Signings & Such

Let me start out by thanking some people: Thanks to Sal Abbinanti and his wonderful fiancée Karen who spent their Saturday out here in Waukesha. And thanks to all of you who came out for the signing! I hope everyone had a good time, I know I did.

Now, let me say that for those of you who were going to come but didn't show up, you really missed something special. Not a lot of comic shops in the area, in fact I don't think any store but ours in the last few years at LEAST, have had comic book talent come in for a signing. It's not a daily event; it's something that you'll get once, maybe twice a year. You can meet talent at Wizard World too, but that's in Chicago, and it's not FREE. And usually you don't get the same kind of time and attention that you do at a local visit like this. In addition to signing the comic, Sal did a free sketch of just about anything people wanted for anyone who wanted one. That's RARE! And he had us all laughing in the isles! Seriously, more of you should have been here.

We do signings for a few reasons; the most obvious one is to get new people into our comic book store. But that is really only a small part. We also do it to help promote the comic book and the talent that has come in. Both Sal and Sean McKeever, who was here last year, are guys on the way up, and we were lucky that they were nice enough to come all the way out to Waukesha, Wisconsin. And, most of all, we do it as a special service to our customers. We don't charge anyone, regardless of our costs for the event. As I said earlier, not every comic book store does signings like this, so to be able to go to your regular comic book store and meet up with someone who is 'in the thick' of comic book creation is a special treat.

Not having bought the comic is NO excuse! If you didn't pick up the comic book, you could still ask about how to get into making a comic book, discuss art styles, or just get a sketch and say "hi" to the talent. We promoted the event for several months--post cards, on our web site, TV commercials, newspaper ads, in-store posters & signs, so anyone who came in regularly in the last couple of months knew this event was happening. Yet, we did not have nearly as many of you here as we should have had. Even people who said just a few days before that they'd be here did not manage to show up. The crowd was OK, we kept Sal busy for the 3 hours he was here, and those that did come seemed to have a good time. There were Neptune regulars as well as people we first met that day. I know some people had other plans, but not all of you. These comic book guys talk, ok. The better turn out we get for one guy, the more likely it will be for the "bigger" guy to be convinced to come out. But if we only see a handful of you regulars, we figure 'there must not be much interest in having talent here. It's a service we offer that regular customers just don't want or care about; especially since it's a free bonus we've put out for them. Maybe that's why the older stores don't do it.' We invite a bigger guy, and he says, "no, I can't do it" because he heard from his buddy who was here last year that we had a lousy turn-out and it wasn't worth his time.

We are not New York, or even Chicago, so we have to work that much harder to impress people if we want talent to believe it's worth their time and effort to drive out here. If there is someone you'd love to see us host here for a signing, that's great, but don't expect us to be able to get them in if you don't show up and support those other talented people we get in first. The talent won't want to come because they've heard that Milwaukee isn't able to get a big enough crowd. And we won't spend our time and money and energy to bring people in. What I'm saying here is, if you like the idea of having comic book talent come in to your local store for FREE to autograph comics and be open to questions, then show up to support it, even if what they're working on isn't 'your thing.' And for those of you who did come out and take advantage, thank you.

BE SURE TO COME IN ON AUGUST 24TH WHEN JIM KRUEGER (EARTH X, JUSTICE) PAYS US A VISIT!!