FREE COMIC BOOK DAY: A Confirmation of the Importance of Comics — and Community
Comics retailer Marc Hammond, of Aw Yeah Comics in New York, reflects on the chaos — and comfort — of the annual event, coming Saturday… — UPDATED 4/30/25. This piece first ran just after 2024’s Free Comic Book Day, but it’s a wonderful rumination on why the event is so special, making it the perfect time to reprint it. Also: Click here to check out our FCBD 2025 HOT PICKS! Dig it! — Dan. — By MARC HAMMOND I could type out 10 different posts about this year’s Free Comic Book Day, or really just about the yearly event in general. Now that I have been able to throttle back a bit, and the shop is all put back to normal, maybe I can string a few coherent thoughts together. I, like many retailers, have a weird love/hate relationship with FCBD. It is time intensive, a massive allocation of every resource you have, and (for me, anyway) dominates my brain for weeks leading up to it. I can never sleep the night before, and I get here as early as the first train heading to Harrison, New York, allows. I am exhausted by the time I get home, and I know the following few days will be blur of catching up on the necessary routine of ordering, restocking, social media, live sale planning, and a hundred other things done regularly. However, it’s all worth it. I’m not talking about the sales numbers, though we’ll do a deep dive into that in the coming week, too. It’s a confirmation of the importance of comics, of our place in the community, and the community of comics we have fostered in this place. It’s a family walking in for the first time, or better yet the second! It’s people rearranging their work schedules to be with us on that day. It’s the opportunity to take a comic we love and put it in the hands of someone we hope will read it and fall in love with it the way we did. That’s the part I love. For a few days, my feed on Facebook will be filled with recap posts, and photos, and other shop owners like myself thanking their crews and their guests. It’s kind of amazing. To my partners, to our crew, to our guests, and to everyone who...
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