The Dragon in Guelph, Ontario, and its owner Jenn Haines are celebrating 25 years in the business.  Haines, who is also the president of ComicsPRO (see “ComicsPRO’s Jenn Haines”), emphasizes a family-friendly atmosphere with a large selection of comics, graphic novels, and games for adults and children (see “The Dragon Is More than ‘Family Friendly.’ It’s Family Focused, Business 3x3: Jennifer Haines at The Dragon”). The store won the Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing Award in 2012.

The game store Lock & Key Adventurer’s Guild, of Lincoln City, OR, has expanded into a new retail space, going from 300 square feet that they shared with a coffee shop to a stand-alone, 1,500-square-foot store with separate retail and play areas. Owners Josh Meyer and Miranda Kelly told The Newsguard that the store will be a one-stop shop for tabletop game enthusiasts, with board, RPG, and trading-card games, gaming supplies, and a play space where they host gaming nights. “We charge five dollars a day for people to come in and play or we sell memberships where all the play space is free and you get discounts in the store,” Meyer said, and customers can also bring their own games to play in the space. Kelly offers art lessons in painting miniatures and also paints them herself on commission.

Lou Pulliam, co-owner of Comic Relief of Flint Township, MI, told Mid-Michigan Now that “we’ll just keep grinding on” after his store was burglarized three times. Pulliam, who has been the co-owner for 15 of the store’s 30 years in business, said he had just replaced the glass doors after the first break-in when another one occurred. “I came in on Sunday, and the windows broke again, I'm thinking did I get that fixed? But yeah, it's broken again. I come in and more stuff is stolen mostly Pokémon," he said. He’s keeping the store open, despite the freshly boarded-up windows, and the local police say they have two suspects, one of whom they have caught.

Titan Moon Comics of Cedar Park, TX, just celebrated nine years in the business; owner Adam Lajaunie, who started the shop with his brother Kent in 2014, told Community Impact that he was often snubbed in comic shops when he was younger, so he is determine to make Titan Moon a welcoming space for everyone.

Shana Porteen, owner of Black Ice Comics and Books of Houghton, MI, is a second-generation comics retailer: Her parents had a comic shop in Oklahoma when she was a teenager. Porteen, who credits her older brother with introducing her to the medium before she could even read, told UPMatters that she left a career in higher education to take the plunge into retail after a breast cancer diagnoses in 2015. “I thought ‘Okay, I need to step back from higher ed, so what am I going to do?’” she said. “And I thought, I know comics and I love people! I couldn’t leave people. And so, I decided to kind of to just jump in with both feet and see if I could make a go of it.” She opened her first store in 2016, and after the pandemic, with demand still strong, she opened up a new, larger store that also carries novels and serves ice cream and artisanal lemonades. In addition, she is the co-founder of the Geek U.P. event, which will take place on September 9 this year.

Lakeland News profiles Kingmaker Games of Brainerd, MN, which specializes in “non-screen games,” as owner Daniel Sabstion puts it, including board games, tabletop war gaming, and TCGs. “I grew up in stores like this my entire life, I spent most of my early twenties wasting a lot of time in stores and creating a lot of great friends and environments and really wanted to do the same here,” Sabstion said.

The Manchester, CT, store A Hero’s Legacy Comics and Collectibles is closing down after almost 30 years in business, first as Buried Under Comics under Brian Kozicki and then, after Kozicki’s death, by his best friend, April Policki, who changed the name to honor Kozicki. Policki, who has run the store since 2012, told the Hartford Courant that the distribution changes of the past three years, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the advent of digital comics were all factors in her decision to move on.

Short Takes

Heading to Hong Kong? The Honeycombers takes a look at local board game cafes.

Or if you’re staying domestic, Book Riot looks at unique comic shops across the U.S.

Gray Ghost Comics of Tifton, GA, celebrated its fourth anniversary with an in-store event that will include appearances by voice actor Tiffany Grant (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and artist Jason Flowers, the Tifton Gazettereports.

Community Impact profiles Comic Asylum of Richardson, TX.