REGION
Tuesday, March 8, 2022
East Oregonian
A3
Digital Heroes stands tall in downtown Walla Walla
Nearly 30-year-old
comic book shop
thrives in new location
By EMRY DINMAN
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
WALLA WALLA — Where
many comic shops and game stores
have come and gone over the years,
Walla Walla’s Digital Heroes has
withstood the test of time, the ebbs
and fl ows of a changing industry and
a global pandemic.
And in November, the 29-year-
old business made a big move,
leaving its Eastgate locale near the
intersection of Wilbur Avenue and
Alder Street and opening the door to
its new downtown storefront.
“I love downtown,” said owner
and founder Jeff Watson. “A lot of
people that come and walk down-
town love to check out the shops.
Our foot traffi c has been amazing,
especially over the holidays.”
The new, larger store at 120 E.
Alder St., also has allowed Digi-
tal Heroes to expand its in-house
competitions and gaming sessions,
which have proven to be particu-
larly popular social outlets amid the
pandemic.
Some days, as when a new
Magic: The Gathering set launches,
the fi ve gaming tables at the back of
the store can become quite crowded
with people keen on trying out new
cards.
This was a particularly import-
ant feature for the new store, Watson
said, especially after Western Pala-
din Games closed its Walla Walla
brick-and-mortar shop on Second
Avenue and Chestnut Street in late
2020.
The two businesses had long run
gaming competitions in tandem,
but Digital Heroes’ prior locations
didn’t have the space to accommo-
date many people and only had two
small tables for gaming.
When the beloved gaming store
Western Paladin closed its doors in
the face of pandemic-related short-
falls, Watson knew the new Digi-
tal Heroes location had to fi ll that
unmet need.
“Now that we have fi ve, much-
larger tables and a lot more space,
we’re defi nitely the premier place for
(in-person gaming),” Watson said.
As in-person gaming has
reemerged from a pandemic-in-
duced hibernation and brought more
people into the store, Digital Heroes
has started looking at additional
ways to improve the player experi-
ence and attract more business.
They recently set up an account
with Coke and Frito-Lay to start
bringing snacks into the store.
Greg Lehman/Walla Walla Union-Bulletin
Marcus Kisling, tournament organizer, looks on as players get their new Magic: The Gathering cards before a
tournament Feb. 11, 2022, at Digital Heroes in downtown Walla Walla.
But while Digital Heroes has
proven resilient in the face of
the COVID-19 pandemic, it has
certainly faced its fair share of chal-
lenges these last couple of years.
“We rode the waves of what we
could ride on,” Watson said.
A new threat arises
The shop was closed for a month
when the pandemic fi rst hit Wash-
ington in March 2020, forcing
Watson to turn his attention back to
the online store that had once been
the bulk of Digital Heroes’ business.
They hobbled along as best they
could during those uncertain early
days of COVID-19, with Watson’s
high school-aged son running deliv-
eries of comics and cards to custom-
ers’ homes.
For nearly a year, the in-person
gaming that helps stores such as
Digital Heroes and Western Paladin
form tight-knit communities were
shut down outright.
Gaming publishers, including of
Wizards of the Coast, Magic: The
Gathering and Dungeons & Drag-
ons fame, wanted nothing to do
with in-store competitions, afraid
of seeing headlines about super
spreader events at a gaming tour-
nament.
There were major shakeups in
the comics and gaming industries,
as well, with some of the biggest
players in the business losing some
ground to competitors. Diamond
Comic Distributors has long held
a near-monopoly on comic distri-
bution in the country, but that
began to change after the company
halted operations in the wake of the
pandemic.
“It was a nightmare,” Watson
said. “Diamond completely shut
down, and it completely killed the
comics industry because there was
only one distributor.”
Since then, publishing behe-
moths Marvel and DC have part-
nered with other distributors,
Watson said. This created a lot more
paperwork for small businesses such
as Digital Heroes, and consequently
there was a slight increase in over-
head, but the transition to more
diversifi ed distributors has largely
been a smooth one, he said.
Other impacts from the pandemic
have begun to dissipate.
Once in-person gaming was
allowed again, it didn’t take long
for interest to pick back up. At fi rst,
it was mostly Watson’s employees
playing D&D or card games on their
off -time, and a couple customers at
a time would spot them playing and
join the game.
Now, more “planeswalkers” and
“dungeon masters” gather in the
back of Digital Heroes than ever
before.
Up, up, and away
The pandemic may have added
a lot of complications in the last
couple of years, but it has only been
the latest storm that Digital Heroes
has weathered in its ever-changing
industry.
Watson first began selling
comics in the early ‘90s out of
his cubicle at Safeco Insurance,
where he worked as a program-
mer analyst, and at booths at comic
conventions, which were not the
large-scale productions that they
can be today.
In those days, comics were still
well outside of the mainstream.
“When I fi rst started collecting,
it was pretty niche,” he said. “I was
the nerdy kid with the geeky stuff .
Who’s into Star Wars comics and
trading cards?
“But if there was no Star Wars,
there would have been no Digital
Heroes.”
Digital Heroes began as just a
name. He needed a business license
to continue to sell comics at conven-
tions, but if comics didn’t work out,
the name would work just as well
for a computer-consulting business.
But comics (and games, which
go hand in hand in many stores) did
work out, but not without a lot of
luck in those early years.
When Watson opened his fi rst
store in 1993 in the Flatiron Build-
ing where Boyer Avenue and Main
Street meet, the comic business had
a slow start.
But Digital Heroes benefited
from being in the right place at the
right time: 1993 was the year that
Richard Garfi eld, a visiting math-
ematics professor at neighboring
Whitman College, launched Magic:
The Gathering, the fi rst modern
trading card game.
