LET'S LEVEL WITH LEE!: Free Comic Book Day

Free Comic Book Day was amazing this year! It was one of our busiest days ever at both stores. I set up and worked at the Mountain View store handing out the new comics, and chatting with many of the customers. This year we had a signing with the creators of the Geronimo Stilton graphic novels. This was our first kid oriented signing at Lee's Comics, and it turned out to be an absolute smash!

There were around 50 people lined up before our 10:00 am opening. The store was full to capacity until the early evening. There was a long line of people making purchases for most of the day. The signing started at Noon. Soon, there was an even longer line for the signing than for the register. The artists, Michele Foschini, Leonardo Favia and Ennio Bufi, all direct from their homes in Italy, started a few minutes early, and stayed an hour and a half past their scheduled finishing time of 2:00 pm. Even more people still wanted to see them, but we eventually had to cut off the line, as the artists were expected at my buddy Joe Ferrara's excellent store, Atlantis Fantasyworld later that day. When you are in Santa Cruz, make sure to stop by and see Joe, his lovely and charming wife Dottie, and his super-cool comic book store.

I make a point of giving out the free comics in front of the store. For one thing the event takes place in May, and the weather is usually quite nice. Also, doing things outside creates a buzz. We are in the largest and busiest regional centers within a 7-mile radius, with popular attractions such as Costco, Verizon, Pet Club, Office Max, Krispy Kreme, and McDonalds, that generate thousands of visitors per day. In the morning I put up flags and a free comic book day banner. Those things coupled with the big crowds, attracts yet more waves of people that come over to see what all the fuss and hoopla is about. I try to take that opportunity to turn these new folks on to comics. By giving the comics away outdoors, it also lets people know that there is absolutely no purchase necessary, and no strings attached. You don't have to buy a thing to get a free comic. You don't have to sign anything or join a mailing list. You don't even have to come in to the store if you don't want to. It was interesting to note that almost everyone did go into the store, even though the comics were being given away outdoors. About half the people were so interested in what was going on in the store that they went inside first, and only when they were done did they come back outside to select their free comics.

Our most popular sale items inside the store was our bargain books. Normally we price them at 50 cents each, but for the sale, we marked them down to the price we used to charge a few years back, namely 25 cents. We put a lot of new stuff out throughout the day as well. We had plenty of cool books from the 1980s and 1990s from collections that we recently purchased that we kept stashed away in the back room just for the occasion. New stuff going into the bargain bins really whips the bargain hunters into a frenzy! There were a few hours where we had several people waiting on each of our 15 bins of quarter books. Many people also enjoyed our half price sale on back issues and sets. We had a storewide discount of 10% off, and many people took the opportunity to sock up on new comics, and to expand their personal graphic novel library, and to buy gifts for friends and family.

I appreciate all the support in the way of purchases that people make from me on FCBD. The fact is that comic book dealers such as myself have to pay for the free comics that we give out. They cost around 25¢ each. Since my stores are busy, and well known, and have been around for such a long time, between the two stores we gave out over six thousand free comics. That's an expense of over fifteen hundred dollars right there. Add to that the printing and mailing of postcards, and the ads in the Metro, the Mercury News and the Daily post, and you have another fifteen hundred dollars. Add to that the staffing, and the discount given on the graphic novels that we have to replace, and you actually have a break-even proposition on one of our busiest days ever! I'm not complaining though. I think the event is wonderful for the future of comics. It really creates a buzz in the media. Free Comic Book day is in it's 10th year now, and everybody seems to know about it. It's all over the media. My friend Joe Field, owner of Flying Colors in Concord, the creator of the event, was all over the place. I saw him on TV and in the papers. Joe is a real class act, and makes the ideal spokesman for the comic book industry. New comic book movies are opening up all the time. Thor is the #1 movie in the universe. Everyone wants to go to comic conventions, and the big ones are selling out in an instant. Comics have arrived in the mainstream in a big way!

It turns out that Geronimo Stilton is fantastically popular with kids. Word spread all around the Bay Area for the signing. We ran ads (along with other retailers in the Bay Area) in the Metro and the Mercury News. In addition, I ran ads in the Daily Post. I also sent out, and gave away thousands of postcards. All these ads featured news of the signing, and a delightful cartoon of the artists. Well, the news got around. Lots of families with kids stopped by. They brought Geronimo Stilton graphic novels in many different languages. I saw French, Spanish, Chinese, German and other editions. Lots of people asked me if I had any foreign editions for sale. Alas, I did not. The creators, Michele Foschini, Leonardo Favia and Ennio Bufi could not have been nicer. Michele spoke the most English of the three, and he was absolutely delightful. He was one of the friendliest, nicest, most charming guys I've ever met. He and the other artists made sure to make each person that came to see them feel special. Each one signed the books, and the artist, Ennio Bufi did wonderful free sketches for each person! Everyone who attended the event left with a huge grin on their face. These guys were like rock stars for the kids!

