Back from FCBD 2008

I RETURN, WITH PHOTOS~!!!!
I'm not in any of those btw, I'm not very photogenic so I stayed outta these ones for peace of mind. The turnout was not bad actually considering how crappy the rainy weather was.
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I stopped by the Labyrinth before hopping over to the Beguiling at noon and picked up the Imaginary Friends FCBD special which btw was very pretty to look at.

I was all like "WHERE THE FREEBIES AT~" and got pointed over to the back of the store where the owners Dan and Jessie had the stuff. They were gonna put it all outside until it started raining, and now they're trying to set it all up inside their tiny tiny store space.

I was running outta time so I speed-walked over to the Beguiling and met up with owner Chris Butcher, who was nice enough to point me over to a pub right beside their store where the local guest artists could sit and draw away from the rain. Unfortunately for some people the pub wasn't open for business so asking for alcohol was outta the question. But we had pizza~ And my goodness I had the best slice of Thai Pie evarrrr~

J.Korim swung by later and we got ourselves all nicely set up on these really cute small tables. I was told to bring in a bunch of extra Atomic Robo/Neozoic FCBD freebies because they didn't have enough, so I brought in like 20 or so. Big mistake, we were running low within half an hour LOL. Someone came in later on with a partial shipment of the issues so we were back on our feet giving out the freebies and signing or sketching stuff whenever people asked. There were a lot of kids who stopped by as well, they were adorable when they asked their little questions on who did what on the book and made their sketch requests <3.

I didn't meeta lotta Neozoic fans per se, but I did meet a bunch that liked what Red5 put out so far, and new fans that would love to see more Neozoic. There were ads all over the place for the general public to come stop by the comic shops, so of course there were many people who came in all new and fresh to this comic reading deal who could pick up a bunch of freebies to dig into.

When we nearly ran outta books to hand out, we ducked into the Beguiling and checked out some graphic novels they had since guest artists got a 10% discount on top of the already discounted price for FCBD. Korim got some trades of The Losers, and I grabbed me Wanted cause I kept hearing how good it was [which the dreaded movie adaption with Angelina Jolie will appear sometime this summer I think].

Before long it was around 3:03pm and we had to head on over to the Silver Snail. I thought the turnout at Beguiling was busy but Silver Snail was effing crowded!

I suppose it's a given if you got guests like:

- Stuart Immonen (Ultimate Spider-Man, Next Wave, etc.)

- Leonard Kirk (Marvel Adventures The Avengers, World War Hulk Aftersmash: Warbound, Agents of Atlas, etc.)

- Ty Templeton (Howard the Duck, Bongo Comics, Exterminators, etc.)

Aside from a bunch of Star Wars cosplayers loitering for fanboys at the front, there were a couple of police officers on the job as well to make sure no one was shoplifting during the mayhem. It was kinda hard wading through a lotta people up on the second floor of the store to get to our tables. By then we had our stack of freebies ready for giving away and did our thing until we ran out. There would've been more downstairs but they've been swiped by all the customers in the morning rush, so the manager dressed as Silent Bob tells me.

That's a good thing innit?

I came home all happy and glowing with all the free swag I managed to get. Aside from the Imaginary Friends special I got these sample freebies as well:

- Maximum Ride
- Hellboy
- Gekiga
- The Death-Defying Devil
- Ignatz
- Iron Man poster

So yeah, that was my FCBD in a nutshell. How about you guys? How was it over where you were?