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Well, I survived another Free Comic Book Day, more or less, making this the…geez, I don’t know how many there have been since it started. It launched in 2002, there was one year during the beginning of COVID where it didn’t really happen as such, and it’s 2025 now. Someone good at math can probably figure it out…I think it’s about 215 of them by now? At any rate, I’ve done ’em all, and plan to keep doing them as long as 1) FCBD remains a thing, and 2) my old bones can continue to do it.
Anyway, this year was The Most Financially Successful One yet, given the associated in-store sales I always have along with the giveaways. It’s been a general uphill trend along these lines since I’ve opened, with only one year showing a slight decline from the previous years (not counting the COVID year, of course).
It’s one of the ways I can put a specific measurement on how well my FCBD events do, since I’m not really in a position to do exact headcounts of attendees or anything. Number of comics given away can be another less precise measurement, but I upped my orders quite a bit this time, and included several of Image’s dollar reprints of various Spawn titles, Astro City, Lady Mechanika, and so on. Here’s a look at some of the tables I had out in front of the shop…you can see another just past the graffitied mailbox:
It was apparent that I gave away a LOT of comics, but still had some leftovers, which is fine; I have a box in the shop to give them away to any folks unable to make it day of. And I have some deals in place with local schools to take on some of the excess stock.
In terms of which FCBD book seemed to be the most popular, it looks like the Fantastic Four/X-Men book was the tops:
…while DC’s kid book preview for the Wonder Woman-adjacent Kanga-U didn’t seem to grab a lot of attention, for whatever reason:
…and I did have a large number of kids pass through, so who knows? Just one of those things. I’m sure I’ll give away plenty of them from the leftovers box.
Helping along the day’s success was special guest, comics writer Amy Chase, as pictured here with her close personal friend X-O Manowar:
Whenever I have a guest for a signing, which admittedly isn’t often, I’m always afraid that the poor person will just sit there being ignored while people just pass ’em on by. Not this time…FCBD is of course the highest-trafficked day at my shop, and Amy had no shortage of attention from fans young and somewhat-less young buying her stuff and getting signatures. Which of course made me happy and relieved.
Oh, and did I get a signed comic for myself? You bet I did:
Speaking of relief, I worry, every single time before the event gets underway, whether I’m going to have any kind of turnout, whether my sales are going to do well, that sort of thing. The “sales” bit became even more of a worry when, after the inception of COVID, I started putting the free comic tables outside. “People will just grab the free comics and take off, nobody will come inside to buy anything!”
And as usual, I’m a big ol’ worrywart for nuthin’, as the line started to gather around 10:30 AM, and looked like this just moments after the event began:
The inside of store looked a lot like this for several hours:
As is typical, the first half of the day is the busiest, with things leveling off afterwards though still remaining reasonably busy.
So all in all, another great Free Comic Book Day, and even though even as I write this I remain a little achy and sore, I look forward to doing it again. I know there’s some question as to what will happen to FCBD with the Diamond bankruptcy/sale, but I believe it’ll continue on, in one form or another. Even if I have to do it on my own, I’ll find a way. “Hey everyone, come by for your free copies of Turok Dinosaur Hunter #1!”
Special thanks to my dad, my girlfriend Nora, pal Dorian, and former boss Ralph for helping keep the craziness under some kind of control. And thanks again to Amy for bringing her charm to the shop as well!
And real big thanks for this nice note a very young lady gave me during the festivities:
You’re very welcome.
So some local high schoolers contacted me about doing a little filming in my store for their film class, which brought up the question “why didn’t my high school have a film class?” I mean, probably because you can film things on your phone now, versus having to carve a movie into rock frame by frame back when I a teen.
Anyway, they were good kids, held a brief interview with me (asking questions like “why did you decide to sell comics?” and “what’s changed in comics since you started in this business?”), and they even bought a small handful of funnybooks. It was bit of a fun diversion on a day where I needed a little distraction.
• • •
One final reminder:
Free Comic Book Day has come ’round again, and hie yourself hither to your local comicks shoppe and get yourself some fistfuls of free books. Retailers have to pay for the freebies, so if they’re having an associated sale (and they really should be), buy a thing or two if you can to help them out!
