Walla Walla shop shares passion for comics on Free Comic Book Day

Digital Heroes, a comic book shop founded in Walla Walla more than three decades ago, will be handing out free comic books Saturday, May 2, as part of Free Comic Book Day, a promotion of comic book shops across the nation.

"It's a nationwide event that comic shops all around - like the United States, Canada, all over the world - really participate in, pretty much handing out free comics and raising the awareness of what's being published and what's coming out," said Adam Gallinat, the shop's assistant manager.

One of Gallinat's goals is to show that comic books are about more than superheroes.

"It's way more than that," he said. "There's incredible horror comics coming out right now. There's incredible fantasy comics. If you like a genre, (there's a comic for it). And (comics) give you a much deeper ocean to venture into because … it is a visual medium as well, and you have all the different art styles. It can get really surreal in a comic. There's a lot of really fun things that can happen in comics."

Gallinat said he and other employees at Digital Heroes enjoy sharing their passion for comics with someone new.

Owner and founder Jeff Watson agreed and said his favorite part of giving away free comics is giving them to children.

"We've seen a lot of kids come and go over the years," he said. "Kids come in and they can't believe they're going to get a comic book for free. They are like, ‘I get this for free? This doesn't cost me anything?' That's really cool. And some of those kids have definitely come back and become regular comic readers."

Watson opened the shop in 1993. Back then, it was on Boyer Avenue.

Shortly after it opened, he expanded it to include games after he met Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic: The Gathering card game, which was just emerging at the time. Garfield was a math professor at Whitman College at the time.

"And he basically changed the face of our shop into a gaming store along with comics," Watson said.

Watson said comics and card games like Magic declined in 1998, resulting in the closure of his brick-and-mortar store.

"So, I went back to school, and I continued to run Digital Heroes on the side," Watson said. "I did (comic) shows and online stuff. We had our first website that year in 1998."

Meanwhile, Watson also taught computer science at Walla Walla Community College.

In 2015, he decided he did all he could with Digital Heroes online. So, he quit his job at WWCC and focused full time on Digital Heroes. He started with providing mail order fulfillment out of his house.

Soon, he reopened a physical location in Walla Walla on Isaacs Avenue. The store moved a few times until it opened at its current downtown location at 120 E. Alder St.

Now, in addition to comics and games, the store also sells sports cards.

Watson said he wants the store to be more than just buying comics and games. He wants it to be a place where people can come and gather. In the back of the store, there are several tables where people can gather around and play games.

The store also hosts many game nights.

"We have eight employees besides me," Watson said. "If any employee has an area where they want to run a specific game, they do that," he said. "Or if there's something that I want somebody to run, I go to the employees and say, 'Hey, I'm looking for somebody to run this game, who's interested?'"

Games such as Dungeons and Dragons, and Magic: The Gathering are played every week.

More than 30 years after he opened the store, Watson continues to love introducing new people to games and comic books.

"I've been around long enough that I've seen people who were kids buying from me in the '90s come in with their kids, who are buying stuff from me now," he said. "That, I think, is pretty cool."

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This story was originally published May 2, 2026 at 10:12 PM.