Gannon Beck stayed busy cranking out custom sketch covers for our customers. We gave away lots of prizes throughout the day to the winners of our raffles and Superhero trivia participants. Customers bonded, New friends were made, and after getting their free comics customers also supported by purchasing non free items. It was our highest grossing day since we’ve been in business. We are looking forward to making next years event even bigger and better.
I have been a comics consumer for most of my adult life. I have visited many comics shops over the years, and since the early 2000s, I have attended quite a few FCBD events.
I’m currently employed by Galactic Quest, but prior to April of this year, I was a regular customer of GQ and other stores in the Atlanta area. FCBD was a day friends would pile into a car and visit as many locations as possible, beginning at GQ in Buford and ending at the flagship store in Lawrenceville. This was by design, because GQ has long been the best the area had to offer. They make a significant investment in the books themselves, and have a “take as much as you’ll read” policy. They also invest in the experience of patrons, beyond the usual use of FCBD as just a way to get people in the door.
Kyle and Cynthia Puttkammer use FCBD as a way to serve as ambassadors for the comics industry and the hobby of reading and collecting comics. While it’s always a great day for sales, the focus is on helping people understand why comics are fun and worthwhile. The 2019 event is the single best they have ever done.
This year, the city of Lawrenceville was involved. Kyle and city reps recruited businesses all around the square to join in the celebration of comics. Each participating host held a portion of the free comics in their places of business. Patrons followed a guide provided by the city to find the issues, and at the same time discovered other businesses around town.
An “artist’s alley” was set up on the sidewalk, out where everyone could meet creators. There were displays along the road, costumed heroes along the block – it was a regular street fair, all aimed at promoting the city and the comics industry.
The result of all their labor was non-stop traffic through the shop beginning at 9am and not slacking until after 5pm. We saw plenty of regular customers, but exponentially more people who were brand new to comics.
Free Comic Book Day at Packrat Comics is more than just giving away the free comics, it’s to create an experience that they’ll remember long past the life span of the comics they select. How do we do that? We make the day an experience. Our approach is the following: fun activities for the kids, food to keep them through lunch and having items they can’t live without. And most of all, various activities scheduled throughout the day. They are there, they are playing and the kids are having fun. They may not remember picking up the Sonic the Hedgehog comic, but they’ll remember defeating the Joker when they completed their sidekick training. Hosting as many creators in the shop as we can gives customers more browsing time and keeps customers there longer enhancing their experience. In addition to panel sessions, hosting the traditional costume contest, a food eating contest, whatever we can think of to spread throughout the day to keep them there, we always have a theme.
Our favorite themed event was our Willy Wonka Golden Ticket. For the theme, we created a special t-shirt image customers could have screened for free on their shirt, had custom made Fizzy Lifting drinks customers could purchase, costumed Willy Wonka and Oompa Loompas passing out Packrat logo chocolates and a chance to win the golden ticket for FREE COMICS FOR A YEAR. We even had an official contract made for winners to sign that was similar to the movie contract Wonka made the kids sign. For each purchase of $10 or more, we handed out envelopes that were stuffed with an extra free comic, lithograph, poster and possibly a GOLDEN TICKET. With over 500 envelopes and over 50 possible tickets, customers had a 1 in 10 chance of winning something. The ticket would then be redeemed for various prizes, from free fizzy lifting drinks and items from our artists to the grand prize where 10 people would win FREE COMICS FOR A YEAR.
We have spent so many years building up our FCBD event only to realize that it’s too much for our sensory sensitive friends so we created a special hour at the end of the day for those that may struggle with all the noise, lights and crowds that the day brings. We restock all our FCBD selections at 6pm for those that may suffer from PTSD, recovering from a stroke or have autism or just grumpy old men that hate the crowds. We turn off all the music, most lights, spread the comics throughout the store, and even have a special room with a tent for decompression if it becomes too overwhelming. In an effort to prevent melt downs for our most sensitive friends, we have even created an option for them to preorder their comics. Not only has this been an overwhelming success but it’s been a great way to wind down the day from the celebration started 12 hours earlier.
Pop! Animation: Peanuts—Astronaut Snoopy ( Barnes & Noble)