Most of all, have fun and spend the day enjoying comics!
• • •
So long,
Butch.
Hiya pals…current plans are to resume the Final ’90s Countdown posts next week, given that the next entry required a little more research. I have that research in hand now, so the next entry in the series is imminent.
Plus, I had some other things to discuss this week, and a little news that may affect this site briefly, but I’ll get to that in a moment.
First off, check this out:
Yes, your eyes don’t deceive you, that is indeed an actual copy of Guts #2 from 1982. I had posted a pic of this on Bluesky that I found in an eBay listing, lamenting that I couldn’t buy it at the moment but I at least had this pic. Enter longtime online pal Katie, who purchased the item and sent it my way! That was a very generous and unexpected thing for her to do, and she has my most sincere thanks!
So who am Guts #2, anyway? It is a very small press comics publication primarily by Steve Lafler, with short bits by other creators. It’s entirely on newsprint, no slick covers, and it’s honestly the first one of these I’ve ever seen.
Now I have seen Guts #3, as I detailed my acquisition of same a couple of years back. That item turned out to be readily available via Last Gasp’s mail order warehouse, at least at the time, at a ridiculously low price. (And I just checked, and it appears to still be available.) Now all I need to find is #1, similarly all-newsprint, and I’ll finally have all the Guts I need.
• • •
Oh, right, you know about this, right?
That’s this Saturday, friends! I’ve written a boatload of material on the event in the past, and only occasionally got pushback from people who were wrong. Anyway, I’ll do what I always do, give away as many comics as I can, be a good host to our special guest for the day, and try to have a good time.
And finally, I want to let you folks know that, unfortunately, my eyeballs have to go under the knife once again. Due to complications arising from previous issues, my right eye requires surgery, which will be happening in short order. I don’t have a date for that yet, but obviously things will be disrupted here on the site briefly for the procedure itself and recovery time. Once I have more info, I’ll let you folks know.
Okay, that’s all the news that’s fit to blog, so I’ll chat with you again soon enough. Thanks for reading, pals.
Yes, it’s another Post of Miscellany for you to enjoy, for varying values of “enjoy.”
PART THE FIRST: Just to follow up on my 2024 Free Comic Book Day post-mortem, there was some concern that no children were spotted in my photos of the store in the midst of Free Comics action.
Well, let me assure you that there were plenty of children passing through the shop to get their free comics, and many, with the assistance of the parents and/or guardians, took advantage of the storewide sales. Some kids showed up in costume (one as the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man, anoother as the Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel). A girls softball team showed up, in uniform. Plenty of children thanking me for their comics, A whole bunch of smiling faces.
As was pointed out in my comments, probably not a cool thing to take pics of kids and post ’em to my site without permission. So you’ll just have to take my word that they were there. I promise.
PART THE SECOND: Miracleman talk is back in the news, what with the release of Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham’s The Silver Age in trade paperback form this week. This article on The Beat is about the lack of excitement over the completion of this long-interrupted story. Surprisingly, it includes a link to my own writings on the very same topic from back in January. I’m so used to shouting into the void here, since Linking to Blogs is a thing that folks don’t do much of that anymore, but it is nice to be acknowledged.
Anyway, on Bluesky Mr. Gaiman his own self linked to a New York Times article ballyhooing the release of the book, saying
“It’s interesting seeing the comics press going ‘Why isn’t there more talk of Miracleman: The Silver Age?’ Meanwhile, we get the kind of review that those of us who made comics in the dawn times dreamed of as a kind of grail.”
Now, look, I’ve done my part, which y’all can see right here in this category link, but…I think I’m correct in reading this more as “isn’t it ironic that one world ignores the book, meanwhile this other world is paying attention,” instead of “the comics press are a bunch of dummies, of course people are talking about it.”
The New York Times article doesn’t really counter the idea that Miracleman is mostly ignored within the comics world, and that actual sales aren’t want you’d think they should be, if “you” is me, a guy who waited the decades for Miracleman to start up again. I don’t have to go into again, see what I said at my self-link above, but the passing decades, the delays, the botched presentation by Marvel, all got in the way of a new audience discovering a lost unfinished classic in the process of being completed. Which is a shame. It honestly is very good. Even the initial kinda clunky chapters by Alan Moore have a style and power few comics can match today.
