From the Incredible Hulk to Watchmen, a comic book store is hoping that customers will marvel at its collection and who knows – maybe even encourage the next Stan Lee to pick up a pen.

Get Ready Retro, in Tolgate Lane, Strood, celebrated its first birthday last weekend, and owners Jenna and Michael Readings were pleased with the reception their shop had got from Medway comic fans during the previous 12 months.

Jenna, 26, said: “We had some local roadworks back in September and that was quite hard but we bounced back and now we’ve got a really good customer base.”

“We have a solid foundation of comic orders and our regular customers keep us going.

“We’re more of a destination shop than one that gets passing trade, but we still have people that find us for the first time.”

To celebrate the shop’s first year, Jenna and Michael, 27, invited comic artists Phil Buckingham and Amrit Birdi to showcase their skills for customers in-store.

The husband and wife team, who live in Rochester High Street, are passionate about comics and want people of all ages to enjoy reading them.

Jenna was first bitten by the comic book bug as a youngster, when her uncle handed her a copy of Batman.

She said: “We think some comic book shops can be quite cliquey and intimidating but we are not like that here.

“We have things that we like but we can’t like everything, so we encourage people to know their stuff.

“That is why we take part in Free Comic Book Day and encourage people to get into comics and reading.”

Get Ready Retro has a wide range of comics and novels for people to peruse at their leisure.

As well as famous publishers such as Marvel, founded by the pioneering comic book writer Stan Lee, there are also burgeoning comics on offer too.

Jenna said:“We’ve got the big guys like DC, Marvel and Image but we also stock the independent comic retailers; we’ve got a local guy who is publishing a comic. We like to support local writers and artists, there are just so many different types and we’ve got a real variety here.”

n www.getreadyretro.com