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Tags: free comic book day ebi comics
Published : 4 months ago (Sun, 08 Jun 2008 15:56:23 PDT)
Searched: free comic book day
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I've got a classic two-fer for you today, guys: the first two columns I wrote about Free Comic Book Day, way back for FCBD #2 in 2003. Interestingly, in the years since this column was first published they have, indeed, begun a line of NASCAR comics. I take full credit. Here's the first, the weekend before the event.
Help make Free Comic Book Day work
Considering the extent of my public activism rarely exceeds things like trying to get McDonald’s to stop using that stupid Spice Girls song to advertise their chicken strips, what I’m writing about this week may come as a surprise to you, but it’s something I feel pretty strongly about. I’m asking you, my Highly Educated Readers, to do whatever you can to make Free Comic Book Day work.
FCBD is a great thing for us fans. It’s a chance to pick up some free swag, to get a little media attention, to network with other folks on a day where we’ll have more people in the store than usual. But if that’s all FCBD is, then it will have failed miserably.
FCBD is, and has to be, our chance to reach out, grab the non-comic reading public by the lapels and pull ‘em into a shop. If we pull in enough of ‘em, we’ll get some to stay. That’s the theory, anyway, and it’s one I believe in.
Allow me to regale you with my own FCBD story from last year. Aside from dedicating my weekly newspaper column to the event (which I did again this year,) I made it a point to head out early to the shop I frequent, BSI Comics in Metairie, Louisiana. I’ve been going there for a few years now -- it’s got a good selection, the staff is a lot of fun and they’re always more than happy to help me get any special item I’m looking for, which are the three criteria that make a comic store as far as I’m concerned.
I arrived early last year, a few minutes before they opened their doors, planning to meet some friends of mine and then head off to the “Spider-Man” movie. Unfortunately for me, my friends collectively have the mutant power to never, ever show up anywhere at the time they told me to meet them, so I can frequently be seen standing around alone in parking lots looking like a stalker while waiting for them to arrive.
As I was waiting, a crowd began to gather. There was a good, healthy mix of ages, genders and races, although I was noticing a lack of the demographic I think we need the most -- young kids. (Pre-teens, I’m talking about here.)
I was quite happy after several minutes to see a woman arrive with her two young sons in tow. As the shop hadn’t opened yet, I struck up a conversation with her to ask how she knew about the event. As it turned out, her oldest son was away at college. He used to be into comics, she said, and when he heard about FCBD he asked her to find the nearest shop to their house and go grab some freebies for him. (This is a nice mom, here.) The younger sons seemed more interested in some of the collectible card games -- Pokie-Yoh or Digi-Gathering or whatever was popular a year ago, I don’t remember -- but they were eyeing some of the comics as well.
The store opened and the crowd swept in, nabbing the free stuff and then, I was gratified to see, sticking around to purchase many items from the racks. As I was sifting through the items from my pull folder, I noticed the mom I’d talked to staring at the “S” section of the comics and looking perplexed.
I approached her again, asking what was wrong. She wanted to get some more comics for her son, and she knew he was into Spider-Man, but she wasn’t sure what to get him. Amazing, Peter Parker, Ultimate, Tangled Web... she was overwhelmed.
I felt a cognitive grin spread across my face. “You ever heard of a couple of guys named Paul Jenkins and J. Michael Straczynski?” I asked.
Under my suggestions, she wound up with Jenkins’s first Peter Parker, Spider-Man trade paperback and a few assorted issues of the various titles for her son. The two younger kids were also flitting around, looking at comics. Mom was trying to help them pick a few out, and she was noticeably upset over the size of the... um... “assets” on the cover to the free Tomb Raider comic they were looking at.
“How do I know which ones are okay for kids?” she asked.
That smile came back.
I explained to her about the Comic Code and, after hunting with a magnifying glass, managed to locate their stamp on an issue of Superman for her. Then I pointed out the Marvel Comics rating system, then still in its infancy. “See the PG here in the corner?” I asked.
“So it’s like a movie rating?” she said.
“Exactly,” I said. Credit where credit is due, folks -- dropping the Comic Code in favor of the ratings is one of the smartest things Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas ever did. Your average comic fan may not care if New X-Men has a “PG” or a “PG+” or whatever they’re slapping on the cover, but to this mom, it made all the difference in the world.
The kids were still looking around. “Do they make any NASCAR comics?” one of them asked.
I was forced to admit, as far as I knew, they didn’t. If anyone is listening, though, there is evidently a market. I’m looking at you, Pat Lee...
So Mom wound up buying several Spider-titles for her scholastic eldest, while the two younger kids each walked away with items like Justice League Adventures and Star Wars comics. I don’t know if any of them kept reading comics after that. I certainly hope they did. I’m fairly confident that Jenkins trade was good enough to tempt the oldest to keep reading.
But regardless, I feel like I at least made an effort to spread the word, and that’s what I’m asking you guys to do. God willing, come this Saturday your local comic shop will be full of people who don’t normally go there and don’t have a clue what they’re looking at. Even the best staff will (hopefully) have their hands full ladling out free books and ringing up purchases.
So be friendly. Talk to people. Don’t condescend just because they don’t get why Captain Marvel doesn’t look like the guy on the old Shazam! cartoon. If, at any point, you’re about to say something that sounds like a Comic Book Guy line from “The Simpsons,” shut up.
Find out what sort of thing they’re looking for and help them find it. Don’t just push your own favorites. You can’t hand everyone who walks in a stack of Preacher trade paperbacks and tell them it’s the best thing ever printed, because lemme tell ya, as much as I enjoyed it, Preacher ain’t for everybody.
And after all, FCBD should be for everybody. Go. Have fun. Talk it up to your friends, family and any co-workers who won’t give you strange looks. Help make our big, happy family just a little bigger.
Blake M. Petit is the author of a novel, Other People’s Heroes, a stage play, The 3-D Radio Show, and a great deal of stuff at EvertimeRealms.com. The last time he actively campaigned for anything was the job of Marching Band Quartermaster in 11th grade. He lost. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com |
