Support Your LCS | FCBD in the Pandemic

Free Comic Book Day was an annual event that is celebrated every first Saturday in the month of May, but due to the Coronavirus Pandemic, all related events and public gatherings in the country were halted. Most event organizers had to adapt to different means of still putting out ‘an event’ minus the human interaction, which made “Zoom” an immediate go to software to communicate. FCBD of course was canceled, but Diamond Distributors who publish the titles that are supposed to be given away have continued to produce the titles and they were distributed every week from July to September. In the Philippines, it was a different story and amidst that cancellation, you’ll find the ones who really supported the stores.

I’ve been an avid comicbook reader in my youth as there was never a time I would not miss going to the old Filbar’s branch located at the back of the National Book Store at the former Harrisons Plaza, which has new comics every Tuesdays just to check for the new arrivals.

These days I always pass by and make the visit to Planet X Comic Shop, which was located at level 3 of Glorietta 2 just beside the entrance of Mercury Drug (which is probably the only remaining relic of the old Glorietta from the 1980s). I have been supportive of Planet X Comic Shop going back to Comic Odyssey’s early days when Eric Baga use to represent the store proprietor handling the day-to-day operations on a daily basis.

This was when the original store proprietor of Comic Odyssey, Sandy Sansolis has not permanently moved back to the country in 2006 with his family who originally was based in Pasadena, California has managed two original stores in the US (the other branch was in San Diego, California). Planet X Comic Shop was not Comic Odyssey and they’re practically a low key shop having its own niche of customers when it had its first original branch in 2007 at the TriNoma Mall and Glorietta. But opening a comic shop in the Philippines takes a lot of backflipping and some serious cartwheeling to keep its doors open.

When the pandemic came they were one of the small businesses to get a hit since they now maintain a small kiosk in Glorietta with fairly enough regulars PXCS still continued to be resilient and after coming back to the country in 2018 I’ve been more supportive of the store ever since.

Free Comic Book Day | Limited

Planet X Comic Shop is probably the only store that still promoting FCBD despite the original run in the US has just recently ended last month. I’ve been looking forw3ard to this since Eric mentioned that he had collected fairly enough titles for walk-in customers to still get the FCBD experience on a limited basis.

Since we’re still in the midst of the pandemic the store still discourages visiting them in groups as they only allow one title per walk-in customer. There are also two titles in exception and that name is the Marvel published titles not given away for free as they are sold PHP 300.00 pesos each as a recoup for the shipping cost the store has paid for to get these titles as for those not in the know FCBD books are not free the comic shops still pays for the printing and the shipping cost.

So if you want to support local comic shops you have to spend and buy their books to keep them open as recent news of the second oldest shop, namely Comic Quest has announced their closure by the end of October.

Nothing is actually free anymore, but if you can support the shop, buying a book or two would be worth the effort in making sure they keep bringing some of the unique titles not available in major retail book shops.

Now, the FCBD titles are one per customer that’s why is limited and if you plan to make a store visit you are still required to sanitize your hands, wear your mask and that also includes a face shield.

Now, go enjoy a copy of the FCBD title only at Planet X Comic Shop.