Garfi eld’s revolutionary game,
which still has a devout follow-
ing nearly three decades later,
would take the world by storm in
the years to come. Digital Heroes
began carrying the trading card
game when it released, and Garfi eld
himself would come in to teach the
game to the shop’s regulars.
“It got big pretty fast,” Watson
said. “That was huge for us for
the fi rst couple of years, because I
didn’t know what I was doing.”
But as Digital Heroes was
fi nally getting its feet under it, the
rug was pulled out from under the
entire industry. The comics market
dried up in the mid-to-late ‘90s,
Watson said, leading him to close
the Flatiron storefront and go back
to school to pursue a master’s in
computer science.
In the interim, Watson kept Digi-
tal Heroes alive with an early tran-
sition into an online business when
the internet was still young and
only just beginning to be actively
commercialized. Mail-order and
online shopping proved robust, so
much so that Watson was eventu-
ally no longer able to grow the busi-
ness inside his home.
In 2015, Watson decided to
reopen a brick-and-mortar store,
this time near the Bicycle Barn on
Isaacs Avenue, around the same
time that local, now-defunct game
store Western Paladin Games
launched its Portland Avenue shop.
Comics were hot again, hot
enough to be able to sustain a phys-
ical building and employees.
“I was really surprised at the
local audience,” Watson said. “We
grew exponentially from 2015 to
2020.”
Digital Heroes quickly outgrew
its storefront and moved into a
building on East Alder Street. And,
about a year ago, Watson started
eyeing his next move, eventually
looking toward a return to Walla
Walla’s downtown.
Luck struck again when he sat
down with his current landlord,
Andrew Reed, who expressed inter-
est in the comic shop as a draw to
bring more people downtown.
Watson had a number of things
he wanted for his dream shop that
required structural changes, includ-
ing having a bathroom that would
be accessible to people with disabil-
ities, and this new location would
allow him to do that.
In November, Digital Heroes’
new location opened its doors to
the public for the fi rst time.
LOCAL BRIEFING
19-year-old in jail for slaying in
Milton-Freewater
MILTON-FREEWATER — The Umatilla
County Sheriff ’s Offi ce has arrested a 19-year-
old man for the shooting death of another teen
that occurred Saturday, March 5, in Milton-Free-
water.
Manuel Adam Peralez Jr., of Walla Walla,
now is in the Umatilla County Jail, Pendleton,
on a probable cause charge of second-degree
murder, as well as for second-degree disorderly
conduct and second-degree criminal trespass.
The sheriff ’s offi ce in a press release reported
it received 911 calls on March 5 at approximately
12:10 a.m. about gunshots on the 84000 block of
Yellow Jacket Road, Milton-Freewater.
Initial reports indicated two people had been
shot. Umatilla County sheriff ’s deputies, together
with Oregon State Police and Milton-Freewater
police, responded to the scene.
According to the press release, the investiga-
tion showed people at the residence left before
law enforcement arrived and took a gunshot
victim to Providence St. Mary Medical Center,
Walla Walla.
Jason Samuel Warner, 18, of Milton-Free-
water, had been shot multiple times by another
male, according to the sheriff ’s offi ce, after an
altercation during a party at the residence.
Walla Walla Police Department and Walla
Walla County Sheriff ’s Offi ce responded to the
hospital as well. Warner died at the hospital.
According to the press release, law enforce-
ment early in the investigation identifi ed Peralez
as the lone suspect.
Sunday, March 6, at approximately 11 a.m.,
Peralez walked into the Milton-Freewater Police
Department, which notifi ed the Umatilla County
Sheriff ’s Offi ce.
The sheriff ’s offi ce working in cooperation
with Umatilla County District Attorney’s Offi ce,
Walla Walla County Sheriff ’s Offi ce and the
police departments of Milton-Freewater, Walla
Walla and Pasco were able to establish probable
cause for Peralez’s arrest.
The investigation is ongoing.
Leonetti Cellar purchases
historical M-F vineyard
MILTON-FREEWATER — Leonetti Cellar,
the oldest Walla Walla Valley winery, founded
in 1977, has announced its purchase of the
9-acre Waliser Vineyard in The Rocks District
American Viticultural Area of Milton-Freewa-
ter.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Waliser, planted in 1997, was one of the fi rst
vineyards in Milton-Freewater before more than
30 winegrowers would rush to the cobblestone
soils.
Prior to grapes, the property had been an
apple orchard.
“After 44 years of family tradition on the
Waliser Vineyard property, the torch will be
passed to a new visionary owner,” Tom Waliser
said in the announcement.
“I experienced an exciting period as the
property transitioned from a groundbreaking
apple orchard to an elite vineyard planted on the
rocky soils of Milton-Freewater.”
The purchase enables Leonetti Cellar, owned
by Figgins Family Wine Estates, to expand its
wine-growing operations in The Rock District.
The 8-acre Holy Roller Vineyard, also prop-
erty of the Figgins, sits next to Waliser.
“I’m honored to see the Figgins family
become its new steward,” Waliser said.
The acquisition excites Jason Magnaghi,
Figgins Family Wine Estates viticulturist.
“I cut my viticultural teeth in Tom’s vine-
yards and am delighted to be farming this heri-
tage vineyard going forward,” Magnaghi said.
“It is a spectacular piece of land and fi ts perfectly
with our Holy Roller Vineyard next door.”
— EO Media Group and Walla Walla
Union-Bulletin
RETIREMENT
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Closes March 12th
FOREVER!
Would like to thank the community for 23 amazing years!
Come see us and check out
our WHOLESALE PRICES!
• 80764 N. Hwy 395, Hermiston
After serving Pendleton
for 20 years, it is
time to retire.
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