Walthamstow Comic Book Store, 250,000 Back Issues: Krypton

Krypton Komics keeps a short week. The Walthamstow comic book store at 94 Blackhorse Lane, London E17 6AA, opens on Thursday and Friday from 10am to 2.30pm and on Saturday from 10am to 6pm, and stays shut Sunday to Wednesday. Behind that small window sits a stock the shop puts at more than 250,000 comics, almost all American back issues filed A to Z, which is why collectors cross London for a Saturday here.

The shop's own history page traces it to a second-hand book stall that Charlie Wright, a French polisher, and his wife Jessie opened on pitch A5 of Walthamstow market in 1960, with a small box of American comics on the side. Founder Gary Ochiltree, born in 1964, spent his pocket money in that box in the early 1970s, when every comic cost 3p, and became Charlie's Saturday assistant in 1978.

When Charlie retired in 1986, Gary took over the stall and added new imported comics to the second-hand stock, which the site calls the first incarnation of Krypton. Real shops followed at the In-Shop centre in Wood Green in 1986, Edmonton Green in 1990 and a larger shop of nearly 1,000 square feet on Tottenham High Road in 1991. The stall closed at the end of 2003, and in 2006 the business moved back to Walthamstow and its present 1,250 square feet on Blackhorse Lane.

This is a back-issue shop first. The website lets you search by title from 0-9 through Z, by month and year of publication, and by special categories such as price variants, cover variants, newsstand editions and CGC graded copies, and the physical stock follows the same logic. Marvel and DC dominate, with Image, Dark Horse and IDW close behind. The history page says the shop has sold every Silver Age key issue many times over, and that new stock arrives almost every day.

That depth is the reason to come in person rather than order online. Long runs are easier to fill when you can pull the boxes yourself and see condition in the hand, and the staff can tell you what came in that week. If you are chasing a newsstand copy of a 1980s issue rather than the direct-market version, say so at the counter, since the shop tracks those as a separate category.

Krypton's cheapest way in is the grab bag, made up of overstock from the large collections it buys. A Random Grab Bag of 10 American comics costs £9.95 and a set of 20 is £14.95. Publisher-specific bags cost more: 10 random Marvel or 10 random DC comics are £13.95, and 20 are £24.95. The shop says each bag holds no doubles, mostly runs from the 1990s and 2000s, and mixes lower-grade copies with mid to high grade ones.

New comics are handled through the shop's standing order system. Collect-in-store orders are set up at the counter on the spot, with no minimum order and a £10 deposit that is refunded when you cancel. Any title from any publisher can go on the list, single issues and specials included, and you can add or drop titles whenever you like. Mail-out subscribers are billed once a month when the parcel is sent, with UK postage at £1.95 for the first item plus 50p for each extra one.

The shop buys comics too, and its menu has a dedicated We Buy Comics page. Buying in bulk is how the A to Z boxes stay full and how the grab bags exist at all. If you are clearing a loft, bring the books on a Saturday, when the shop is open longest, rather than squeezing a valuation into the four-and-a-half-hour Thursday or Friday window. Sorting runs by title and issue number before you arrive will speed up the conversation at the counter.

Saturday is the only full day, and it is the day to come if you want to browse properly. Thursday and Friday mornings are quieter but end at 2.30pm, which suits a quick pickup more than a long dig through the boxes. The shop does post one-off changes on its homepage, such as an early 5pm close on Saturday 17 October 2026, so read that page on the morning of your trip and give yourself an hour on the boxes.

An honest note for manga readers: this is an American comics shop, and Japanese manga is not what the boxes are built around. For a wide manga range, Forbidden Planet's Shaftesbury Avenue megastore in central London is the better trip. For a missing Uncanny X-Men issue, a 1970s DC horror title or a cheap bag of random reading, Krypton is the shop to visit.

The shop is a two-minute walk from Blackhorse Road station on the Victoria line, and the London Overground stops there too. Turn south down Blackhorse Lane and you reach Forest Road. A few minutes west along it is the entrance to Walthamstow Wetlands, the working reservoirs that opened to the public as a nature reserve in 2017, with free entry and long paths between the water bodies where you can watch herons and cormorants.

Heading east on Forest Road brings you to Lloyd Park and the William Morris Gallery, set in the Georgian house where the designer lived as a teenager, with free entry to its collection of textiles and wallpapers. Carry on into Walthamstow town centre and you reach the High Street market, the same street market where Charlie Wright's stall stood on pitch A5 and where the Krypton story began more than six decades ago.

Address: Krypton Komics, 94 Blackhorse Lane, Walthamstow, London E17 6AA. Hours: Thursday and Friday 10am to 2.30pm, Saturday 10am to 6pm, closed Sunday to Wednesday. Nearest station: Blackhorse Road, Victoria line, two minutes on foot. Grab bags: £9.95 for 10 random American comics, £14.95 for 20, £13.95 for 10 Marvel or DC. Standing orders: no minimum, £10 refundable deposit. Founded by Gary Ochiltree, on Blackhorse Lane since 2006.