Lavender Comic Book Store Open to 8pm: Comic Grail Vault

Comic Grail Vault is a small comic book store on the second floor of an HDB block at 803 King George's Avenue, #02-246, Singapore 200803, in the Lavender and Jalan Besar pocket of the city. Its contact page gives operating hours of 1pm to 8pm and says it is closed every Monday, so Tuesday to Sunday afternoons are the window.

Most Singapore comic shops sell the weekly releases first and variants second. Comic Grail Vault turns that around. Its website menu has only three sections, Exclusives, CGC graded and Contact, and the shelf follows the same priorities. The draw is shop-exclusive variant covers commissioned with artists, many of them tied to Singapore Comic Con, plus incentive ratio variants and graded books that have been slabbed and, in many cases, signed.

That makes it a different trip from a general comic shop. You will not find long boxes of back issues or a manga wall here, and the website does not list them. What you will find is a tight selection of covers that were printed in small numbers, often with a stated print limit, which is exactly what collectors who chase variants want to see in person before they buy.

Prices are listed in Singapore dollars on the shop's online store, and the exclusives follow a clear pattern. The X-Orcists #1 AKA cover, a Singapore Comic Con exclusive, costs S$30 in trade dress, limited to 1,500 copies, and S$50 for the virgin cover without logos, limited to 800, with the pair sold as a set for S$70. The Spider-Woman #1 Peach Momoko SGCC exclusive is priced the same way, at S$30 and S$50.

Some exclusives come with extras. The Chainkata #1 cover by Elvin Ching, listed in October 2026, is sold as a virgin raw copy with a certificate of authenticity for S$38, as a signed raw copy with certificate for S$68, and as a signed copy graded CGC 9.8 for S$230. DC titles drawn by Tokitokoro, such as Absolute Batman #24 and Nightwing #143, sit at S$35 for trade dress and S$65 for the foil virgin version.

Incentive variants, the covers retailers can only order by buying a set number of regular copies, are the next tier. Recent listings include the Spider-Woman #1 1:25 cover by Puppeteer Lee at S$35, the X-Orcists #1 1:25 Nick Bradshaw cover at S$30 and the X-Orcists #1 1:100 Jenny Frison cover at S$130. The ratio is printed in the title, so you know how scarce a copy is before you ask to see it.

The CGC section is where the prices climb. Signature Series books, slabbed with a yellow label to certify that the signature was witnessed, start at S$220 for an Absolute Flash #1 signed by Dan Panosian, and many of the signed Marvel and DC slabs on the list are priced at S$250. At the top of the current list is a Daredevil #14 John Tyler Christopher cover, CGC Signature Series 9.8 and signed by both Charlie Cox and the artist, at S$650.

Because so much of the stock is limited, the shop releases new exclusives online and announces them on its social channels, and popular covers can sell through quickly. If a specific cover matters to you, follow the Instagram account and come in soon after a release rather than weeks later. The trade plus virgin sets are usually the better value, since they cost less than buying the two covers separately.

An honest note: this is not the place for a casual reader looking for this week's issues at cover price. For a wider range of new weekly comics, Comics World in Park Lane Shopping Mall on Selegie Road is the better trip. Come to Comic Grail Vault when you know which cover you want, or when you want to see a graded book before committing to it.

The shop is upstairs in a public housing block rather than in a mall, which is part of its charm and also the easiest way to miss it. Look for unit #02-246 on the second-floor corridor. With an opening time of 1pm, late afternoon is the practical time to visit, and Saturdays bring the regulars. Remember the Monday closure if you are planning a long weekend around a Singapore Comic Con release.

There is no in-store event calendar on the website, and no price is listed for grading submissions, so the shop is best treated as a retailer of finished books rather than a service counter. Its Google listing carries a 5.0 rating from 79 reviews, unusually high for a shop of any kind, and it is classed there simply as a comic book store.

King George's Avenue runs through a quiet residential stretch between Jalan Besar and Lavender Street. A short walk west brings you to Jalan Besar itself, lined with restored two-storey shophouses, hardware stores and old-school coffee shops, and to Jalan Besar Stadium, first opened in 1932. The area has become a café district without losing its working-class trades, so a hardware shop and a specialty coffee bar often share the same row.

For a longer comics afternoon, GnB Comics in Kitchener Complex on French Road is in the same neighbourhood and focuses on new weekly releases, so the two shops complement each other well. Continue south and the shophouse lanes lead toward Little India and Kampong Glam, where Sultan Mosque and the boutiques of Haji Lane make a good end to the walk.

Address: Comic Grail Vault, 803 King George's Avenue, #02-246, Singapore 200803. Hours: 1pm to 8pm, closed every Monday. Email: contact@comicgrailvault.com. Instagram: @comicgrailvault. Sample prices: X-Orcists #1 SGCC exclusive S$30 trade dress or S$50 virgin, Absolute Batman #24 Tokitokoro exclusive S$35 trade dress, Spider-Woman #1 1:25 S$35, signed CGC 9.8 books from S$220. Stock: exclusives, ratio variants and graded books, not back issues or manga.