Current mood:

sleepy

FCBD was a giant success
Here are a few comments from two of our staff and the owner on the very successful FCBDay five at Sarge's Comics New London, CT.


Check out our extensive photo gallery. More being added each day:
http://www.pbase.com/harpozep/freecomicbookday2006&page=all
This one picture says it all:
http://www.pbase.com/harpozep/image/59951464

FROM Malinda Brown:( Droog fembot):


What a FCBD! While some people think that customer participation was down this year, I think that we had about the same numbers as last year, only more efficiently. The table layout was much improved, giving both our talent and our customers more space in which to move. The weather was beautiful for most of the day, which I think brought in people who were just out enjoying the day. The mild shower in the middle of the day was mercifully short, and gave the members of the 501st Connsquad Garrison a chance to come inside and rest a bit.

As we have for the last few FCBDs, we had the lovely people of the 501st Connsquad Garrison both outside and inside, posing for pictures and having an all around good time.

We added a few new names to our roster of artists and writers this year.

The books this year were wonderful. The pairing of Star Wars and Conan was a bit odd... I realize both are put out by Dark Horse, but perhaps a better pairing could have been found? I noticed that some of the indy books were actually marked "mature audience", and that actually made me emit a squee of joy. A small squee, but a squee none-the-less.

Between our barking volunteers (droogies, as they are lovingly known), and the odd spectacle that is two Tuskan Raiders, a handful of Stormtroopers, two Sith lords, a Slave Leah princess, Arwen from Lord of The Rings, and the lead protagonist V from the hit comic/movie "V for Vendetta" hanging about outside for pictures and general tomfoolery, we had a lot of passers-by that came in to see what all the hubbub was about.



FROM Milt Angelopolous: ( Droog Thespian):

FCBD was a lot of fun. I think year went more smoothly than I've seen it before. I think the patrons and the talents were all satisfied with how things went. The 501st was a big highlight of the day. It felt like less people than last year but this year were more customers and fans, while last year seemed like more passersby. It being in May, rather than June/July helps us avoid a lot of summer traffic trouble with so many other events downtown to participate in. Early May has it's own niche that was perfect for FCBD.

I had a blast! I feel very lucky to able to work in such a fun place on such a fun day.

It was long, but satisfying.

Good day, good company, good times, low prices.

Who could ask for more?


From Robert Miller: ( Droog master)

We opened an hour earlier than usual and customers were waiting to come in! They came from over 100 miles!
Our artist/writers and other guests did their best to stay throughout the day. Some came as others went, and it made for a nice time as some customers could not make it earlier.

Popcorn was donated by the local Regal movie theater with which we had worked out a cross promotion. They gave out many hundreds of comics to their patrons for two weeks prior to our event. Each FCBDAY bag contained an adventure/superhero comic, an event flyer and an all ages humor comic. For the last batch to the theater, I added manga samples which went over well.

We also had much Cosplay from the anime crowd! Inu Yasha, Vash, Children from Final Fantasy Seven: Advent Children came for the fun, and more.
Let us not forget our friend in furry-land as well. Lots of costumed characters for a great fun day.

We applied special discounted sales to various departments throughout the store. We looked on it as a reward to out loyal customer base and an affordable introduction to those who may wish to dabble in our hobbies.
The largest hits were the sixty or so boxes of 10 cent comics. Folks also filled a long box for $20.00 each!

Graphic novels made up the largest percent of the days total with games coming in second. The games includes CCG, RPG, and miniatures.
I have not tabulated all the data from both registers yet due to the extensive work on our photo website .

This is our one large advertising expenditure each year other than The Yellow pages. We do radio spots which seem to catch a crowd which are not our regulars. This is a good thing. Perhaps it would work without an event, though I'm thinking more of trying cable TV ads in the future.
We ordered enough extra comics to have some all year. These are used for donations, and general gifts to newcomers to our store.
We gave many of the Star Wars comics to the 501'st Connsquad for them to give out at other events. Each comic bears our sticker with the address, phone number, email address, and a nice star Wars picture of the Connsquad folks.

I can say sales were up 10% from last year and the crowd seemed thinner, but that may have been more of a perception as we were not hemmed in by bad weather like last year. Then, the fates gave us endless wind and a fair amount of rain, so we crowded more inside the store.
This year we spread wide and went onto the sidewalk once more. Hence the store had a great flow though for the people who came. And they came!

We also raffled off a Star Wars Light Saber and a lucky young woman from the Groton Sub Base won it:
http://www.pbase.com/harpozep/image/59922007

More info to come. Please check out or photo gallery. It is sure to put a smile on any face:)
http://www.pbase.com/harpozep/freecomicbookday2006&page=all

The list of guests included:

~ The Stormtroopers of the 501st - The ConnSquad Garrison graced us with their presence and amazing costumes.
http://www.pbase.com/image/59906040
http://www.pbase.com/image/59906545
http://www.pbase.com/image/59910176
http://www.pbase.com/image/59908394
http://www.pbase.com/image/59908181
Etc, many more on the site.
~ Steve Ahlquist & Chris Reilly - co-creators of Strange Eggs and four time Harvey Award nominee for the comic Puphedz.
Chris is writer and creator of Punch and Judy, and Steve is writer and creator of the Oz Squad.
~ Andrew LoVuolo - creator of The Rift and co-writer of Marshal.
~ Professor William H. Foster III - Author of The Changing Image of African Americans in Comics.
~ Keith Champagne - currently inking Firestorm and Batman, with more coming later this year. Former Writer for JSA, Creator of Armour X from Image
Not to be confused with:
~ Keith Murphy - Our favorite member of the Comic Artist Guild
~ Randall Ensley - Sci-fi artist extraordinaire nominated for the 2002 Chesley Award for Best Interior Illustration.
~ Ben Morse - Wizard Magazine writer
~ Dave Quintana - Artist/Writer previously with Image Comics
~ Shawnti Therrien - Artist of the web comic Am I Immortal
~ Ox Baker - Old school wrestler. Even if you aren't a wrestling fan, you may remember this bad boy from the film Escape from New York.
We hope folks will be talking about this FCBD for some time to come!
Thirty one pizzas, an endless drink supply (from our two soda machines) for our guests and staff, sales and a general fun atmosphere all came together to make it a memorable time for all.
Some people are already emailing our live journal about costumes for next year's event!
Thanks again to Joe Field for well, fielding this idea. It is a winner!

The photos are not in any real order yet, so sort through them and have fun!
More photos to come. Stay tuned.................

If you have any photos from the event that you'd like to share, PLEASE email us at sarge@sargescomics.com, and we'll add them to our ever growing gallery. :)