My Free Comic Book Day

Well, I won't bore you with the details of my ENTIRE day, but I took a trip slightly out of my way to stop by Up, Up and Away Comics for their FCBD celebrations. The parking lot was packed, but I got the last open spot, as I was directed in by a TIE-bomber pilot and Spider-Man. I thanked them and stepped inside to find a pretty packed house. I tried to step through and off to the side a bit to get a lay of the place.

Fortunately, I had been there before and knew the basic set-up. But they had evidently cleared out a little area towards the back for Tony Moore, who was already signing and sketching away. One of the bookshelves which I think normally holds just Superman books had been populated with the Free Comic Book Day material. Mostly just the Gold Sponsor books by the time I got there, but a few Silver were left.

In their usual gaming area, they had set down 40-50 long boxes of discount comics. Fifty cents each, as many as you want. Fairly quick way to unload a lot of mostly dead inventory, more than likely. One of the employees was standing nearby with heavy bags and boxes for those people who were finding lots and lots of books. (And there were no shortage of them! I easily saw several people through there with a couple hundred comics each.) It should come as no surprise that there was little in there of enormous value. Lots of semi-recent Marvel and DC, a number of fair/poor range Charlton and Harvey, and a smattering of independents from the late 1980s. I picked up both issues of Hulked-Out Heroes (which I had just learned featured an appearance by the Thing as Blackbeard), The Return of Skyman by Steve Ditko, and a curious promotional book called The Adventures of Comicretailman and Mr. Assistant, the Electronic Super Clerk. (I'm going to have to post a full review of that one later. You won't believe it!)

The hardcovers, paperbacks and manga seemed pretty much how I remembered them. Some new books in stock of course. The back wall also had several new books, including a few small press books that I hadn't realized had even come out.

I was in the store about an hour, and it was hopping the whole time. Not so crowded that you couldn't move or had to trip over people, but a very healthy crowd. A fair number of young kids, too. I think I saw around a dozen that were short enough that you had to be standing right next to them to see them in the store.

I've been to FCBD events before where the owners/managers seemed to only go along with it grudgingly. I've been to one other where the owner embraced the celebration and really made folks feel welcome. There's a HUGE difference in how successful that makes the event, and (coincidentally or not) it also seems to track closely with the overall atmosphere of the store.

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