Cumming’s Kapow Comics builds one-stop nerd shop

By SHELBY ISRAEL shelby@appenmedia.com

FORSYTH COUNTY, Ga. — While comic book and hobby shops have sprung up in Metro Atlanta in recent years, Kapow Comics focuses on the interests of its customers in a unique way.

“Atlanta area is probably the mecca of the nerd world,” store owner Andy Diehl said. “And if you do research and look it up, you’ll see how many stores fail, open and closed, that are like this ... And at the end of the day, it’s the ones who take care of their customers that keep their stores open.”

After a career in retail, Diehl said he realized he disliked working for others, which spurred his decision to expand his collection from the home into his own business.

Kapow, located in the Westlake Terrace plaza off Lake Center Parkway in Cumming, offers comic books, manga, figurines and an open space for trading card and tabletop games.

Beyond its official offerings, the shop serves as a place of community and fun for hobbyists and collectors.

“Everybody’s welcome to come here,” Diehl said. “Everybody, we don’t care. There’s no discrimination, there’s no judgment, there’s nothing.”

A niche offering

Customers are greeted with packed shelves of figures, comic books and graphic novels. To the right of the main sales floor is a sprawling space dedicated to a Pokémon league, tabletop games and an upcoming corner for retro video games.

Diehl said he targeted comic books when he opened the shop, and the neighboring expansion was added for games to maintain a quiet reading and browsing space.

Each week, Kapow hosts Dungeons and Dragons, Werewolf and Warhammer games. The first Sunday of the month is reserved for painting and building miniatures, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays mark comic book release days.

Diehl said the shop’s busiest days are Saturdays, which are dedicated to its Pokémon league of over 100 members.

“It is whole families coming in here, mom, dad, their kids, their nephews,” Diehl said. “They’ve created a community to themselves to come in here and play Pokémon … It’s not like any Pokémon league anybody goes to.”

Diehl said Kapow does not charge for its card and tabletop games as much as other stores in the industry, and the shop aims for price to not be an obstacle to participation.

Adults are asked to purchase a $5 store gift card to play Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic the Gathering Commander players aged 13 and older contribute $5 to a prize pool.

“We just prefer you to come in and have a good time,” Diehl said.

The Kapow comeback

When Kapow opened in 2012, Diehl said he had less than $200 in the cash register and $1 in the store bank account.

“It was kind of spooky,” Diehl said. “The store was packed full of product. I had $172 in the cash register, and I said, ‘Well, we’ll see if this works.’ I had zero working capital, and I was doing it by myself.”

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