Croydon Comic Book Store on Church Street: Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet Croydon is south London's chain comic book store, a single unit at 43 Church Street, Croydon CR0 1RH, open from 10am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and from 11am to 5pm on Sunday. Church Street runs downhill from the town centre toward Croydon Minster, and the Tramlink stop that shares its name is a short walk away, which makes the shop the easiest specialist comics stop south of the Thames.

Croydon sits a long way from the West End, and for readers in the southern boroughs a trip to Shaftesbury Avenue for each Wednesday release is a half-day commitment. That is the job this branch does. It brings the Forbidden Planet range, and its subscription and collection system, to a borough of almost 400,000 people, close enough for a lunchtime pickup from the offices around East Croydon or an after-school visit from the town centre.

The store page on forbiddenplanet.com lists the branch with the same opening pattern as the chain's other London shops, and the page was live through 2026, with the chain's September events calendar showing on it. Most of those signings and author talks happen at the central London megastore, so Croydon is the place for regular buying rather than for meeting artists. If a signing is the reason for your trip, head into town instead.

Forbidden Planet's catalogue splits comics into weekly releases, graphic novels, magazines and comic supplies such as bags and boards, plus its own exclusive and variant covers and a signed range. The subscription service covers the big American publishers, from Marvel and DC to Image, Titan, Dark Horse, IDW, Dynamite, Boom! Studios and VIZ Media, and lets you name a branch for collection, which is the efficient way to use a local store like this one.

Collected editions are the other big seller. In 2026 the chain's website has run a standing offer of 5 for £10 on graphic novels, alongside 5 for £5 on paperback books, though stock in those promotions differs between branches and the online warehouse. A sensible approach is to browse the shelves first, note what the Croydon unit actually holds, and then fill the gaps from the website if the price works better there.

A large share of the floor at most Forbidden Planet branches goes to manga, and the chain organises it by genre, with shonen, seinen, shojo, isekai, romance and science fiction all broken out online. Gaming stock includes board games, card games, roleplaying rulebooks and collectible card games, with Magic: The Gathering, Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Dungeons & Dragons the headline lines. For south London card players without a dedicated games shop nearby, that counter is often the main draw.

Merchandise fills the rest: Pop! vinyl, statues and busts, replicas, T-shirts and hoodies, mugs, posters, badges and keyrings, with Star Wars, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Marvel and DC the biggest licences. The writing guide site Writing Tips Oasis singles out apparel, gaming accessories and manga as what this branch is known for. Treat the toys and clothing as a bonus, not the point. The comics wall is what justifies a dedicated visit.

Gift buying is simple here, which matters in a branch that sees a lot of parents. Forbidden Planet sells gift vouchers through its website, which saves guessing a collector's pull list or which manga volume they are missing. Bags, boards and storage boxes sit in the comic supplies section, and they are worth picking up on the same visit if you are starting a collection rather than buying a single issue.

Wednesday is new comics day across the chain, and the release lists on the website are dated by Wednesday, so that is when the shelves change. Arrive on Thursday or later and the popular variants may already be gone, which is the strongest argument for a subscription. Saturdays bring families and card players, while weekday mornings after the 10am opening are calm enough to ask staff to order in a missing trade paperback.

Sunday trading here is 11am to 5pm. That makes a Sunday combination of the shop and a walk through the old town realistic, but leave the comics until after lunch, since the hour before 5pm is when the counter is least busy. If the branch does not have what you want, the nearest alternatives are the Camden shop and the West End megastore, both reachable by train from East Croydon in under an hour.

Church Street is the spine of the oldest part of Croydon. Walk downhill and you reach Croydon Minster, the parish church of St John the Baptist, rebuilt in the 1870s by George Gilbert Scott after a fire and the burial place of six Archbishops of Canterbury. Beside it stands the Old Palace, the former summer residence of the archbishops, whose medieval and Tudor buildings sit just behind the churchyard wall.

Head back up the hill and a couple of minutes away you come to Surrey Street Market, one of the oldest street markets in the country, where traders still sell fruit, vegetables and street food from stalls along the lane. A few minutes north on North End, the Whitgift Almshouses, built in the 1590s by Archbishop John Whitgift, still house elderly residents around a small courtyard in the middle of the shopping district.

Address: Forbidden Planet Croydon, 43 Church Street, Croydon CR0 1RH. Hours: Monday to Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 11am to 5pm. Getting there: Church Street tram stop on Tramlink, or a walk from West Croydon or East Croydon stations. New comics: Wednesday releases, with subscriptions for collection in store. Chain offers in 2026: 5 for £10 on graphic novels, 5 for £5 on paperbacks. Signings: held mainly at the central London megastore.