Free Comic Book Day Morning!

It’s a day after Free Comic Book Day and what a day that was! The last time I had to dash from shop to shop grabbing comic books was couple decades ago when I was a kid and running from newsstand to newsstand looking for my weekly fix but I digress.

This is the one day of the year when comic book stores around the world become creative magnets for fans both old and new, and comic professionals. And let’s not forget grabbing all those the free comic books too.

Started the morning with a visit to GnB Comics at Rochor Centre. By the time, we got there at about 10.30am, there was a queue stretching round the store. Fresh from The Avengers screening the previous night, guest artists Nicola Scott and Ardian Syaf were already behind the table and signing furiously for all their fans. There was just so much happening; you got free comics, exclusive art pieces for sale and autograph signings. Definitely another winning experience at GnB Comics.

We hung around for almost an hour before taking the train to Orchard where we planned to hit three more shops celebrating FCBD. First stop in town was at Kinokuniya bookstore at Takashimaya. The bookstore had recently renovated their graphic novel section and if you haven’t checked it, you should cos it looks awesome. Unfortunately by the time we got there, we found out that most of the free comic packs had already been given away as there was a much larger and earlier turnout of fans! Well, for those who missed it, they had the amazing hardcover Mouse Guard in their pack and as far as freebies go, I thought that little hardcover was the best of the entire FCBD lot.

Plus just like for the last few years, the folks at Wizkids came up with a free Heroclix figure. This year, it’s none other than movie Thor. Now together with the hardcover Mouse Guard, they were my Best. Loot. Ever.

Next up was Harris Planerds at 313@somerset and I was immediately struck by the large turnout at the store. Seriously this was the first time I have ever seen Planerds so crowded which is a good thing of course. Everyone was grabbing tons of stuff, thanks to their incredible ‘60% off 6 items’ sale that they got going. The only thing that stopped me from splurging was a lack of display space on my shelves.

Artists extraordinaire Wendy “Mashi” Chew and Rudy Ao were also there doing sketches. With this being Planerds’ first anniversary as well, it certainly looked like a great FCBD for them.

After a quick lunch at the Food Republic food court upstairs, we zipped across the road to Paradigm Infinitum at Midpoint Orchard at about 1pm. It’s Paradigm Infinitum’s first FCBD celebration and also the soft launch of their very own graphic novel section!

Once again we were a little late getting there as the fun had already started. Piles of free actual comics, not the official FCBD ones, were given out to customers who showed up earlier. Happy customers with free comics books, you can’t ask for a better start or launch for Paradigm Infinitum’s graphic novel section.

Now if there’s one thing we learned this year is to show up early to support FCBD cos if you are late, you can say goodbye to cool stuff like exclusive sketches and the more popular free titles. It was an exhausting but a really fun Saturday morning, we hope everyone had a great time too and a big THANK YOU to all the stores who made this year’s FCBD possible!