Jeremy Massie is awesome.

Jeremy Massie drew these two awesome pinups for my daughter at last week's FCBD. Ain't they swell? My daughter loved them. Thanks Jeremy!

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

FCBD 2009...

...or Dear Comic Book Industry I Am Trying to Give You Money part 3

...or A Tale of Two Comic Book Shops part 2

...or Buying Comics Is Hard Even When They Are Free part infinity.

This past Saturday was Free Comic Book Day. One of my favorite holidays. Last year we went to Cavalier Comics in Wise, VA on FCBD and were treated very well. Brian had most of the books I would have wanted and we were fee to take at least one of each. It was good times.

This year we headed in the opposite direction up Route 58 and went to two comic shops. I won't mention the name of the first shop because it's not my intention to throw a comics retailer under the bus. We'll just call them comic shop #1. I love comics shops. However, this should be a lesson in now not to run your FCBD event. Or, pretty much now not to run you small business in general. See, the point of FCBD for a retailer should be to attract new customers and build goodwill with your existing customers. I've managed small businesses and the main obstacle was getting customers in the door. Well, FCBD does that for you. Now, if you want those customers to spend money you have to do one of two things. Offer them a product they want or a service they want. But wait! How do you figure out what they want? Well, here is a free retail industry secret for ya. You ask them. "How ya doin'? What can I help you find today?" For thousands of years, good and services have been successfully traded for money thanks to this wonderful technique. At comic shop #1? Not so much.

Comic shop #1 is about a forty five minute drive from my house. I go in with my two daughters, ages seven and two, full of excitement. I was hoping for a couple of free comics I want and to even buy some comics for my daughter. We walk in. We are not greeted. There is a FCBD poster on the door but no table or display. I had visited the FCBD site before our trip so I kind of had an idea on what to look for. I noticed some familiar looking books on their check-out counter. They had just a few books and only one copy of each on the counter. They had the "Gold" level comics which is the bare minimum for participation. Most of what I would want would be in the "Silver" variety, but I'm not one to snub my nose at free comics. We walk up to the counter and the guy does not even look at us. I ask if those are the FCBD comics and the entirety of his communication to us during our visit is , "One per customer." He did not even glance at my daughters. He did not even glance at the future of his customer base that I have been tirelessly training to love comics for his benefit. I grabbed the Savage Dragon book for myself, the Cars book for the two year old and my seven year old picked out the Star Wars book. We quickly left having spent zero dollars.

Kind of a bummer but not to fear. I knew my pal Jeremy Massie was going to be at Mountain Empire Comics over in Bristol, TN. It is about an hour drive from my house but it is the shop where I had my first pull list when I was a kid. It is a great shop and I knew I could at least count on them to have some good stuff for my kids. We get to Mountain Empire and the staff there immediately greets us, asks questions, talks kid talk with my kids. In short, they do what any small business should do with any customer that walks in the door. There was a good vibe in the store and you could feel the comics love and excitement. Jeremy was staying pretty busy talking up his upcoming book and was even interviewed by local news outlet. Jeremy's book is apparently non-fiction because the main character, The Deadbeat was there in the flesh.

Mountain Empire had a much better selection of books and we were free to grab one of each for each of us. They also have a great selection of comics a fellow like me might actually want to pay for and gasp... they had some kids comics for sale! Wow! I spent about fifteen bucks. Jeremy also drew amazing sketches of Kitty Pryde and Dazzler for my seven year old. She loved them. I will post them here as soon as I get a chance to scan them.

All in all it was an awesome visit. Well done Mountian Empire Comics. Well done. To comic shop #1... I still love ya. And I'll drop in whenever I'm on your side of town. See, ya had me at comic books. But if ya want my money...

I've not read through all the stuff I got but I was really happy with the Savage Dragon book. The Love and Capes book was pretty impressive. A great looking book from cover to cover. I was pretty stoked to get a free reprint copy of TMNT #1. I sold off all my Turtle comics years ago so it was pretty cool to re-visit that stuff. The seven year old seemed to really like the DC Kids book. (But not as much as the copy of Supergirl Cosmic Adventures I bought her.)

And now for the shameless pandering part of the post. Unfortunately, we got to Mountain Empire pretty late so I missed out on the main books I wanted. So if anyone has a copy of the Love and Rockets, Nancy or Owly books that they could turn loose of then let me know. I'll trade ya something cool. Thanks!

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

How to buy a comic book for a little girl...

...or, Shannon Smith and the Quest for Supergirl Part 4...

...or, Dear Comic Book Industry I Am Trying to Give You Money Part 2...

...or, Kids Like Comics Part 4...

As readers of Shannon Smith is Addicted to Distraction know, I loves me some comics and so does my daughter. (Now seven years old. The two year old likes them too but she can't really read. She just likes to steal them from her sister and run through the house like a crazy person. Or, like a two year old.) Part of the ongoing struggle that is my life as comic book reader in a world of smart phones and dumb people has been my quest to find a new floppy pamphlet comic (ya know, a comic book) that I can buy for my daughter. She has lots of old comics because, back in the day, they used to make comics for kids. She also has several Archie digest books and a bunch of Free Comic Book Day books from the past few years. But, still I have dreamed of and searched for a new traditional comic book that was for little girls.