I wanted to note that several librarians approached me during the event. They had promoted the event to their children. One librarian had even made her own flier about the event to hand out to the kids. She's a terrific person, and a big comic book fan. She's helping to get great Graphic Novels into her library. She told me she could not keep the Gerinomo Stilton Graphic Novels in stock. I hope to collaborate with her more in the future. I also heard from a bunch of people who told me that said they enjoyed the newsletter. Lots of people approached me and wished me a belated 50th birthday, and I really appreciate the good wishes.

As soon as the singing was over, I was approached by Tom Rollinger, a trained animation artist, who is just starting out as a published comic book artist. He asked if he could do a signing on FCBD. I figured, why wait a year?, so I immediately set up a table for him outside, right next to the counter where we were giving out the free comics. Soon he was sketching away for free for anyone who asked, and charming the fans. I saw him doing delightful sketches of Iron Man, Flash and Superman. He was hard at work when I finally had to tear myself away and go home after an exciting, but exhausting 12 hour day. (Setting up the day before had been a 14-hour day.) Next year, we are going to try to make it even better. It's going to be tough, because the bar has been raised. I'm still buzzing with a head full of ideas on how to make it even better. I'm going to write them down, and put them in a file to consult a few months before next year's FCBD.

I noticed that a lot of people take the opportunity to make a tour of Bay Area stores during FCBD. Many of the stores host events and sales along with the free comics. This helps to create a very special day for comic book fans. One store, Black Cat comics in Milpitas was giving out a sticker that said "I got my free comics". The sticker looked like the "I voted" sticker you get when you cast your ballot. Even though Milpitas is quite a distance from Mountain View, I saw people wearing those stickers throughout the day. I thought that was a great idea. Me and my friend and helper for the day, Mark Arnold came up with some ideas for our own sticker for next year.

I hoped that this event would take on that kind of fraternal order among comics retailers, and I believe that this has happened in a big way. Years ago I tried to promote that notion by conceiving and organizing full page color gang ads in the leading Silicon Valley Newspapers, the Mercury News, and the Metro. They are open to any dealer who wanted to participate, and most of the dealers take advantage of this as a way to get maximum coverage for FCBD for a very modest investment. Generally the newspapers get in on the act and do articles and features on FCBD, and comics in general. I like to think that this annual promotion has helped raise the profile of the event in the area, and even perhaps comics themselves. Everyone is pulling together for a common purpose. It's a rising tide that lifts all boats. This is a very good thing, especially if your boat is sound.

In addition to the regular free comic books, Dan Vado publisher of Slave Labor donated a truck load of graphic novels and comic books. That very generous act allowed us to present an additional huge buffet table of free stuff for the huge crowds. On this table there was no limit whatsoever that people were allowed to take. We had just as many free comic books from Slave Labor as all the other free books combined! This brought the excitement level up a notch. Hats off to Dan Vado and Slave Labor.

Finally I wanted to make mention of Justin Giampaoli's award-winning Thirteen Minutes blog. He ran a piece on FCBD that I read with great interest. He said some very nice things about me, and I was tremendously moved by what he had to say. I have to admit that he might have been overly generous in his assessment. Perhaps his absence form the Bay Area has added a glow of nostalgia for the comic book stores of his past, but I will try to live up to what he says, and hopefully I'll succeed now and then.

Here are some excerpts, but be sure to read the whole post. This is a great blog, by the way, so you'll want to bookmark it for future reading.

Tomorrow will mark the very first year that I will not be attending Free Comic Book Day. Since Joe Field dreamed it up in 2001 (leave it to the Bay Area to be innovative, we’ll hit that topic again soon) and the first official event was held in 2002, I’ve attended every single one in one form or another for the last 9 years.

Now, of course, the day isn’t solely about the free books. It’s about cultivating no risk interest and an LCS (local comic book store) potentially capitalizing on that interest to generate long term readership and the corresponding spike in the revenue stream. In theory. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some varieties of LCS which do this and do it well, Lee’s Comics in Mountain View, CA comes to mind. It’s one of the flagship retail establishments (a chain, no less!) in the San Francisco Bay Area that I used to frequent. Lee will typically entertain all sorts of deep discount opportunities, line up creator signings, spike the free books with bin after bin after bin of quarter comics, achieve market penetration with radio stations on site, be quoted in the local paper, coordinate with other non-comic retail establishments (ie: free doughnuts or discounted menu items at the restaurants next door), etc, etc. He schmoozes with the kids, the moms, and the entire clientele base. You can literally see him converting new readers. He just gets it. His actions, the continued existence of his stores for decades, and the emotional high you get when you enter one of his stores are the proof.

Now, let's look at a whole mess of pictures, posted in order.