Ugly American # 26: FCBD Edition!

File this in the “duh” category, but I love Free Comic Book Day. It’s really a minor miracle, when you think about it. Unusual that the publishers ordinarily obsessed with wringing the last nickel out of their current base have the prescience to see the value in using that loss leader as a gateway to future sales. At least once per year they do, anyway. Unusual that so many retailers (many of whom don’t seem to understand that these are products meant to be sold, not just stocked) go above and beyond to push for a real event.

FCBD is important to me. I go to multiple venues, and I pay attention to what’s going on when I get there. There are lots of ways to skin the free comic cat, and I’m always interested in how different shops handle that. I want to know if interest in the event is waxing or waning, expanding or sinking into apathy. I scout out the registers and exits, to see how many people are also spending cash, and how many are just sucking off the free teat. Mostly, though? I want to see how many new faces are in the house, and how many of them are kid faces.

I’m happy to report that in the Minneapolis area, FCBD is bigger than ever. My “home base” at this point is Hot Comics in New Hope. I got there around 2pm, they had been open since 8am. The place was PACKED, and the line was snaking around the store. Lots of kids in there. LOTS of kids. Recognized almost nobody, which was very promising. Noticed a lot of questions from newbies, and there were actual staff there to act as sherpas. And everybody in that joint was spending money.

At Hot Comics, they gave you plenty of reason to spend money – 50% off back issues, 30% off trades, 25% off toys and apparel, and 20% off the expensive “wall books”. That’s aggressive. That’s how you put your best foot forward, though. You had the option of just grabbing some free books off a display table…by the time I got there it was bare except for Marvel’s Infinity and the Valiant offering.

If you made any kind of purchase, though, Hot Comics had pre-packaged bags with about a dozen books inside. There were two flavors, a kid’s pack and an adult’s pack. Very smart. I took the adult bag, and it was loaded with everything I was looking for, most especially that Oni FCBD edition with Roberson’s Strangers (already trading for $10-$15 on eBay, for crying out loud) and the Dark Horse flip-book with Gerard Way’s Killjoys. There was lots to like, though. Some lovely painted art in the Top Cow Aphrodite IX comic, and who doesn’t like Judge Dredd or Atomic Robo, particularly at the bargain basement price of free?

I’ve been to HCC on Black Friday and for big sales, and I’ve never seen activity in that joint like I did today. I can’t imagine what it was like when the doors first opened! Here’s the part that impresses me, though – there is absolutely no way they could have anticipated getting slammed quite like they did. But I got my full pack of free comics, and they were in no danger of running out when I left.

It’s tough to be a comics retailer in 2013. You’d like to order through to the moon, but this stuff is non-returnable. Granted, for FCBD you’re only on the hood for the shipping…but paper is heavier than you think. In this case, Hot Comics did the right thing and really sold out on this event, making sure everybody was happy when they left. I hope they made a billion dollars and a thousand new customers, because they earned it today.

I got everything I was looking for out of the FCBD offerings in one stop, loaded up on a pile of Harley Quinn back issues, bought a nice copy of Authority # 1 for $4 and a less than NM but still perfectly awesome copy of Uncanny X-Men # 141 for $9. Days of Future Past, people! Fantastic.

Next stop was Twin City Comics. By the time I got there around 3:30pm, there was little left but crumbs for the FCBD books. I got there pretty late, so it’s partly on me. It’s a little weird to me that not even the DC “Last Son of Krypton” book was available, though, usually the Big Two books are in plentiful supply. I would have liked another copy of the Oni and Dark Horse comic, but them’s the breaks.

While the free books ended up being a mild disappointment, the not-so-free books offered up some unexpected scores. I went digging through the back issue bins, the sale was a “buy two, get one free” offer. I’m pretty familiar with the stock at every LCS in my area, but out of the corner of my eye I see a copy of Batman Adventures # 12 at the front of a strange box of kids comics below the regular back issues. I’ve never seen that material at TCC before. Maybe I just missed it?

Sure enough, I see a VF copy of Harley Quinn’s first appearance in comics with a $5.50 price tag! That would be a fine jackpot on its own, but after peeling back a couple of issues I see another copy, this one in NM 9.2 condition with a $5.00 sticker on it. I can get $75-$80 for the one, and around $100 for the other. And I got the really nice one for free – thank you, Free Comic Book Day!

