FCBD 2012: More Comic Book Geekery In Local Stores!

Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) is approaching and more details have surfaced from this year's participating stores.

After a successful FCBD debut last year, Kinokuniya returns as one of the stores involved in this Saturday's events. And they have made a couple of cool announcements.

Firstly, privilege card members will be able to get their stack of free comics when they produce their membership card at the Kinokuniya's Orchard Road flagship store! (Don't be greedy, Red Dot Diva warns. One set for each member only!) Also, specially for members, there is a 20% discount going on for all comics purchased!

In addition, Kinokuniya has added a more family-friendly theme by inviting the local Star Wars 501st Legion for a store appearance. What better way to kickstart your children's geek cred than by getting them to meet Star Wars characters??

New to the FCBD fray this year is Paradigm Infinitum (PI) - the #1 Board & Tabletop Games store in Singapore! The shop is located at #03-01 of Midpoint Orchard, just a hop away from Kinokuniya. Head to PI to help them celebrate the soft launch of their new graphic novels section. They will be giving all store visitors 10 free comics! The freebies may not be the official FCBD comic releases but why would anyone turn down some cool comics for free?!?

Red Dot Diva had earlier reported on the all-out geekfest that GnB comics is pulling in this year with special guests DC artists, Nicola Scott and Ardian Syaf. (Click here to read the previous FCBD blog article.) They have managed to join hands with movie distributor Cathay for an event tie-up, so if one is not able to meet both Nicola and Ardian at GnB in the morning, there is still another chance to catch them at the Cathay from 6pm onwards! Both artists will be there meeting fans and doing signings.

(Want to know more about Nicola Scott? Read Red Dot Diva's short Q&A with Nicola here!)

But wait... there's more!!!!

Harris Planerds have just announced their FCBD events today as well. Two local-based artists who have been gathering quite a strong fanbase will be doing sketches at the store from 12 pm to 6 pm! They are Wendy "Mashi" Chew and Rudy Ao. Red Dot Diva knows these two lovely artists personally and simply adores their unique art styles. She would love for more folks to get to know them better. So don't miss saying hello to them at Harris this Saturday! They will be absolutely delighted to meet you!

Regarding the nabbing of free comics, non-Planerds members will be able to get 3 free random comics when they visit the store, while members are given a whopping 12 books (with at least 5 GOLD books)!! WOW!

Harris Planerds is also celebrating its 1st birthday, and with that, the store is running a fantastic sale with great discounts from 4 - 20 May. So you might actually be able to do a fair amount of geek-shopping there.

sketch card by Shawn Yap

Finally, not one to be left in the dust for local FCBD, is newbie on the block - Invasion! Toys & Collectible located at Funan DigitaLife Mall. The small comic shop has decided to continue with its indie streak by having local artist, writer and illustrator Shawn Yap as their "breakout" guest for FCBD.

Shawn has already published his own works - a noir detective piece called “Jack Doe: Anonymous”, followed by "Closets" (which resembles something out from "Monsters, Inc"). And he is poised to release his third book, the introspective story based from his childhood called "Letters". Red Dot Diva considers it pretty impressive for one to not only have talent, but the gumption and conviction enough to get his own stuff out there.

Special art prints of Shawn's artwork will be available at Invasion! store and he will also be doing sketches there. For those who want something different and more Asian or local, this might be just the thing for you on FCBD. In fact, to get a taste of what Shawn's artistic inclinations are, go visit his website!

Phew.
That's just about all the FCBD deets Red Dot Diva has for the moment. FCBD Singapore sure seems to be getting way lots more fun these days!

And, hey as you are triapsing around the island for free comics, you might even get to play Spot The Diva this Saturday too! (Go take sporadic peeks at the Red Dot Diva FB page for more details tomorrow!)

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A group of bloggers have set up the FCBD Singapore FB page so that information could be centralized for all of local geekdom. Go LIKE the FB page now!

And please do share your fun FCBD experiences on the FCBD Singapore FB page to keep the love for comics going strong!