it is a tale that you may be familiar with
the young Hunchbakk was a bit of a geek (what do you mean, what's changed?) and used to frequent a couple of local-ish comic book shops, one of which was Krypton Komics in Tottenham, just a stone's throw away from Seven Sisters station, my dad would drive me down there pretty much every weekend so that I could spend my pocket money on the latest Bat-titles that had been released
this must have gone on for perhaps a couple of years, until i reached the age where being more social was becoming more important and me and my friends would be out playing football or going to the cinema or going into Enfield Town and buying extra value meals from McDonalds, I can't remember why exactly, but I was reading comics less, and weaned myself off my weekly fix
i'm not saying that I was solely responsible for a downturn in business, but somewhere in the intervening years Krypton Komics disappeared from the High Road, something I duly noted on one of many nightbus journeys home
as detailed before on this blog, my Dad reawakened my inner geek with a Christmas present a few years back, and in this time comics have become ridiculously expensive and I have to sate my appetite for all things superhero with the occasional bargain graphic novel if I am lucky enough to find such a thing, and whatever Enfield's libraries seem to be carrying (currently a couple of Batman/Superman collections and Superman: Secret Origin).
perhaps finally I am getting closer to the point I am trying to make...
as we return once again to Krypton Komics, that had long since carried on as an Internet mail-order service, and which my little brother reliably informed me had recently relocated to an actual old fashioned physical real-world shop in Walthamstow.
so one sunny afternoon earlier this year I impulsively decided that I needed to make a pilgrimage to this new store in search of a specific back issue, I dragged my brother along for the journey and I walked away contended
in my arms I carried Legends, Millenium and a UK reprint Superman comic that is older than I am (with it's free gift of a postcard still attached) which I had paid a meagre sum for considering
and as my brother walked away from Krypton Komics he noted the imposing and run-down building that dominated the opposite side of the road
he stopped to take a couple of photos of the dilapidated building that appeared to be home to some kind of church network, and now it's image adorns the very first Giles Babel t-shirt
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