Last year, Senior V-P and DCU Executive Editor Dan Didio's convention panel tchachkie was an orange pin with the words DC Nation on it. It was his ambition, Didio said, to give away 100,000 pins over the course of the convention season. As he told Newsarama in an interview, he got close.
This year, DC has set the bar higher: four pins, with the option of a fifth.
And theres a trick to it all.
Audiences entering the hall for Fridays DC's DC Nation will receive one pin. Upon leaving, they'll get another pin. At Saturday's DCU: A Better Tomorrow Today! panel, the pattern will repeat, and in addition to the pin at the end of the panel, attendees will also receive a coupon. Take the coupon to the DC booth on the convention floor, be wearing the four pins, and bing-bango, you get the fifth, limited edition pin.
So first off what are these pins, and what do they say?
All are part of DCs push for the upcoming weekly series, Countdown. As such the pins tie into the major storylines of the series:
WWMMD? (that stands for, What Would Mary Marvel Do?)
I Found Ray Palmer
Look to the Skies!
Jimmy Olsen Must Die!
And the limited pin:
Darkseid Rules!
But wait, you say, Im not going to be at the convention on Friday for the DC Nation panel!
All is not lost during the day on Saturday and Sunday, a person will be patrolling the convention floor for a limited time, wearing a sandwich board sign with two of he pin slogans on it. Said person = pin source. Hit him or her up for your missing pins. No, it will not be Dan Didio wearing the sandwich boards.
DC will be repeating the pincentive at other conventions throughout the season.