We need to do a "surpport your comic shop" day!

[Gaastra]

This guys video says it all. (note he curses in video) Comic shops are hurting over dc's dumb stunt and many need your support after the batman mess. Many comic shops who were going to close today to be with their families opened to promote this book. They lost a lot on this and are hurting. Many were using this to lure new readers to their comic shops. They dressed the shops up and someone on cbr reports one even hired a wedding planning to do a batman catwoman display! comic shops were having a midnight party and cosplay partys to set the batman issue up. They went all out for this! Some even got food for the event! All comic shop were send a wedding invite also! DC hyped the crap out of this and they got more copies they are now stuck with!

If your comic shop is open please stop by and buy something. Even if it's just a few comics from the $1 bin help them out! Buy that uncle scrooge trade you have been wanting or that issue of transformers you are missing or a manga or a old 70s comic.

Help your shops out guys this really messed some of them up! We need to pick a day and do a "support you local comic shop day"!

I will post this in the DC comics thread also. What do you guys think? Will this help the shops?

[jackolover]

We have a real community at our comic shop, so if I see some familiar faces I get into discussions and joking around.

Recently I stopped getting much Marvel stuff, so the proprietor started threatening to tell Marvel I was buying DC Man of Steel by Bendis, so we joke around about it. The sales guys try to sell me Marvel in the stare and I blame them for making me buy their recommendations. I really look forward to getting to the store when I get there.

[KC]

Free Comic Book Day is really supposed to be a "support your comic shop" day. With an emphasis on getting new readers into comic books and also to get anyone who goes to their local comic book store to buy stuff when they are there.

[Digifiend]

Helps if they actually do FCBD properly. My hauls for the last four years were 13 books (bundle of ten plus three more of my own choice), 12 books (bundle - it was everything they had, and didn't include all of what I was actually looking for), 5 books (two of which were actually Image 25c titles), and zero (my local store didn't take part this year). As you can see, it was worse each year, and apart from the first one, I had to wait for digital for at least two books.

[Gaastra]

My comic shop stopped doing free comic day over a year ago! To much hassle with no new readers he said. The one the town over however are great and the owner is as much of a comic fan as we are. Will just chat all day with you about comics you want.

[MajorHoy]

Helps if they actually do FCBD properly.

Have you ever talked to your comic book shop about how FCBD works?
The books may be "free" for us (the readers), but are any of them "free" to the stores themselves to distribute to customers? Or do the comic book shops have to pay for what they order? Can they return anything that people didn't want so the store isn't out any money for those copies?

[Mike_Murdock]

My store had a huge turnout for FCBD. It gets a lot of new people (although I don't necessarily think they return regularly). It usually has a local artist, 50 cent comics (used to be 25 cent), free pizza and soda, and a line around the block for the free books. You often see a lot of kids there as well.

Regarding the Batman thing, to my knowledge, they didn't go all out, but I don't get DC books so I didn't experience anything different. I remember they gave out free nicknacks for Secret Empire and, for Metal, they gave out some pins or something. But I didn't see anything for this event. It's definitely frustrating that spoilers for milestone events keep getting out, but I'm not sure there's anything that can be done about it.

[Digifiend]

Have you ever talked to your comic book shop about how FCBD works?
The books may be "free" for us (the readers), but are any of them "free" to the stores themselves to distribute to customers? Or do the comic book shops have to pay for what they order? Can they return anything that people didn't want so the store isn't out any money for those copies?

They do pay, but they are cheaper than normal issues. 25c I think.

[AdamFTF]

Uh . . . a bit awkward . . . I don't even really support my local shop myself much anymore. You see, I went digital because it was more convenient.

So . . . yeah.

[skyvolt2000]

They do pay, but they are cheaper than normal issues. 25c I think.

It's 25 from what I hear.

The main ones that always get cleared out are the kid friendly and indy ones from what I always see. Because when you dig through bins whose FCBD is there-Marvel and especially DC's.

[Mike]

It would help if I HAD a local comic-book shop.
Haven't had one for years.

[LordMikel]

They do pay, but they are cheaper than normal issues. 25c I think.

I think what people are saying, you go to your local comic store and you say, "Hey I want these comics for free comic book day, and if you weren't planning on doing it, I'll pay for those issues, cause the gas would be more expensive for me to go elsewhere, I'm sure."

[DragonsChi]

While I do think its messed up that the Bat&Cat revel got spoiled thereby having a negative effect on comic stores, I find it hard to feel overly sorry for them.

Comic shops as a whole need to take larger steps to make their individual buisness more appealing and worth it for the day to day consumer. If your personal buisness can be thrown off so drastically by a singal spoiler in this day in age then that business has a major problem. Shop owners need to be more creative and take more risk or they will die out. End of Story.

[Gaastra]

It's not the spoiler it's that they were using this to help their comic stores with a midnight party, paid for food, cosplay, contests and other things. Dc send out wedding invites to all comic shops, went on tv, promoted the crap out of the wedding then didn't even have it! Then the spoiler hit right before killing any hype for the books leaving the comic shops in a mess.

Comic shops as a whole need to take larger steps to make their individual buisness more appealing and worth it for the day to day consumer

That's why they were using this as a big event. To bring in new readers. Some even paid for ads on local tv from what I heard. Plus they ordered tons of extra copies of those 80s covers and now can't give them away. Some are threating to sue dc over this! DC really messed up this time.

[DragonsChi]

It's not the spoiler it's that they were using this to help their comic stores with a midnight party, paid for food, cosplay, contests and other things. Dc send out wedding invites to all comic shops, went on tv, promoted the crap out of the wedding then didn't even have it! Then the spoiler hit right before killing any hype for the books leaving the comic shops in a mess.



That's why they were using this as a big event. To bring in new readers. Some even paid for ads on local tv from what I heard. Plus they ordered tons of extra copies of those 80s covers and now can't give them away. Some are threating to sue dc over this! DC really messed up this time.

Even still.

I understand what happen in full. And I do think the whole thing is regretful. But if so much weight is put on singular “events” like this for your business then your Business Model needs some work. The fact that comic shops are at the literal mercy of the two big companies coming and goings is what is really hurting their business. What happens when the day comes that they no longer see the need to print books? Comic shops owners can’t throw it back on the companies for the failure of their business. They need to make efforts to give reason as to why their “business” is valuable not only to them but to the industry as a whole.