Arsenal Comics & Games

Newbury Park's comics-and-cards fixture since 2014, running Friday Night Magic and Sunday board games alongside its Pokemon TCG case.

Arsenal Comics & Games has been a fixture in the Newbury Park corner of Thousand Oaks since opening in September 2014, run by Timmy Heague, a working comic book writer who also operates a second Arsenal location in Ventura. That dual identity - shop owner and working creator - shows up in the store's comic wall, which mixes vintage back issues with new releases in a way reviewers specifically call out as unusual for a shop this size.

Cards share the floor with the comics: Magic: The Gathering gets a weekly Friday Night Magic slot, and the Pokemon TCG case rounds out a lineup that also includes Funko Pops, tabletop games, and hobby supplies. Sunday afternoons shift the store's focus to board gaming, with tables running from 1pm to close for anyone who'd rather play something other than a TCG.

The shop's community roots go deeper than a weekly event calendar. In January 2024, Arsenal hosted "Arsenal Live," a signing event that pulled in more than twenty comic creators - including Patton Oswalt, Marc Guggenheim, and Gerry Duggan - organized partly to support the store through a rough financial stretch its owner had spoken about publicly. The turnout reflected just how much local goodwill the shop had built up over a decade in Newbury Park.

Arsenal keeps daily hours, open 11am to 8pm seven days a week, with the Sunday board game block running from 1pm until close. That daily consistency makes it one of the easier Thousand Oaks-area shops to swing by without checking hours first.

For a Thousand Oaks card shop that treats comics and trading cards as equally central rather than picking one, Arsenal Comics & Games in Newbury Park is a rare combination.