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Comic Book Hideout has a wide range of comics on its shelves from Marvel to DC. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Play Live Nation is a gamer hotspot located right across CSUF. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
ROBOT4LESS’s prize model "Uncle Zaku" is on display right when you walk in the store. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Customers can play an impressive selection of pinball and arcade games while shopping for comics. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Located off Harbor Boulevard, Lost Levels has tons of classic console games to buy and trade. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Dice House Games owner Tuan Le chats with one of his regulars. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Excelsior Collectibles has a massive collection of comics and collectibles for any nerd enthusiast. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Comic Book Hideout has a wide range of comics on its shelves from Marvel to DC. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
For the past ten years, Fullerton has become a hotspot for everything related to geek culture. The city is immersed with plenty of places that can feed any insatiable nerd appetite whether you’re looking for comic books, anime, collectibles or video and board games.
Regardless if you’re a longtime enthusiast or just starting your journey, here is a list of the seven best places to explore this nerdy subculture locally.
Located on Commonwealth Avenue, the community-based comic book shop will be celebrating its tenth-anniversary in November. The Hideout was designed as a welcoming haven for anyone interested in comics, art and music.
“For us it’s community,” said Comic Book Hideout employee Nathan Smith. “We will make the connection and we love to learn about people, we love hearing their stories.”
With roughly over 10,000 comics in stock, the store also has an impressive collection of Pokemon and Magic the Gathering playing cards with an area in the back of the shop designated for customers to come in and play. According to Smith, the Hideout does a few small tournaments here and there but primarily focuses on more casual games like commander — a 100 card format of Magic where players build their deck around a single creature.
Play Live Nation is a gamer hotspot located right across CSUF. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Right across College Park is a gaming lounge where gamers of all ages can come and compete against others in real life for notoriety. Play Live Nation has become a hot spot for gamers in the area looking to play video and board games in a cool social setting, featuring some of the newest and hottest games for Xbox One, PC and Virtual Reality. The store even provides controllers and online accounts for its customers.
Play Live Nation also sells plenty of gaming related merchandise as well as collectible card and board games. It even hosts Magic the Gathering commander matches on Saturdays and Sundays.
If you’re wondering if you can rent out the store for your next birthday or private party, they totally got you covered. Just go onto their website and see all the cool options they provide.
ROBOT4LESS’s prize model "Uncle Zaku" is on display right when you walk in the store. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
If you’re an avid model builder or collector, check out ROBOT4LESS located at Brookhurst Road. Seconding as a cell phone repair shop, the plastic model hobby store focuses on Japanese imports, such as Gundam, Ultraman, Digimon and Pokemon.
The store also carries an array of tools, such as nippers, paint brushes and sanders, with a wide collection of Mr. Hobby paints as well as top coat thinners. Most recently, they started carrying the paint line from Games Workshops for customers who prefer to hand paint their models.
“I find that there's two fold when it comes to the fun in this,” said Daniel Kim, ROBOT4LESS store manager. “The first is the build experience. A lot of people just like to get out of their head, just focus on one project and work from beginning until end. And there's those that like the finished product and like to play with the toys, you know, to actually play around with it, to pose it, to show it off.”
Customers can play an impressive selection of pinball and arcade games while shopping for comics. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
This hole-in-the-wall gem can be hard to find for most people, but once you’re inside you’ll be stuck for a while gazing at its impressive collection of comics and arcade games.
For ten years, Comic Hero University has been in the midst of pop culture, providing a cool place for people to geek out. The store has close to 85,000 comics in stock, providing customers with plenty of classic comic titles from Marvel and DC, as well as new independent titles like “Something Is Killing the Children” and “The Nice House on the Lake.”
Located in front of the AMC theater on Lemon Street, this store gets its inspiration from comic book shops of the 1980’s. With a friendly atmosphere and classic pinball and arcade games including Iron Maiden, Flash Gordon, Pac-Man, Galaga, Ninja Turtles and Street Fighter, this place hits all the nostalgic feels.
Located off Harbor Boulevard, Lost Levels has tons of classic console games to buy and trade. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
If you’re a fan of classic arcade games and generation gaming consoles, then Lost Levels is the place for you. This boutique novelty arcade store has a wide collection of classic console games for Nintendo, Sega, Playstation and Xbox — you can even buy or sell your old video games for cash or store credit.
Lost Levels also offers arcade passes with unlimited free-play for their retro arcade games. These passes cost anywhere from $7, $10 to $15 and include access to classic games, such as Metal Slug, Ms. Pac-Man, Mortal Kombat II, Windjammers and Total Carnage.
Dice House Games owner Tuan Le chats with one of his regulars. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Since 2009, Dice House Games has been the go-to in Fullerton tabletop games. With over 2,000 titles, the store is split into two sections; with one side stacked with hundreds of board games like Catan, Carcassonne and Dark Souls while the other side is dedicated to more role playing games like Dungeons and Dragons. The store also sells plenty of accessories, miniatures, dice and even Magic the Gathering playing cards.
Centered inside the store is a long gaming table for customers to come in and play during business hours. According to Dice House’s owner Tuan Le, the store is currently not hosting any tournaments due to Covid-19 precautions but the tables are open for customer use.
One thing Le wants customers to know is that he doesn’t treat his store like a business.
“I don’t try to upsell you, I’m always going to be honest with you, brutally honest,” said Le. “There are certain games that I love and certain games that I hate that sell really well. And I’ll tell them I don’t know why this game is selling well, it caters to certain customers and it’s really popular, I don’t like it myself because of blah, blah, blah and I’ll be completely honest with my customers all the time.”
Excelsior Collectibles has a massive collection of comics and collectibles for any nerd enthusiast. (Matthew Keyser / Daily Titan)
Fullerton’s newest comic book store is also one of its biggest. Located off South Harbor Boulevard, this treasure trove of geek paraphernalia has everything from comics, pop and anime figures, Disney merchandise, as well as all different types of cards and collectibles.
What makes this place so special is its connection to comic book writer and godfather of Marvel Comics — Stan Lee. The store is filled with memorabilia from Lee’s private collection as well as signed autographs from the comic book creator.
“My husband traveled with Stan Lee and would authenticate his autograph and he did that for years,” said Anastasia Tan, co-owner of Excelsior Collectibles. “The reason why we actually wanted to open a comic book shop is so that he could be close to the kids because he missed a lot when they were little.”
The store even has an impressive set-up of arcade games that have yet to be activated due to Covid-19. Though the store’s gaming area is currently being taken over by their massive Funko collection, Tan assures that the games will be open for play soon.
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