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About A comic con in a store! We specialize in Funko pops; current, retired and exclusives. We also carry comic books, Star Wars and other action figures. Story By Jeff Werner advance@buckslocalnews.com NEWTOWN BOROUGH >> A Bucks County couple is bringing the fun and excitement of Comic Con to historic State Street in Newtown Borough. Specializing in everything fun, from toys and comic books to collectibles and action figures, Andy and Kristen Waskie have opened Alternate Dimension Toys in what used to be a hair salon at 16 South State Street. “We've brought Comic Con to Newtown,” said Kristen, referring to the hugely popular comic conventions that attract thousands in cities across the nation. “Everything we sell here we sell at our booth at Comic Con.” “People love going to a comic convention. They go and look around. They see cool stuff,” adds Andy. “We wanted to re-create that experience in a store. We call this your one stop nerd shopping zone,” he said of the attic-like shop located above Café Con Leche and just a few hundred feet away from the Zebra-Striped Whale. Andy, who grew up in Langhorne, and Kristen, who grew up in Northeast Philadelphia, met while they were working in advertising. When they had children, Andy left his job and started his own sports memorabilia and sports card business. After seven or eight years in the sports memorabilia business, he made the jump to his true love - comic con. He did shows in New York and Philadelphia before opening a stand at Zerns Farmer’s Market in Gilbertsville. The couple, while enjoying success at Zerns, grew tired of making the hour long drive to Gilbertsville and began looking for a bricks and mortar location closer to home. They initially considered Bensalem and Langhorne before settling on the State Street location which offered enough space and a reasonable rent. Walking into the new store, customers are immediately immersed in walls stacked high with the store’s biggest draw - common, rare and exclusive Funko Pops! If you’ve never heard of Funko Pops, they’re highly collectible and hugely popular vinyl figures depicting everything from Disney and Star Wars characters to Game of Thrones, the Walking Dead, superheroes and villains from DC and Marvel Comics and hundreds of others. Of course, if you’re already an avid Pops collector, Alternate Dimension Toys is a must visit. “You can go into Wal-Mart and they might have five Pops. You can go into Target and they have the same five. Hot Topic in the mall might have a few. We try to get our hands on all of them,” said Andy, estimating the store’s current inventory numbers well over 500, including a couple hundred common releases and between 200 and 250 unique regulars. “There’s nowhere that’s going to have the selection we have unless you wait for Comic Con,” said Andy. “You can wait until next May or you can come here and you can get virtually any that are out right now.” In addition, the store caters to serious collectors, boasting an entire wall devoted to exclusives and hard to find Pops numbering more than 100 figures, including a very rare bloody Predator and an exclusive Zapp Comics Brown Costume Wolverine. “People don’t have to hunt the internet, pay for shipping and be overpriced,” said Andy. “They can stop by and see what we have. And If we don’t have something, I try to find it and at the best possible price for them.” “People go crazy over these,” said Kristen, of the Pops! “We have people who live an hour away coming here to buy $100 worth of Pops!” “They’re huge right now,” adds Andy. “And unlike the Beanie Babies where people go crazy for them and they make more, these are eventually retired so they retain their value. It makes them very hard to find and very collectible.” According to the Waskies, the biggest seller right now among the Pops! is Ant-Man, driven by the July release of the movie based on the Marvel Comics superhero. “Anything Marvel is a big seller,” said Andy, but added “the highest selling Pops! has been Batman [DC Comics]. They do all different variants of him. He’s very popular.” Some of its new arrivals include Rubeus Hagrid and Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter and Bymax from Big Hero 6. The store also sells Funko “blind boxes,” which are extremely popular among the kids and themed after movies like My Little Pony, Minions, Frozen, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy and others. The blind boxes contain Pops! that are hidden from view until they are opened by the buyer. “What we let people do is open them. If they don’t like who they get, they can trade it with the one we have opened,” said Andy. “We have kids come in and start trying all the different ones. It’s fun.” Of course there’s more to the store than just the Pops! Venturing deeper into the Comic Con experience, customers pass a rack filled with more than 100 comic books, including the latest on the “Secret Wars” from Marvel and “Convergence” from DC Comics, along with “The Walking Dead” series and children’s comics. On the opposite wall the shelves are filled with knick-knacks and unique items like scalers, miniature action figures and characters that attach to headphones and USB chords. The wall leading into the backroom is filled with Star Wars figures, which are hugely popular among collectors and will no doubt undergo a resurgence in sale when the newest Star Wars movie, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” opens in theatres nationwide later this year. The back room is filled with even more action figures, collectibles, vehicles, sets and games from Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Jaws, Godzilla, the Walking Dead, Alien and others. Also available for purchase are action figures from DC Comics and Marvel along with Funko Reaction figures. “We have a large selection of action figures, either for the kids to open or the adults to display on a shelf as a collectible,” said Andy. The Waskies encourage people to check out the store or just stop by to talk about the latest releases or the newest movies. “We try to make the experience personal,” said Andy. “You’re welcome to come in, hang out, talk to us about the latest trailer or the newest superhero. We’ll talk to people forever. It’s fun to us. We love it,” he said. Alternate Dimension Toys is located at 16 S. State Street (first floor, rear) in Newtown.
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