FCBD Cross-Section

A customer made an interesting observation yesterday: On Free Comic Book Day, Dr. No’s welcomed an artist (Mark Bagley), a writer (Brian Reed), an editor (Joe Pruett), and a publisher (The Dabel Brothers--although Joe Pruett belongs in this group as well, since he’s taking his Desperado Publishing out on its own this summer). “It was interesting to get to talk to each of them, since each person has a different approach to comics and a different view on things influenced by what they do.” I hadn’t considered that until he mentioned it, but it’s a good point; each of our guests was able to offer interesting insights based on his experiences in the field, and it was a great way for newcomers and veteran comics readers alike to learn just what goes into creating a comic.

Hope you got a chance to talk to them all–every guest was gracious and eager to meet with fans, and visitor after visitor commented on how informative and engaging they were!

Free Comic Book Day 2007

Free Comic Book Day is always a big event at Dr. No’s, but it has never been bigger than it was today! We had over a thousand people come through the store, many of them newcomers to comics. There was an excitement and enthusiasm surrounding the day; again and again, we saw happy faces on children and adults as people discovered or rediscovered this amazingly entertaining medium.

Our guests–Mark Bagley, Brian Reed, the Dabel Brothers, and Joe Pruett--were accessible, and everyone seemed to enjoy the opportunity to get signatures and talk to people who actually make comics happen.

And of course, the comics were the stars. The first book to vanish was The Unseen Peanuts, due to some high-profile media coverage; we ran out of the book within an hour, in spite of the fact that we ordered a large stack of them. Other books that zoomed out of the store: Owly & Korgi, Comics 101, Sonic the Hedgehog, Lone Ranger/BattleStar Galactica, and Spider-Man (you’d think there was a movie or something!…).

And speaking of media coverage–a lot of people found us thanks to a wonderful feature article on pages 1 & 2 of the Buyer’s Edge section of today’s Atlanta Constitution; thanks, Jon Waterhouse, for dropping by the store and putting together such a great overview on Dr. No’s and our comic shop goals!

More than a thousand people… wow! It was so crowded at one point that the owner of a dry cleaners in our shopping center complained to a customer that we had too many people–we were hogging all the parking places! I’m going to point out that these are a lot of people who have never been into our shopping center until now; maybe next year, she’ll put together some bags with coupons for her cleaners that we can give to customers along with free comics?…