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Subject: Destination: Comics! (CBG #1661): Flying Colors Comics -- Concord, Calif.

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Brent Frankenhoff Posts: 4201	Posted: 11/5/2009 6:37:45 AM
Brent Frankenhoff Posts: 4201	Flying Colors Comics & Other Cool Stuff Owner: Joe Field 2980 Treat Blvd. Concord CA 94518 (925) 825-5410 http://flyingcolorscomics.com Flying Colors Comics & Other Cool Stuff proprietors Joe and Libby Field (right) want to warmly welcome everyone who comes to their store. [Editor's note:* An abridged version of this article appears in CBG #1661.]* Joe Field is the founder and owner of Flying Colors Comics & Other Cool Stuff in Concord, Calif. Active in the comics industry for more than 20 years, Field issued a call for a Free Comic Book Day in the pages of CBG sister publication Comics & Games Retailer that led to the annual event, which will mark its ninth anniversary in 2010. Please provide a timeline of your store’s history. Flying Colors Comics & Other Cool Stuff first opened for business Oct. 3, 1988. Prior to that, I was a local sales manager and marketing director for KJOY-AM Radio in Stockton, Calif. There, I had the idea to petition Marvel to name Stockton as the “official birthplace” of The Fantastic Four for Marvel’s 25th anniversary in 1986. That led to Stan Lee coming to Stockton, which in turn led to my doing a bit of freelance public relations when Stan’s wife, Joan, released her first romance novel. From there, I was asked to do advertising and promotions for WonderCon, Northern California’s largest comics convention. After that, I decided to get out of radio and into comics full time. What makes your store a destination? To a degree, all comics specialty stores are “destinations” for fans of comics. Some of what makes Flying Colors extra special are: 1) our staffers, who are ready and willing to share their enthusiasm for a wide variety of comics and graphic novels and to help nurture comics readers of all ages and interests; 2) our selection, which is one of the deepest for new comics and graphic novels in Northern California; and 3) our events. We’ve done live music in the store, school fund-raisers, a comic-book poetry reading, artist and writer signings, and more — Plus, Flying Colors is the home of Free Comic Book Day! How do you promote your store? We’re regularly on local cable TV with ads, we do not-so-regular e-mail newsletters, direct mailings, and other ads. We do a yearly calendar/poster that we give away in the store and distribute to schools and libraries in the area. The “Flying Colors Fan Brigade” is on Facebook, and I have a fairly active blog at FlyingColorsComics.com. And we’re always looking for new ways to promote our store. What has been your best sales day to date? Every Free Comic Book Day is a stellar day for sales. It’s a huge party, where we offer deals, and we usually get more than 1,000 people through the store on those special-event days, so it’s no wonder they are also our best sales days. Do you participate in Free Comic Book Day? If so, please share highlights. I may be partial to the event, since I was its founder! On FCBD, we’ve had terrific in-store guests including Jim Lee, Mick Gray, Glen Brunswick, J.H. Williams III, Bill Morrison, Phil Ortiz, Eric Jones, Landry Walker, Darick Robertson, John Heebink, Kireon Dwyer, Rick Remender, and the creative crew from our own (still available!) Flying Colors 20th Anniversary Special Edition comic book. Even with that amazing list of guests, the true highlights for me are seeing people of all ages coming into the store for the first time to get a taste of just how cool comics are. Nurturing readers is always a highlight for us at Flying Colors. What do you do on new comics day? Our new releases days are a party every week! Fans in this area depend on us to give them great recommendations in an entertaining environment — and we do our best to deliver on that every day. Knowing just how important Wednesday is for everyone who comes in here makes us want to do better all the time. We’re privileged that so many people have fun coming to our store, so we want to make the experience a memorable one every time. Flying Colors’ staffer Marty Messner assists longtime fan Ron Thomas in finding the week’s coolest comics. Who has been your most popular creator at a store signing? Our Grand Opening event 21 years ago was with a relatively unknown young artist named Jim Lee — and I believe Jim still considers Flying Colors his old home store. His signing here for the release of X-Men #1 in 1991 drew 1,500 people to Flying Colors. Jim has done several signing events for us, and each one has been a big success. Of course, sheer numbers are just one way to look at the success of a signing. With the various pros we’ve had in our store over the years, some have been smaller events that were still big successes, such as our events with Don Rosa, Dick Ayers, Stan Lee, John Romita Sr., Dan Brereton, Grant Morrison, Dave McKean, and others I feel bad for not mentioning. Who would you most like to have appear at your store? I’d love to have Stan Lee back for a more public signing. He was here in 1990 for a small, private event limited to about 25 invitees. The list of names I’d love to have visit here includes Joe Kubert, Jim Steranko, James Sturm, Ed Brubaker, Gene Yang, and maybe 200 others I’m blanking on right now. What makes your store cool? Why should people come to your store? Flying Colors is fresh every single week. There’s always a buzz about the store. There’s always something new to see. We make an effort to be on the leading edge of the comics biz and on top of what’s going on, so fans know they can get an inside scoop on what’s happening when they visit us here. An interior view of Flying Colors’ deep stock. In the foreground is the Marvel and DC “Memory Lane” featuring DC’s Showcase Presents and Archive editions and Marvel’s Essentials and Masterworks. Dedicated manga and Vertigo sections can be seen against the far wall, with Flying Colors’ “New & Cool” rack at middle right. If your store were gone tomorrow, what would your customers miss? I’m sure they’d miss the staff as much as anything. We’ve made a lot of friends here over the years. What they might not know they’d miss is that we do a lot of work behind the scenes to try to build a more thriving comics business for all retailers through ComicsPro, the Comics Professional Retail Organization (www.ComicsPro.org). What upcoming promotions, sales, etc. do you have? We’ll have our new and cosmic 2010 poster/calendar ready to go in November. We’re participating in “America Unchained” Nov. 21. It’s an event that asks consumers to reserve that day to support only locally owned independent businesses. So we’ll have something for all of our store guests that day. ____________________________________________________ More Resources For Comics Collectors • Great Books, CDs, Price Guides & More • Check out our FREE Online Classified Ads • Sign up for your FREE CBGXtra.com email newsletter ____________________________________________________ More Resources For Comics Collectors • Check out our online bookstore at Shop.Collect.com for comics-related items! • Have you placed a FREE Online Classified Ad? • Sign up for your FREE CBGXtra.com e-mail newsletter!

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