I said this a couple times in response to various discussions on Bluesky, but I feel like maybe the Moore/Gaiman/Buckingham/etc. era of Miracleman won’t properly get its due until it’s all done and collected into trades. At that point it can be sold as a finished masterpiece…assuming Marvel can keep the books in print.
PART THE SECOND AND A HALF: Just for some perspective: In 1985 I was sixteen, still in high school, when I bought the first issue of Eclipse’s Miracleman #1 new off the stands. I am now 55, waiting to eventually place orders for my store for the final chapters of the story begun back then.
PART THE THIRD: So anyway, here’s a picture of Superman from the movie coming out next year:
I mean, it’s fine. The top part looks a little too much like he’s wearing a sweater. I suppose we’ll have to see it in action (either live or CGI) to give it a full judgement. But lookin’ at that picture…c’mon, Supes, buddy, speed it up a bit, there’s something you need to attend to going on outside your window there.
The debate is raging on as to whether this is a good costume or not, whether there’s too much texture on there or if they should’ve gone for a Christopher Reeve-style smooth ‘n’ skintight spandex. I think the latter look, more accurately reflecting appearances in the comics, may be out of favor with studios, but given how superhero movies have been doing lately, what have they got to lose. However, having Wolverine in his classic comic togs for the Deadpool/Wolverine flick, a film that has a very good chance of getting that billion-dollar box office that’s been eluding Marvel for a while, may change some costuming trends.
At the very least I would have liked a brighter, maybe more optimistic look, but again, it’s just one promo photo. All depends on what they do with it. And it’s James Gunn, who actually made people care about Guardians of the Galaxy, so I’m still giving him the benefit of a doubt. I mean, c’mon, Metamorpho, the Fab Freak of 1,000 and 1 Changes, is gonna be it, I’ve gotta see that.
Another Free Comic Book Day has come and gone, making my…23rd, outing for the event? However many it’s been since it started, I did ’em all, and I suppose it depends on how you count that one year when the books were just released in dribs and drabs over the summer because COVID.
And I’m pleased to report that this was the busiest FCBD I’ve had yet at the shop, and the most financially successful. It was a little over 20% increase over last year, which had been the previous Best FCBD for me. Which is good, because like I am every year, I’m anxious about how it’s going to go, even though I’ve literally never lost money on the event.
“Money?” some will ask, because even though it feels like word gets out more and more every year, some folks don’t realize that it does cost the retailers a little bit of money to order these giveaways. It’s not a lot, like 25 to 35 cents apiece, but it does add up. Hence the storewide sale I hold at the same time, which, as you can surmise from what I stated above, easily covered the costs.
And speaking of which, I probably could have ordered more than I did on some of the books. I try to have at least a few leftovers to keep for giveaways the rest of the year, either to folks visiting the shop, or for schools and libraries, whatever. Due to the huge crowds I ended up running through a lot of books in relatively short order, so it’s time to boost numbers back up a bit. I did dip into the leftovers from previous years to fill up the tables, and moved a whole lot of those too.
Helping me out this year was, as always, my dad and pal Dorian monitoring the tables, posted out in front of the store, joined by former boss Ralph and my girlfriend Nora keeping tabs on the crowds inside. And yours truly manning that register.
And speaking of overused transitions, my dad took a few photos of the event, including this one of the line waiting outside the store for it to start:
Thankfully, most of those storefronts were closed on the weekends, and one didn’t open until after the line had cleared, so I didn’t annoy any neighbors too much.
Here are a couple of photos of inside the shop:
…including the one photo I managed to snap before I had to get back to being the register monkey:
And yes, in one of the above photos, you can see the short box where I kept extras of previous FCBD throughout the year but forgot to squirrel away before opening. Ah well.
Of special note, Lene of the long-running Shatner-centric Star Trek podcat “Look at His Butt” dropped by to say hello. This was our first face-to-face meeting after being online pals for…just checking the dates, and goodness me, about 18 years! Actually, she and her husband came in the day before, so that was our first in-person encounter…she walked in with a “Hi Mike!” and my immediate response was “I know that voice!” It was swell to see her, and hopefully she can come back in the future for another visit! And a few other readers of this very site dropped by, too, which is always a nice surprise.
