Comic Book Store Review: The Gaming Dungeon

So I'm in Washington PA right now visiting my parents and sister.  My wife and I took a flight from Denver CO and arrived in Pittsburg a few hours later, in which I had Tom Strong to keep me company.  Upon arriving, I new I would need to pick up the weeks comics so I went online looking for comic book stores in the area.  Sure enough, there is one store right next door to my parents house!  I decided to go there and check it out.  In addition to picking up the JSA and Blackest Night: JSA #1, I found some interesting things to add to my ever growing collection.

Comic Retrival
The store is having a 50% off sale on all there back issues.  I immidiately scolded myself for not bringing my list with me of what I need for my comic retrival project, but decided I could figure out what I did need and didn't need.  Which included Wonder Woman (1987 run) #10, 11, and 207...Power Girl #98 from 1978...Batman Adventures #9 from 2004....And Superman Adventures #28 from 1999.  I know for a fact I don't have any of these issues.  The only ones I'm unsure about are the Wonder Woman comics, but I'm 95% positive I'm ok.  And at 50% off, I think I'll be ok.  The other amazing thing was, the store had this deal where you could choose from a certain selection of trades at $4 per book!  And too my amazment, The Eternals by Neil Gaiman was on sale!  I totally nabbed it!

Store Review
The store itself is decent enough.  It's definitely more of a gaming store than a comic book store, even though it's collections are pretty large.  Now I wasn't able to find a lot of the comics I need for my comic retrival project, but that's going to get harder not that I have a huge chunk of what I need.  But it does have a great back issue selection at decent prices.  (either cover price or reduced.)  If I lived here, It's definitely the store I'd go to for my comic retrival.

Now, I do have some gripes about this store.  Firstly, the organization is pretty low.  Oh yeah, you can certainly find where the new comics are and graphic novels, but I find laying the new comics out on a fold-in table is a little strange.  I went to the new comics sections and could find what I wanted.  I went to ask for help and the guy walked me over to a s medium sized stack of comics and started flipping through them.  Now it seems this guy keeps comics stashed away for certain customers, which is pretty normal for a comic book store.  But these saved comics are kept in little brown bags and catolog along another fold-in table, with the customers names written in the bag in black sharpie.  I find these poorly managed and very lacking in the security side of things.

The people that run the store are very akward.  The guy who was working the store on the day I came in was very "out there" and in a daze, and seemed to be loosing his hair.  I went to ask him a few questions and his responses never went further than "yeah" or "sure."  Like wise, the next day, the girl (whom I believe is the wife of the man that helped me the previous day) who was working the store today had the same demeanor and attitude, although she was a tad nicer.

I would like to see a little more decorations in the store as well.  The store is very dull and plain on the inside and doesn't have the excitment which comic books stores like Mayhem Comics and Games in Des Moines Iowa or Acme Comics in Sioux City has.  I felt like I was walking into a bum's apartment and had a dirty, nasty feeling running through me.

I'll probably go back there next week to get next weeks comics as well as take advantage of their huge sale the store is having after Christmas, but I wont pay any more visits to that place again while I'm here.

5 out of 10 stars