This is a comic book and hobby shop that I have been visiting since around 1985 or so, I still remember the first pilgrammage there, my RPG/comic geek friends and I made a weekend visit down to a friend of our's place for the weekend for a big Dungeons and Dragons weekend. I think we may have been actually down to go to the Pandemonium gaming convention, but my memory is a little hazy.
Anyway, on Toronto trips, we would always hit the holy trinity of comic book stores to pad our collections. All were on Queen street west. Dragon lady Comics (now gone,) Grey Legion (above Harvey's, now gone) and the best of all, Silver Snail.
I recall on our first visit, we only knew the street, but not really where it was and we ended up walking about 4 blocks past it until someone insisted we check a phone booth for the address. Because of that moment, I will never forget that it is 367 Queen west.
The store front has changed a lot since then, it used to just have the sign and not much of a display, now there is a huge picture window that has some timely awesome construction built in it. This time is pretty amazing looking display for the new Indiana Jones film. You can see some photos of this display here.In the old days, the downstairs just had rows and rows of comic bins to flip through, with the really expensive comics hanging in bags up on the walls. This has all been replaced with huge pull out drawers containing the comics down the centre, then floor to ceiling bookshelves along the walls with graphic novels, art books and the like.
A beloved remnant of the old days is the stained glass dragon window at the top of the stairs. It used to be that downstairs was comic books, and upstairs was games and miniatures.
These days, games are still upstairs, but there are far less of them. I think the glory days of RPGs are long past. In fact I think my local games store in Boeblingen has a way better selection of games than Silver Snail does now. Perhaps I will do a future post on my local gaming stores. I know of four in the general area.Now the upstairs is dominated by "collectible action figures" something I am not personally thrilled by. Granted, the sculpting on most of them is pretty amazing, but when I compare them to my good old 1980s star wars figures, I just think the new ones don't seem that fun to play with.
Something really great SS has always been good is Japanese imports. Lots of giant robot model kits and other oddities. I finally found a hat that would allow me to answer the age old question, "what would I look like if I was some sort of human/cartoon fox hybrid?" I tried to look deadly serious.
Well, that is the nostalgia trip for this session. I think I will do some some future posts on the games/comic stores I have in my area these days. It is maybe interesting for the few ex-gamers reading this...***edit*** I have just learned that my "no longer there" comments are not accurate.
Grey Legion is now named Grey Region and exists on Yonge St.
Dragon Lady Comics has moved to College St.
Sorry about that, but I have not been comic shopping for about 15 years, give my poor memory a break!
2 comments:
I always thought that SS has a decent RPG section, although I can't find Cathulu Mythos which was a cool RPG from the university days.
They have the Call of Cthulhu game in my local store. Both the Chaosium version and the D20 one.
If you want a taste of Cthulhu without all the RPG stuff, go check out the pretty heavy board game Arkham Horror. It is a board game, but has so much stuff in it, it almost is an RPG that can be played in a couple of hours. Great game.
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