So overall, it was a solid outing for Free Comic Book Day. A lot of effort went into it, and my body still feels a little wearied from it, but I should hopefully be recovered when it’s time to do it all again next year!
Get yourself to a nearby comic book store (like mine) that hopefully is participating in Free Comic Book Day (like mine) and is giving away tons of free comics (like mine) and is having big storewide sales (like mine)!
Okay, I don’t want to overload you with Byrne Superman Reboot talk, so I’ll probably stick to posting about that once or twice a week ’til I feel like I’ve said enough. But keep your comments and questions coming, since, as is my wont, I’ll probably spend some time responding to them in the near future.
I did want to cover a couple of other topics here, such as the fact I didn’t talk much — well, at all — about this year’s Free Comic Book Day. It’s not like I haven’t talked about before, and you can clickity-click that link to have my vast wisdom imparted upon you.
Like the last two or three years or however long it’s been, I can’t keep track, I’ll be posting the freebie tables in front of the store, instead of going through the trouble of rearranging the interior layout to make room for them. As you may recall, I started doing this post-COVID to reduce the number of bodies crammed into my little shop and hopefully lessen the risk of cooties exposure. Seems to have worked out great so far, since my creaky bones no longer have to strain at moving a ton of back issue boxes and heavy wooden tables in the shop, and having a huge crowd in front of the store around tables of free comics certainly grabs attention. And I certainly didn’t see any reduction of folks coming into the shop to take advantage of the sales.
So, yes, it still got a little crowded in the shop, but not nearly as much as if I was trying to have a big sale AND a freebie giveaway in the same space at the same time. It all works out.
I’m mostly ready to go…the bulk of the work occurs the night before and the morning of, so I just gotta get cracking soon as my doors close Friday evening. Plus I’m prepping other material to be given away, so that’ll probably take up my Friday afternoon. Oh, and I’m also taking in a large comics collection on Friday as well, from an out-of-town pal whose only opportunity to bring ’em by is that day, so I’ll probably be doing a little comics juggling over the next 24 hours. If the GUMBY OF SUCCESS was planning on making another visit to my store, now is the time!
Anyway, is this like the…23rd Free Comic Book Day? I mean, I guess it depends if you count that one year where it was called off due to COVID and the freebies were just sent out a few at a time to be given away each week. However you count it, I’ve worked ’em all, and look forward to doing it again this year!
• • •
They said it couldn’t be done, and yet Adam Farrar has done dood it:
an oral history of the 1990s Marvel UK comic book series
Blackwulf! (Here’s
Part Two and
Part Three.) It’s a whole lotta comics people in here talking, not just about
Blackwulf, but the ’90s comics business in general. And who better to speak about ’90s comics than the man who saw ’em in and escorted ’em out…yours truly, Michael Ricardo Anatoly Sterling. I’m mostly in the first part, with a brief cameo in the second, but you should overcome your disappointment at the lack of me in the third part and read it anyway, but it’s all great.
• • •
Mark Evanier is trying to set the visual record straight on comics legends Robert Kanigher and Bill Finger, in that a photo of the former keeps getting identified as the latter. So he’s
asked if comics folks would post this pic (leaving the file name unchanged, in case you decide to download it from here and post it yourself) to get those search engines to propagate the correct information:
Also the title of this very post is my attempt at getting some other Batman-related info scraped up and spread around.
Just a brief follow-up on this year’s Free Comic Book Day event, presented at my store, Sterling Silver Comics, Ventura County’s spiritual home of FCBD. (Because, you know, I was there 22(?) years ago when FCBD started locally, and I’ve been doing ’em ever since!)
Anyway, it was very successful, moving lots of comics and also being the best financially-performing FCBD I’ve had at the store yet thanks to the storewide sales I use to supplement the event. I’m still doing the COVID-inspired set-up, putting the free comic book tables out in front of the shop, which leaves more room for shopping inside. Here’s I think the one photo we managed to get this year, thanks to my dad:
Yes, my dad helped out again this year, as did Pal Dorian (whom you can see in the above photo, wearing the black mask just sorta right of center). Former boss Ralph was there too, helping me keep an eye on things as I was mostly at the register. And Batman (AKA primo-cosplayer customer Mark) came by to guard to festivities.
