captain_slinky | Snack-size Ohio Post #2

Today I went to Tiffin's one and only "Comic Book Store", and I use that term very lightly. Here's the best I can figure:

Right around 1992 (roughly the same time I opened my comic book store) there was a young nerd who thought it would be an awesome idea to open up a comic book/gaming store in Tiffin. He sunk about $5k in to inventory for his shop including a bunch of D&D stuff and mixed it with his own private comic book and sci-fi magazine collection.
In approximately 1995 he gave up. He either died or discovered girls or both. All of his unsold merchandise (which now also included some Magic: the Gathering and about a bazillion other boxes of non-sports trading cards) was sealed away in this store never to be seen by human eyes again...
...That is, till some time in about 2004 when his mom/wife/some lady realized that they still owned the building and checked it out. In the best of Star Trek tradition, she failed to grasp the concept of a Comic Book Store and re-opened the shop.

THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING

This lady who took over started selling regular periodicals (such as Time, People and Newsweek in the same way that one would sell Comic Books. Instead of filling the "New Releases" shelves with new COMIC BOOKS, she filled them with new issues of pretty much every magazine that you could find at your local grocery store, KEEPING THE OLDER BACK ISSUES FOR SALE. She also added several rows upon rows of new paperback books.
All of the comic books have been tossed in to ratty long boxes (about 30 of them) and put in the back corner of the store where a single New Arrivals Shelf still has nerdy stuff on it. Like, COMPLETELY RANDOM NERDY STUFF. A brand-new Star Trek Movie Magazine sits next to an issue of Savage Sword of Conan from 1992. New issues of "Supernatural" magazine (dedicated to the CW TV Show) are next to old issues of Enterprise Magazine from 1979. An X-Files TV Guide is next to an old Starblaze Graphics collection of MythAdventures. Madnesssssss... sheer MADNESS!!!
In the middle of the shop is a shelf full of trading cards from the 90's. Warriors of Plasm, Star Trek Undiscovered Country, Star Wars Galaxy, Spawn... the list just goes on and on. And right next to that table is the book shelf full of D&D Second Edition Box Sets. DARK SUN! FORGOTTEN REALMS! RAVENSLOFFT! It's all there! And on the other side of that is a glass case with all their Magic: The Gathering in it; booster packs going all the way back to ANTIQUITIES.
Other than the Magic: The Gathering booster packs in the glass case, EVERYTHING IS COVER PRICE!!! This means that if I dig hard and deep enough in those boxes, I'm finding comics from the 60's and 70's for as little as a quarter EACH!

This has made the entire trip worth it :)