If you too dream of being able to buy a comic book that a little girl would enjoy then just follow these 20 easy steps to little girl comic book buying success:

Step 1. Be born, learn to read and become a lifelong comic book reader.

Step 2. Grow up, fall in love with a pretty girl, get married, get her pregnant and have a little girl. (The "have kids with a pretty girl" part might be a challenge if you are a woman but you can look into adoption. If your child is a boy, you can pretend that they are a girl. Tom Cruise told me that it will not cause any psychological damage.)

Step 3. Introduce your little girl to comics. Take your little girl to comic book shops and conventions. Take her to Free Comic Book Day and get her some free comics. Give her some comics from your youth.

Step 4. Get excited about how much your little girl likes comics. Be amazed when she draws comic book characters like Kitty Pryde and Dazzler.

Step 5. Realize that your little girl is most interested in the comics that have strong girl characters.

Step 6. Realize that current comic publishers that make floppy pamphlet comics do not make many with girls as the lead characters or that are actually for girls in any way.

Step 7. Realize that comics is the only entertainment media that does not have product targeted at young girls.

Step 8. Get very angry.

Step 9. Buy your little girl Supergirl back packs and clothes but be sad that you can't buy her a new Supergirl comic book because the ones DC makes are weird violent obscene fanboy fetish things that no child should ever see.

Step 10. Start talking a lot on blogs, message boards and at conventions about how there needs to be a Supergirl comic book for little girls.

Step 11. Be amazed when you learn that DC is finally making a Supergirl comic for kids.

Step 12. Go to your nearest comic book shop on the day the first issue of the new Supergirl comic comes out. Leave disappointed because you got there before the UPS truck and you missed out on the comic because you had to go back to work.

Step 13. Visit another comic shop and ask for the comic. There you will be told that they do not carry kid's comics anymore.

Step 14. Visit another comic shop and ask for the comic. There you will be told that they no longer carry new comics.

Step 15. Cry and/or moan about this on the internet.

Step 16. Spend months going from comic shop to comic shop looking in vain for the Supergirl comic. (I checked seven stores in three states.)

Step 18. Drive to Athens, GA for the Fluke minicomics fest.

Step 19. After Fluke, go to Bizarro Wuxtry, one of the greatest comic shops on Earth (or other planets). There you will find issue #2 of Supergirl Cosmic Adventures in the Eight Grade.

Step 20. Buy it.

This my friends is the only way to buy comic books for little girls. This method is foolproof. I've worked on this method for seven years. It cannot fail.

Good luck.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

Six year old girls like Kitty Pryde.

(Kitty Pryde and Dazzler by Kassidy Smith age six.)

I mentioned before how much my daughter likes the Dazzler comic we picked up a few weeks ago.  It was Dazzler #2 and it has just a few panels showing Ktty Pryde and some of the other X-Men.  I've been amazed at how interested she has been in Kitty and yesterday when I came home from work she was proud to show me a bunch of Kitty Pryde and X-Men drawings.  The fact that she is a kid and often wears normal clothes seems to make the character very appealing.  I loved the X-Men as a kid and always cared about Kitty a bit more than the other characters.  And by cared I mean that I worried about her.  She was just a teenager so when she was in peril it had a lot more impact than if Colossus or even Storm were in a bind.  (I liked the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini-series even more than the Frank Miller Wolverine series.)  However, I've never been a little girl so I had no real scope of the impact the character had on girls.  No I get why so many girls got into comics through the X-Men.  It makes perfect sense.  They can see themselves in Kitty and she changed clothes more than the rest of the cast so there is that whole fashion element girls are attracted to.  

Was there a point to this post?  Um, I don't guess so.  I just find it interesting to look at these comics through someone else's eyes.

Your best pal ever,

Shannon Smith

p.s.  And since I'm talking about X-Men I may as well say I was disappointed by the new Wolverine and the X-Men cartoon.  It was kinda boring.  My daughter seemed to like it though.  She lit up every time Kitty was in a scene and she seems to think the Beast is hilarious.  I don't think she could care less about Wolverine though.  It's not a bad cartoon but it's a big step down from Batman: The Brave and the Bold or Spectacular Spider-Man.  I like the character designs and the cast choices but the animation, writing and music are all below the standard of what I'm used to seeing on Cartoon Network and the Kids WB, er, I mean whatever they call those CW cartoons now.  I also don't even have that Nick Toons channel so we caught it somewhere else on Sunday.  However, if I did have Nick Toons, I doubt that I would watch the show because Wolverine is on at the same time as Batman and Bats is simply better.  So far.

p.p.s.  And since I mentioned Spectacular Spider-Man... Hey CW, change your schedule!  Spidey is on wayyy too early.  7:30 for your best show?!?  C'mon.  I needs my Spidey fix at around 9:00 or 9:30 Saturday mornings.  Get that fixed right now!  Chop chop!