It seems a pity that this forum has gone so dead since Monday...I must conclude that you are all preparing for your role as the Easter Bunny in this weekend's egg hunts and hidden baskets!
Several years ago (more than 2 decades) there was a single classified ad listing that was selected from all the others in the back of CBG newspaper to be highlighted on the front cover in the upper right. This was a form of encouraging ads to be placed, but it really gave an incredible boost for whoever was lucky enough to receive the spotlight position.
As we approached Halloween one year, it occurred to me that my excess comic box (commonly called the dime box, or quarter box later on) wasn't selling at all in my personal trader display add anymore...and so I had a box of unwanted comics on my hands. I had an inspiration that instead of giving away candy for Halloween that year, I was going to give one comic to each kid who came by.
As an effort to help promote this, I had one freebie classified ad that had been earned from my subscription renewal....and so, I used it to write a short classified and attached a note for the editor to please consider it for the spotlight position at least a week prior to Halloween.
It read, "Save our industry! Give away your 10 cent box comics instead of candy this Halloween" or words to that effect.
To my great surprise and pleasure, they took the ad and placed it on the cover!
As I reminice about this event, I'd like to encourage you all to select some kid friendly issues that you've got laying about in your collection...not anything that might give you pain if it were ruined, but things that might inspire a young kid to read and start reading comic books.
Then, wad them up as tightly as you can, and compress them into a plastic easter egg....
I keed, I keed.... April Fools! (But seriously, folks, consider slipping a comic or two into that kid's easter basket this weekend, eh? The industry that we pre-seed and save might just be our own!)
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The better chance comes at Halloween. A few publishers put out digest-sized comics to give out then, but the quality is wildly inconsistent, making it tough to know what to buy. Some of them are promotions for comics rather than actual stories, and some aren't suitable for actual kids.
Sadly, DC doesn't often participate, and Archie often provides non-Halloween or teasers for new series which is awful. They'd both have ample material for a good Halloween comic.
And I maintain that Halloween is a much better opportunity for publishers to spread the word than Free Comic Book Day, where kids who know about comic-book stores can choose from among several hundred free comics and then go away for a year.
Even so, I give out about 300 comics at Halloween, and have become pretty well known for being the comic-book house. Kids get pretty excited about getting comics, so the interest is still there.
Speaking of wadding up, though, the toughest thing about giving out comics is sticking them into those little plastic pumpkins that seem to be rage. Why buy a tiny little pumpkin that they have to empty out after awhile when an old pillow case or shopping bag works so much better? Kids today, I tell ya.
Happy Easter!
-- MSA