Our Last, Best Blog: A Call To Arms and More

Now that Christmas is out of the way and I have holiday money in the bank, it’s time to get back to aquiring gaming stuff. And in Spokane this means taking a trip back to the very start of my gaming roots…

Our first stop on this whirlwind tour of Geek Spokane is Merlyn’s.

Merlyn’s is something of a local legend, attracting gamers from as far away as western Montana (this is easy to believe when you remember that Spokane is essentially the center of a huge scrubby plateau between the Rockies and the Cascades). In part this is due to longevity: the shop’s been selling games since long before I discovered the hobby in the mid ’80s, and despite occasional competition (notably the niftily styled Gorilla Bob’s Adventure Emporium) has remained pretty much the only game in town in all that time. My first “real” gaming product, a copy of AD&D’s original Oriental Adventures book, was purchased here. So…inside:

Merlyn’s has been in their current location for around four years, and the move opened up a lot of space. Most importantly it allowed for several large gaming tables, and for the comic book aspect of the business to achieve roughly equal time with the gaming half.

 Game stores with both longevity and small-town location are a prime source for unexpected finds. My big score was a copy of the Twilight Imperium RPG, both because I’m a big fan of the boardgame and because I used to game with the author, Todd Nilsen, back in my college days. I might not use the system, but it’s certainly ripe for a T20 conversion.

The next stop on our tour is the aptly named Comic Book Shop, which gets away with it because like Merlyn’s it’s pretty much the only game in town. Despite this, The Comic Book Shop is, without reservation, one of the best comic book stores I’ve patronized, surrendering pride of place only to Cambridge, MA’s excellent Million Year Picnic.

Like a good game store, a good comic store is run by someone with a genuine passion for what he sells. An owner who is a reader will have a firmer grasp of what other people want to read. In addition, he’ll stock and direct you to titles that you might not otherwise ever pick up. While big chains like Barnes and Noble are becoming increasingly graphic novel-savvy, and generally have a decent selection, nothing beats combining that selection with a knowledgeable and easily available person behind the counter. It is for this reason that I try to support indie stores whenever I can. Plus the Comic Book Shop’s owner recognizes me even though I only come in once a year after Christmas. How cool is that?

The traditional end point for a game/comic shopping trip is one of the several Spokane Zip’s locations. Zip’s is part of a dying American breed: the regional fast food chain.

My personal favorite is the Division Street location. It’s a convenient final stop on the Merlyn’s-Comic Book Shop junket (in fact it’s right across the street from the Comic Book Shop) and thus a perfect place to appraise one’s swag over some chicken fingers. It’s also right next to Gonzaga University, where I used to take summer classes and work my summer job. A much younger me used to sit there on his lunch break from Foley Center’s media services desk, enjoying the respite from the dry plateau heat, reading the Forgotten Realms Volo’s Guides and letting his mind travel to kingdoms undreamed of…