Dorian reported that the comics of choice this year seemed to be the Red Sonja giveaway, and (unsurprisingly) the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book. The Conan comic seemed to be a slow-starter but ultimately did well. The Marvel books were popular, of course, and DC’s Batman crossover preview thing moved plenty of copies. DC’s more kid-friendly books didn’t do quite as well, despite having plenty of kids come through. And I think Dor and I decided that the 2000 AD giveaway may have performed better if, say, Judge Dredd, their one character recognized by the general public, had been on the comic somewhere. Ah well, What Can You Do?
One oddity this year was that a couple weeks ago, a person came by with piles of circa-2018 Marvel comics for sale. I didn’t need them, so she said “well, I don’t want to take them back home, so you can have them.” I didn’t really want them, frankly, so for FCBD I put them out in a couple of short boxes with signs that read “Take as many as you want, just leave the boxes.” Dor let me know that they didn’t last very long once the event started. I think next year I’m going to have to go through the too-many boxes in the store’s back room and find more dead stock to unload this way.
And the streak continues…no weirdos or strange problems or anything cropped up to spoil the fun again this year! I did have a light fixture go out during the day, which was kind of bad timing but not a crippling blow or anything.
I also sold a couple more copies of Write More Good, the @FakeAPStylebook book that both Dorian and I helped write several years ago. One copy I sold to customer who asked if I’d sign it by saying “sure, and you can get another writer to sign it too, today only!” So I’m out again, and since Marvel’s new distributor Penguin Random House also carries copies of this book, I can get more easily enough! (Someone at the PRH warehouse is probably thinking “who’s asking for copies of this book now?”)
Plus two-thirds of the Vintage Video crew dropped by…Vintage Video of course being the podcast where I helped them discuss the 1981 Heavy Metal animated movie. (Look for me on their eventual coverage of the first Swamp Thing movie sometime next year!)
Okay, I’ve successfully moved the FCBD coverage to “how did FCBD go” to “let’s plug stuff I worked on,” so let’s wrap this up. A big thanks to everyone who showed up…every single time I sweat it out the morning of, thinking “oh man what if nobody shows up” and every year I’m shown that I worried for nothing. So, you know, I suppose I’ll do this again next year.
Get yourself to a local funnybook store (preferably mine) and grab up a bunch of free comics! Remember…they’re free, no purchase necessary! (But maybe make a purchase anyway to help your retailer cover some costs!)
Have fun, stay safe, and enjoy some good reading!
I always forget that the Free Comic Book Day giveaways have color-coded ratings on their covers now. Not sure what good it does since it seems like every year there’s some hullabaloo about a kid getting a copy of “Full-Frontal Nudity #1 FCBD Edition” from some store somewhere. But it does make it a lot easier to sort out the books on the tables by age group, when before we had to check through every single free comic to make sure there weren’t any surprise time bombs in there.
That said, my favorite book of the FCBD batch this year is the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers:
…which is SAFE FOR TEENS:
…which, c’mon, go back to 1983 when my comic shop had to make sure they had my dad’s permission before I could buy any Freak Brothers comics. “Hey, it was my dad who told me to check them out in the first place!” apparently wasn’t enough to gain access to the undergrounds box. (And then I got a job at that shop a few years later and I was the guy keeping you rotten children away from the naughty books.)
Yes, I’ll be doing Free Comic Book Day at my store (Sterling Silver Comics, located in Camarillo, CA) yet again! I was there for FCBD when it started, and I’ll be there for it when it ends. Or rather, when I end, unless I’ll be doing it…from BEYOND THE GRAVE woooOOOooo! …Well, okay, that took a weird turn, but if you’re in the area, drop by the store and pick up some free comics and take advantage of my great deals! No ghosts, I promise! Mostly!
You can read what I’ve written about Free Comic Book Day over the last, oh, couple of decades at that link there.
• • •
Speaking of old posts, I recently refurbished my old
“Superman’s Super-Hypnosis” page (much linked to by the internet) with Brand New Big Images, courtesy a
certain little stuffed bull of some note.
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