Please do not block the manga rack.

§ May 8th, 2011 § Filed under employee aaron, free comic book day § 7 Comments


So yesterday I witnessed the joining in holy matrimony of Employee Aaron and his former-fiancée-now-wife Kempo. Yup, it’s finally done…the two of them are hitched but good. And I saw it with my very own eyes. Now they’re off on their honeymoon, and I hope those crazy kids have a good time.

Yesterday was also Free Comic Book Day…and “Spoil the Post-Credits Scene of Thor for Mike” Day, but let’s not get into that…which, as I’ve mentioned before, meant that I had to take off for an hour or two to witness the wedding shenanigans. Which also meant shedding my usual in-store fancy dress for even fancier dress, and if you were lucky enough to pop into the shop in the late afternoon after my return from the ceremony, you were greeted by this handsome bastard:


Yeah, that’s right…drink it in. (Thanks to pal Kevin for taking the pic and working his halftone ‘n’ caption magic upon it.)

As for the FCBD event itself…it was certainly wall-to-wall people nearly the entire day (including the couple of hours I was gone, I’d been told), and the prepared prepacks of freebies, of which I’d put together a lot, and I thought would easily last us ’til I got back to the shop about 3-ish in the afternoon…were entirely gone by the time I’d returned. We ordered huge numbers, and still we were run nearly dry of the 2011 offerings. We had leftovers from previous years that were put back out, plus I ended up grabbing some of the recent $1 reprint books from Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and others to throw on the freebie tables as well.

If you want to check out some of our set-up, pal Andres (who helped out most of the day, and stood in as Fake Mike while I was gone) took a few pictures of the prepping-in-progress. …And yeah, we had a handful of mighty stacks of a few freebies from previous years, for some reason. Ah, well, it happens. At least those stacks are somewhat smaller now.

Ultimately, once again, assisted by a small in-store graphic novel discount sale, we made back the money spent in purchasing the FCBD books, and pulled in a profit besides. Plus, I got to see a handful of old customers I haven’t seen for a while, lured in by the siren call of the free funnybook, and that was nice.

I don’t know that I have any specific “FCBD Report” beyond this, given that when I was at the shop, I was mostly fielding question from folks looking for back issues or graphic novel recommendations, while Andres and a few other brave souls handling the distribution of the freebies. No problems, no hassles, just a lot of comics given away and a lot of happy customers.

Of course, like every year during FCBD, there’s always somebody who wants to go through the porn comics. Doesn’t it figure.

But anyway, the Free Comic Book Day madness is over, and now I can look forward to a nice, relaxed Sunday at the shop, where we’ll just be having…a Magic the Gathering prerelease tournament?

7 Responses to “Please do not block the manga rack.”

  • Steven E. McDonald says:

    My chosen funnybook emporium, Fantasy Comics, ordered heavily, blew out the Green Lantern Heroclix in about three seconds after opening, and were down to maybe a baker’s dozen of titles (including comics they added from stock, such as Brian Wood’s DEMO) by 11am. I ended up taking about eight of those, although the titles I really wanted (the Mickey Mouse, the Elric, the Baltimore three-book, the Atomic Robo, a couple of others) were all out. Lots of Spider-Man left, which may say something, along with the Chip ‘N Dale/Darkwing Duck flipbook.

    What got me in, though, was the 25% off sale. Had I more cash to spare, I’d have bought more than the Dial H For Hero Showcase. Then again, that might have been harmful to my health, as I also picked up my library reserves, which amounted to a good forty pounds of non-fiction (big, heavy books on MI5 and MI6….) Adding a bunch of phonebooks to my backpack would have caused a cosmic event and we’d be having an episode of Fringe, or an entry in Eternity’s Funny Universal Destruction Stories.

    Obviously, I need more money and a Bag Of Holding.

  • Andres says:

    Although the Thor movie was released the night before only one customer asked for a ‘recommended reading list’. More than a few people did mention that they’d seen the movie (although no one ruined the ending). Not one person asked for what to read before watching the upcoming Green Lantern movie. I was expecting maybe a few more people asking for info on these two titles.

  • SKFK says:

    Congratulations to Aaron and Kempo! That’s a great color combination on Kempo’s hanbok.

    Saturdays are rehearsal days for my oldest son’s youth orchestra at Cal State Northridge, so after the rehearsal was over around 11:30, I took him to Earth-2 right around the corner. We each picked up five FCBD books, and I bought my son a Simpsons TPB. Then we drove over to my usual Wednesday store, House Of Secrets in Burbank, where there was already a long line of people waiting to meet Sherm Cohen (who drew the cover for Spongebob Squarepants #1 issue) and Tom Kenny (the voice of Spongebob) at the store. Since Sherm and Tom were kind enough to take time with each family, it took us about 45 minutes until we got to the front of the line, but there were no complaints. I picked up two more FCBD books that were not at Earth-2.

  • Sarah says:

    Aw, Mike, you definitely have that “distinguished older gentleman explaining drily to the young punk why he’s being recruited to the secret mission” vibe going on in that one!

  • ExistentialMan says:

    “Spoil the Post-Credits Scene of Thor for Mike” Day should be a national holiday.

  • David B says:

    I could watch (and laugh) at that Darth Vader clip all day. Somehow it is even more watchable when played in an infinite loop.

  • Batfatty says:

    I always miss Ralph’s, but especially on FCBD. There’s no comic store in Portland that even approaches your generosity with the swag on nerd evangalism day. Waaah!

    Pass my congrats to Aaron and Kempo. They’re a handsome couple. By that I mean that she’s PURRRTY. Yay!