Next on the list was The Source in Falcon Heights, easily the biggest shop in Minnesota. I knew it was busy long before I got inside, because the place was so crazy busy I had to park three blocks away!

This is the best part, though. As I get near the entrance, I see a father and three boys coming out, and every one of them has a smile plastered on their faces. The kids look between the ages of 8-12, and they all have what appear to be packages of Hero Clix. The oldest boy is jumping up and down and says “That was awesome, dad!” Then the middle kid is tearing into his Hero Clix before he even gets to the car and says “Let’s get this party started!” That is an actual thing that came out of human’s mouth when I went to The Source today.

Now, I don’t want to over-dramatize this, but that’s incredible. And I don’t even care that they didn’t seem to be directly interested in comics. (Dad certainly had his pack of free comics in tow, though) Do you know how many people read comics because of Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons? I don’t think it’s too out of whack to suggest that 20% of the whole constituency got there in just such a manner. So if those kids are into Hero Clix, and I dare say they are WAY into Hero Clix, then we just won. Because someday, when they’re ready, they will need a new place to put all that love. And if we keep the torch burning with FCBD events, the comics will still be there when that time comes.

Once I got in, I headed straight to the back and discovered that they had also created pre-packaged bags of free comics, also in kids/adult varieties. With my adult pack in hand I hit the sales floor, where everything was 20% off.

I came a cat’s whisker from snapping up a Rocketeer Artist’s edition. It was ticketed at $149.99, which my phone tells me would have come down to about $120. A very fair price, but unfortunately the box had a really unattractive groove hacked into it. If I’m going to drop $120, I don’t want the book looking like it got into a fight with Danny Trejo. I also spied an Ame Comi Harley Quinn mini-figure there last week, but it was gone today. Sigh. That’s the price you pay for not getting to the sale until after 5:00pm. The good news was that I was tripping over children the entire time I was in the store. There were an insane number of people in general, but a shocking number of them were still in grade school. Very inspiring.

I have a rule that I don’t enter a comic shop without buying something. It’s a pretty easy rule to follow. I settled on a nearly pristine copy of Tomb of Dracula # 33 for $8 after discount. I’m totally in love with anything from the Bronze Age at this point, with the horror and war books at the top of my list. When I was growing up, I wanted nothing to do with either. Now, if you show me a nice copy of Werewolf by Night, I can’t help but smile. Or any cover that Mike Zeck drew. But I digress.

When I got outside, I peeked inside my Source bag of free comics and was simultaneously impressed and disappointed. There was only current FCBD comic inside, and was the Infinity book that I already had two copies of. I was really expecting to find another assortment of FCBD books like I got at Hot Comics. Also in the bag were a trio of the $1.00 DC “After Watchmen” books, and a copy of Starcraft # 1. So in terms of retail value, I got way more “bang for my buck” from The Source. I would much rather have had my choice of FCBD material, though. Ah well.

Incidentally, that Infinity book was sort of an odd duck. On the plus side, I sure do like looking at things that Jim Cheung draws. That part was good. The story does some strange things, though. It mostly centers on those weird alien guys that bookend the Avengers movie. Apparently, they are genetically engineered parasites called “Outriders”, and at least some of them work for Thanos.

I can certainly see the benefit in adding depth to the movie mythos. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but a few people went to see that Avengers film. Unfortunately, there’s a series of “then” and “soon” and “47 minutes ago” time-shift cues that unnecessarily muddy the narrative waters of what should have been a dirt simple progression. Also, the outriders don’t really do much apart from posture and say mean things to aliens you aren’t familiar with and don’t care about.

Finally, the issue closes with a nebulous phantom of a future threat you don’t understand and aren’t invited to feel anything about. Ghostly Outriders seem to be touching Marvel characters on their heads. What does that even mean? I suppose it’s meant to be a mystery, and I’m intended to be intensely curious about the whole thing. Mostly now I just look at these things and say “would somebody please tell me what the fuck is actually going on here?” I don’t think that’s the goal, but that’s the result.

I’m not going to dwell on that, though. I’m going to dwell on all the energy I was feeling in those local shops today, all the great comics I got for free, all the great comics I got for cheap, and all those excited kids I saw today. Let’s get this party started!

PS: Please do tell me about your FCBD experience by commenting below.