It was Free Comic Book Day today! G&B Comics was one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of comics retailers who take part in the annual event.
FCBD is an annual event, held the first Saturday in May – today, in other words. G&B gave out free comic books, specially printed for this event, at their new shop at Rochor Centre! They’re not open at the new location yet, but they’ll be moving in June, so it was a way to introduce the new shop to their costumers.
So anyway, off it was to the new place to see the shop and to get free comics! Click through after the picture for more!
The new place is at Rochor Centre, which I’d never been to before – so it took some searching. I thought I was lost until I looked up…
And I knew I’d found it. It took a bit more searching to find stairs or a lift, since it’s on the second floor, but I found it. Their signboard isn’t ready yet, so in place of that they had a giant banner and lots of signs.
The new shop is fabulous. It’s much bigger than the old one, and they even have a little climate-controlled room for statues, busts and figurines. The picture only shows about 3/4 of the mini-room, because it was quite crowded so I couldn’t really get a wider view without walking into someone.
On the other side of the shop are the shelves for the trade paperbacks. They were having a sale, so it was quite popular!
Unfortunately, it was all Marvel, which isn’t my thing. But I did manage to get a book. There’s a half-wall separating the two halves of the shop; on one side is the rack for presumably the new release, while the other has pictures of the staff at various events and a big picture signed by the members who attended their Christmas party.
Then at the back was the little counter they’d set up for FCBD. They’re not totally set up, since they’re moving, so there was plenty of empty wall space.
Near the front of the shop is this really cool Marvel figurine tower. All sorts of Marvel characters were stacked up on a tiered stand, and you could literally spend an hour identifying each one (that’s Spiderman at the top):
Further inside the shop was the unfinished DC one:
There are quite a few other display cases. This one was in a corner, and held all sorts of DC action figures. Can you spot the Soviet Superman?
At the back of the store are some unhung posters, but they already had a GL one:
I also spotted a Zatanna one rolled-up in the corner. Members got an extra gift if they wore their member tee, which turned out to be the FCBD mini-mate!
All in all, it was a great introduction to the new shop. The various conversations I overheard were fascinating; in one corner, random strangers are talking about the demise of scans_daily, while in the other someone is explaining Final Crisis to another person.
Looking forward to the next FCBD!