NEW GLASGOW, N.S. — Years back, Jason Stuart was out for a drive with a friend who told him, ‘any business that you open would be totally fly by night’.
“She was teasing me about being scatter brained,” laughs Stuart as he tells the story. “I just thought it was funny.”
The thought stuck, and with one small tweak, Fly By Knight Comics had its name.
“I talked about opening a comic book store for years prior,” said Stuart. “Then one day I decided that this is what we were doing and started to work toward doing it.”
Now, after four years and two location changes, Fly by Knight Comics is right where Stuart wants it to be.
“It’s a bigger spot,” said Stuart about their new location inside the Downtown Mall on the corner of Archimedes and MacLean St in New Glasgow. “It’s perfect. We’re just trying to expand the inventory and I’ve got two rooms in the basement that I’m going to work on to be just for games.”
Fly By Knight Comics first opened in Stellarton in January 2017. One year later Stuart moved shop to 174 Archimedes St. In 2019, Pictou County’s only Comic Book and Collectable store moved across the street on July 1.
Stuart told The News that the basement rooms are already ‘spooktacular’ and that once he’s added the finishing touches, they’ll be an ideal setting for
gaming.
Fly By Knight Comics new location inside the Downtown Mall on Archimedes St.
“I’m really going to lean in to the whole dungeon thing,” Stuart said. “It’ll be cool to play Dungeons and Dragons in an actual dungeon.”
Dungeons and Dragons is a little bit of everything; fantasy, figurines and dice-rolling. But above all else it’s a social game that rewards imagination and improvisation and an appetite for adventure.
Right now, Stuart says that there is already a loyal group who play the fantasy role-playing game regularly, and Stuart is hopeful that the improved space and atmosphere will encourage more people to give it a try.
“I’ve never met anyone that’s actually given it an honest go, who hasn’t liked it. Whatever you want to make of it, then that’s what it is.”
The extra space will also afford Fly By Knight Comics a chance to host multiple games at the same time, and not just D&D. Every Friday the shop hosts games of Magic: The Gathering, a card game first introduced in 1993 and still going strong, as well as Stuart's own favourite, Warhammer, a tabletop strategy war game involving entire armies of intricately constructed and painted models.
“My little fella is usually pretty good with them,” Stuart said. “He sets them up and fights with them. He doesn’t know the rules yet.”
There are a lot of rules. But, at the end of the day, Stuart's advice is simple: "Whatever you like, lean into it."
