The expression “all work and no play” definitely does not apply to Henry Flood, who owns the newly opened Epic Games & Comics in Collegedale.
“This is all childhood stuff I had grown up with,” he said. “I probably got my first comic at [age] 4, I started getting baseball cards at 7, I had Atari since can remember. A lot of this came out of my own personal collection.”
Henry Flood is making his childhood love – and collection – of comic books work for him at Epic Games & Comics.The inventory contains countless comic books, gently used video games, quirky T-shirts, baseball cards and the new generation of collectible cards for games like Magic the Gathering, as well as board games “you’re not going to find at Walmart.”
“Typically you go into a comic book store and it’s 75 percent comics and a few other things; the same with a game store,” said Flood. “I decided to bring all of them into one spot. As somebody called it, it’s kind of like Walmart for geeks, and I agree.”
While working 15 years at area Walmart stores as a manager, Flood was developing this and other business plans in conjunction with obtaining his entrepreneurial degree from Chattanooga State. He said he studied other local comic book and game stores that have gone out of business in recent years to tweak his plan.