More than 2,000 free comic books were handed out at Bill’s Bullpen Baseball Cards & Comics in downtown Hollister during the annual Free Comic Book Day event May 2.
Owner Bill Mifsud has participated in the annual event every year since its inception, making his shop on the main strip one of the longest-running participants in the region after 24 years.
Free Comic Book Day, held annually the first Saturday of May, is a worldwide industry initiative in which publishers provide participating retailers with specially produced issues to distribute at no charge.
This year, 24 titles were available. Mifsud sorted them into bags pre-labeled for children, teens and adults to ensure age-appropriate distribution. The event also featured a costume contest, face-painting and opportunities for kids to take photos with cosplayers dressed as their favorite comic book characters.
“We’re trying to put comics into anybody’s hands,” Mifsud said, “because we’re all kids at heart.”
The event drew families from across the region, including at least one who drove from Prunedale specifically to claim a free copy of “Supernatural” after learning the store had secured stock that a larger retailer had not received.
Cosplayers dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog, Pikachu and Luigi posed for photos with attendees during a two-hour window in the afternoon, while a face painter worked alongside them. A costume contest for children dressed as comic book characters rounded out the festivities, with winners receiving gift certificates to the store. This year’s winner was Dae Porter, 3, who came dressed as Mario.
Among the most requested titles of the day was a debut comic based on Dungeon Crawler Carl, a literary role-playing game novel series that is being adapted into a television series on Peacock.
Mifsud’s father, Bill Mifsud Sr., opened Bill’s Bullpen 38 years ago, before his son took over the store. When the shop first opened in its original location on the other side of town, Hollister’s population was roughly 8,000; the city has since grown to more than 40,000, and Mifsud said he has felt the difference.
“People come from San Jose and are excited to find a store like ours,” he said.
He acknowledged that brick-and-mortar specialty retail has thinned considerably since the 1980s, when many more similar shops operated between Hollister and south San Jose. He credited the survival of Bill’s Bullpen to diversification: originally opened to sell and trade baseball cards, the store now carries sports cards, non-sport trading cards, Pokémon cards and related merchandise alongside comics.
In addition, Mifsud said being an active member of the community and personally overseeing his store has helped him build relationships with his clientele and become an integral part of the downtown Hollister scene.
“You can’t be an absentee owner,” he said. “These brick-and-mortars won’t make it.”
Free Comic Book Day functions less as a revenue event than as a community one, Mifsud said. The comics are not free to retailers; publishers charge a nominal fee per copy. But he said the investment is worthwhile.
“I want to give back to people because they’ve been so good to us throughout the years,” he said. “The whole idea of Free Comic Book Day is, obviously, to drive traffic to the store. But more than that, I want to make sure that reading is fundamental. Reading is everything.”
Mifsud said he gives away comics through the evening and plans to have remaining copies available the following day for those who could not attend. By the end of the day, he had distributed more than 2,000 copies.
