And it's Free Comic Book Day soon.....

& over the world that will mean lots of existing comics fans are clutching their free comics.
Which sort of defeats the object of the exercise really.

Free Comic Book Day is on May 7th and is, in theory, a really great idea. The publishers produce several comics designed to be given away by retailers on one day to promote comics to the general public.

The problems, however, quite outweigh the benefits:

First, it's not free comic book day for retailers. In the UK the cheapest "free" comic costs about 30-40p a copy.
In other media, promotional material from the publisher or manufacturer is simply given to the retailer, but not in comics. The retailer has to take a financial hit for every free comic given out.

Of course, if that meant that the free comics generated more sales in the long term the extra cost wouldn't be a problem.
But sadly, over the years at Nostalgia & Comics our verdict was that it just doesn't seem to be the case.
Because most of the free comic books are superhero ones they tend to be taken up by existing customers only. We used to really enjoy the day at Nostalgia & Comics, but the best feeling was to give away comics outside the store to passers-by, not to our existing customers who'd already crossed the threshold of the store.

Worth popping over to the FPI blog to hear Kenny's take on this as well..... here.