Rolling for Initiative is a weekly column by Scott Thorne, PhD, owner of Castle Perilous Games & Books in Carbondale, Illinois and instructor in marketing at Southeast Missouri State University. This week, Thorne shares thoughts on Free Comic Book Day 2026 (and Comics Giveaway Day), and offers suggestions for the next one.
Free Comic Book Day is slowly winding down here with sales up a healthy 30% over last year. After the initial rush, foot traffic slowed until around noon then picked up and stayed steady until early evening. Other stores also indicated healthy sales, with a number indicating they had set sales records for the day.
From what I have read from other stores’ postings online, the Dungeon Crawler Carl preview book for the graphic novel from Vault Comics was easily the most popular book offered (see “Dungeon Crawler Carl“), as many stores commented they had a large number of people coming by just to find that book. Those same stores also reported selling a large number of the Dungeon Crawler Carl blind bag pin sets from Foam Brain. Our customer base seems really excited for anything Dungeon Crawler Carl-related.
The other items that got a lot of attention, at least at our store, were the TCG items provided by Universal. There was not much interest in the Pokemon poster and attendees showed it by leaving most of them there. However we put out the boxes of Magic: The Gathering Welcome Decks with a sign welcoming customers to take one along with their FCBD books. We also made up gift bags from the TCG and non-sports packs provided by companies to give away. Both the gift bags and Welcome Decks were gone by noon, though we will see how many of the people who got them come back interested in the TCGs. Still, it was a nice addition to FCBD, and we did have a few people come in specifically to get the gift bags and deck.
Now, a few things I would really like to see for next year:
Branding Consistency. Please Universal and Penguin Random House, have your people talk with their people and make one consistent brand for the day. The industry has spent over 20 years working to brand the day as Free Comic Book Day. Tossing in Comic Giveaway Day just works to dilute that branding. Granted, most customers do not care. They just care about getting free comics and do not care if it is Free Comic Book Day, Comic Giveaway Day or Make Your Annual Appearance to Get Free Stuff Day but it certainly makes it easier on the stores and precludes the distributors from having to make different posters showing the books offered from each one. Give us one poster showing the top books or the books publishers are willing to pay to have appear on the poster.
Realign Colors for Logos. Over the years, FCBD books have developed a consistent color logo to indicate the age appropriateness for books: green is for all ages, blue is for teen and red is for 17+. The orange logo for the teen books for Comic Giveaway Day added an unneeded bit of confusion for my staff to the event. Stay consistent with the logo colors.
Use the Right Logo. The logo color should reflect the books contents. Archie Comics and DC Comics were specifically bad with this. World of Archie had a blue logo on it. Really? Given the content, that book should have been marked green for all ages. Similarly, Aquamanatee should have had a green logotype rather than blue. DC was a repeat offender this year, as last year’s Superman’s Good Guy Gang was also blue logoed. We want to get the next generation of readers picking up comics and marking books as “teen appropriate” rather than “all ages” steers them away or means our staff has to explain to parents that “yes indeed, World of Archie is fine for your child.”
If you hosted FCBD, how did it go for you? Comments welcome at castleperilousgames@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Source: ICv2
