At Infinite Frontiers Collectibles in downtown Kennewick, new inventory arrives daily, the phone rings often, a rescue dog pines for pets, and owner Dan Sanders can usually tell you whether he has the card, comic, figure or game someone is hunting for, even if it is buried in the store’s crowded maze of shelves, boxes and back room inventory.

Sanders has been doing this long enough to know the search is part of the fun. He opened Infinite Frontiers in May 1983, starting in a small Pasco storefront with his own comic book collection and science-fiction paperbacks. More than 40 years and 13 moves later – counting the additional locations he once operated as far west as Sunnyside – he is still behind the counter, now at 419 W. Entiat Ave., near Hubby’s Pizza.

The dynamic duo of Sanders and dog Mango are engulfed by the kind of inventory that can make a first-time visitor wonder where to even begin, but the regulars know just where to look and just what they’re looking for. One customer beelined for the cardboard boxes that hold the new weekly comic books, while others squeezed through narrow passageways to reach manga, games, figurines and more.

“We only sell fun stuff,” Sanders said. “The whole idea is to make people happy with what they’re buying.”

The collectibles

Infinite Frontiers is part comic book store, part game shop, part collectible warehouse and part clubhouse for customers who have made weekly or monthly visits part of their routines for decades. Sanders has customers who have been coming since the beginning. “My customers only die; they don’t stop collecting,” he said.

Quin McConnell estimates he’s been shopping the store for about 40 years, collecting role-playing games and science-fiction items. While Sanders joked that his business is mostly “people buying stupid stuff; stuff they don’t need,” McConnell laughed that he “felt attacked.”

He may say it in jest, but Sanders is aware he’s a nonessential business in the most literal sense. No one has to buy what he sells, yet people do. They come for comics they do not want to miss, cards they hope will contain something rare, games that give them a reason to gather, and collectibles that connect them to stories, characters and memories.

Those who are fans of a comic book series can even sign up for a courtesy subscription, and their chosen comic will be set aside each time it’s released, along with those Sanders personally thinks that a collector might be interested in. Subscribers are under no obligation to buy, not even the customer who stopped in after a year to find a dense stack held. Sanders will just sell or store the ones the customer doesn’t want.

The pandemic was good for business following a brief closure in the early days. “People got back into hobbies that they had,” he said.

Board games, cards and comics all boomed as people spent more time at home. Before Covid, Sanders said he sometimes relied on online sales to help pay the bills. Now, that’s no longer the case.

Today, the store is open four days a week, noon to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. Saturday. The 65-year-old owner insisted he’s “semi-retired.”

“It’s always been a lot of fun,” he said. “It still is. That’s why I still do it.”

Infinite Frontiers’ origin story

Fun, however, has never meant easy. Sanders recalls starting Infinite Frontiers with 9,000 comics from his personal collection and pouring his paychecks from UPS back into the business to keep it going.

He modeled the idea partly on stores he admired, including the Bookworm in Kennewick, now shuttered but once one of the few local places people could find comics and role-playing game materials. When the Bookworm suddenly stopped stocking them, they sent customers his way.

“My business quadrupled in a week,” he said. Around the same era, the 1989 “Batman” movie helped fuel a resurgence in comic book interest and the debut of “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” added to the fandom of collectibles.

By the height of the market, Sanders operated multiple stores and employed as many as 23 people. Then came the late-1990s downturn that reshaped the comic book industry. Sanders remembers the market “imploding,” forcing him to close stores and cut staff. He had been preparing to buy a building, but instead his savings helped keep the business alive.

“There’s a lot of luck been involved in this business,” he said. “Every time something comes up where I’m going, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be able to stay in business,’ somebody comes in and buys a collection or something like that from me.”

His store, which shares a strip mall with a pawn shop, is both smaller and larger than it looks. The front room is crowded with comics, trading cards, Funko Pops, board games, miniatures, role-playing game books, statues and collectibles. The back, Sanders said, is twice the size of the retail space – with an upstairs – and is completely full. If he needs something, he goes looking for it.

Sanders estimates he has more than 900,000 comic books, but laughingly admits it may easily be more than a million.

“Magic: The Gathering” cards top another half-million pieces, and that’s just scratching the surface, so it’s fair to say there are millions of items for sale in Infinite Frontiers. Yet, he’s not focused on unloading items simply for a profit – as he won’t sell an entire line of product to a single collector since there wouldn’t be any left for the next person.

“Not the best business model,” one customer joked.

The decades also have softened his approach. Earlier in his career, if Sander had two copies of a desirable comic or collectible, he would keep the better one for himself. “Now, I want you to have the better copy. You’re younger. You’re going to enjoy it more.”

That approach helps explain why customers keep returning. On a recent Saturday afternoon, the rhythm of the store was steady, with some customers bringing food for staff, others lingering for conversation and no one in any hurry to simply make a purchase and leave.

Sanders is not simply selling products; it’s clear he manages access to hobbies that thrive on anticipation, scarcity and shared knowledge.

He effortlessly answers phone calls and customer questions about current stock on Pokémon, Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Warhammer, DC and Marvel comics, miniatures and board games, all while ringing up purchases and checking inventory.

Right now, trading card games are among the strongest sellers. Some hobbies require a significant buy-in. A tabletop miniatures player might spend $400 to get started and $1,000 over the next year, Sanders said.

Trading cards can become even more expensive, with standard packs around $6 and premium packs climbing much higher when demand surges.

“Collectibles are weird,” he said. “You never really know what’s going to be really super hot.”

Spanning generations

Those hobbies now span generations. Sanders said younger customers are often drawn to trading cards, while others like 16-year-old Lauryn Brandwein, wearing an anime tee, are also discovering comics. She enthusiastically shared how Batman cartoons sparked an interest in DC Comics’ magic-centered characters.

Infinite Frontiers’ typical customer skews older than Brandwein, but her visit illustrated the way old and new fandoms are celebrated in a shop that began well before she was born.

But it’s not to say the internet, big-box stores and shifting distribution systems have not affected the way small shops compete. Now, some product lines require separate suppliers.

“If you want Marvel comics, you’ve got to get them from this distributor. If you want DC comics, you’ve got to get them from this distributor,” Sanders said.

Longstanding relationships with wholesalers rarely carry the same advantages they once did, and allocations can be especially frustrating. Sanders might order five cases of a hot product only to receive a fraction of that. Scarcity fuels demand, but it also can leave local shops without inventory to meet customer interest.

Still, that interest remains strong. Some come because Sanders knows what they like. Some come because he might have the thing they cannot find anywhere else locally. Some come because they have been coming for years.

The store is not built around a single trend; it’s the accumulation of four decades of guesses, busts, lucky breaks, customer requests, distributor changes, weekly shipments and personal enthusiasm – all giving Tri-Cities collectors a place to look, ask, talk and just find something fun.

Infinite Frontiers Collectibles: 419 W. Entiat Ave., Kennewick; 509-585-4000.