Bedrock City Gets A Little Cranky

If you read my previous post about Free Comic Book Day you'll know that I thought it was a bust and a waste of time. So I complained on the Facebook page of the comic shop I went to, Bedrock City, which is a chain in Houston and the surrounding areas. I basically just told them that waiting in line for 4 comics for 40 minutes was not worth it. This is what they replied back on their Facebook:

"Sorry you feel ripped off for us giving you something for free. Many stores in town only let you get one comic, but we wanted people to be able to try multiple titles. I apologize for not letting you take one of everythingl. I can understand how horrible it is to be limited to what you get for FREE. We actually pay for these comics and do this to help promote comics and let people try something new for FREE. Sorry you had to wait in line, as I guess we could have left it to a mad dash for comics. We felt the line would help keep it organized, and it did. It moved quickly, and the only people that waited 40 minutes were ones that got here before we opened and chose to wait that long. It's amazing the things that people find to gripe about....."

Now I had no idea that the comic stores paid for the free comics. I'm sure that they paid just a fraction of the cost with the rest being underwritten by the pubs. If not, then that's not very fair. Be that as it may, I didn't really appreciate the patronizing and sarcastic tone of the Bedrock City response. According to them, I should be falling down on my knees and crying in gratitude for 4 shitty comics. They kept on throwing FREE in as though I didn't understand that it was free comic book day.

And yes, the wait and checkout process did take 40 minutes, NOT because I got there 40 minutes early, but because that is how long it took. I got to the store a bit after opening.

I replied back to Bedrock on Facebook and told them simply that I didn't appreciate their tone and that I was simply being honest. I thought Free Comic Day was a complete waste of time at their store, but other people might have thought it was great. I also told them that I spent over $20 in their store on Saturday and buy stuff almost every week from them. And that writing me such "witty" retorts might make me QUIT going to their store. If they had explained the situation without being rude, I would've just said "oh, I wasn't aware of that".

Soon after that, Bedrock deleted my posts and their bitchy reply. I'm still pondering whether I want to ever go back. There are plenty of other options for buying comics. Other comic stores, Ebay, internet and Ipad. In the end, I will have my revenge, because in a couple of years, comic stores probably won't even exist. They are obsolete already.