When I was a child I liked shooing at comic vendor in Torrance or galaxy comics in Redondo beach.where was you go to place for comics or model kits.
I used to pick them up at the drugstore.
Back in the 60s there were no “comic shops”. But almost every pharmacy had a spinner rack (with the metal sign at the top: “Hey, Kids! COMICS!”). And I swear it gave the drug store a distinctive smell that they lost when they stopped carrying comics.
Fun memory: 40 years later, while ‘antiquing’ with the wife, I walked into an old mom ‘n’ pop drug store… and there was that smell! And sure 'nuff, there was an old spinner rack, full of superhero comics. Some older, some current. I asked my wife to hit the rest of the old stores on the street by herself… I had to sit on the park bench outside and read!
But the weirdest shop when I was a kid was the Pet Shop & Slot Car Track. Street level was just a normal pet store; hamsters, turtles, fish and accessories. But through an unmarked door in the back and down a steep stairway… a 7 yr old’s dream. Huge slot car setup, model kits and 1/24 scale slot cars. And a pervasive smell of wintergreen oil that the owner claimed would help your car corner.
The drug store is where we got comics. They had a soda fountain where you could shoot your paper straw wrappers up onto a high shelf behind the counter.
There was also a “five & dime” store where we got model kits, and everything else under the sun.
My go-to spot for model airplanes was Van’s Hobbies (now long gone) in Hacienda Gardens in San Jose. The family would go out to dinner at the Red Coach next door almost every Friday and I’d head over to the hobby shop to score something new from Airfix of Monogram. The “battle damaged” Vietnam warplanes stand out particularly in my memory.
Yep, 1960s kid (born late 1960), drugstore. Spinning rack. Mostly DC comics because Marvel had those goddamn “continued” stories, and you couldn’t trust the drugstore to get the next issue of Fantastic Four or The Hulk.
By the mid to late 1970s I had outgrown superhero comics and MAD and was reading The National Lampoon and underground comix. For those I had to take to bus into downtown Cleveland and go to Cosmicomics, in one of the covered arcades between Prospect and Euclid.
La Grange Hobby Center in La Grange, IL
Model kits I had to get at suburban Cleveland discount stores, like Uncle Bill’s. Mostly the grotesque hot rods, and the Aurora monster kits.
You could NEVER find Frankenstein’s monster.
My favorite comics dealer was Katz Drug on Minnesota Avenue, beautiful downtown Kansas City, Kansas.
In the late 1980s/early 1990s, I bought comics at the Book Nook in Baldwinsville, NY.
I grew up near a large flea market. The buildings are lined with loading bays for all of the stalls. Back in the 1980s a guy had a small (I suppose 28 foot?) trailer permanently docked in one of the loading bays and ran a comic book store out of that. Sometimes I still have dreams that involve going to that store.
60s. The earliest was the Wildwood shopping center in Bethesda Md. It had both a 5 and 10 cent store and a People’s drugstore. Later on we’d go further to other toy stores and hobby shops.
Late 60s/early 70s. Model kits at Estes Hobbies in Norristown, PA. I’d just hang around in there for hours looking at the model kits and HO trains. For comics: spinner racks at Goody’s, a corner store a couple of blocks from home.
Downtown San Jose had the only comic book shop in the area: Bob Sidebottom’s.
Later it was found that Bob had a side business of selling drugs on the side, but we only cared about the comics.
The used book store next door, Twice Read Books, would occasionally get some comics, but it was a mixed bag and usually in poor condition.
A few other competitors showed up in the same neighborhood as Bob’s - a place across the street, and a place called Collector’s Corner. But Bob’s (grossly overpriced back issues and all) remained The place for comics.
You just sent me on a memory dive. I KNOW I’ve heard of a, “People’s Drugstore”, but it took me awhile to figure out where. I THINK it was several blocks away from our apartment, On Washington Ave in Carnegie, PA, across from the Dairy Queen. Later a Little Caesar’s Pizza place would move into its place. Damn, I’ve gone decades without thinking of that place. Used to go there in 3th-5th grade a lot.
When I was a kid, I didn’t get too many comics. One of the main places I got them were the hospital when ppl were sick, and I had a lot of time to kill in the waiting room. The other place was Eagle’s drug, where Mom would buy me one when she was filling a prescription. When I got into my teens, I’d go to Phantom of the Attic in Greentree and pick up the latest Frank Miller or Alan Moore graphic novel. There were always more books I wanted than I had money, though.
It was still around for a very long time (it’s about 5 minutes from me), but it finally closed in 2018 when the building was sold. 
In Queens in the late '50s early '60s we had candy stores, which had candy, comics, soda, model kits, magazines, baseball cards and other stuff. I mostly went to one called Jack’s 3 blocks from my house, and another we called “the candy store next to Constatines” a even a bit closer. Constatines was a Greek deli next to the candy store. The name of that candy store we never knew.
If I had only kept all the comics I bought then I’d be a rich man today.
Comics, Lone Star Ice and Food Stores #31. The local convenience store chain in San Antonio.
I didn’t buy comic books until I was in college; my comic book shop back then was Capital City Comics in Madison, WI.
But, when I was a kid, I was very much into model trains and slot cars; our local hobby shop was House of Hobbies, in Green Bay. I really looked forward to trips there, to pick up a new slot car, or a new piece of rolling stock.
When I was a kid, it was the 88-cent Store in Renton for models, although practically every grocery and drug store carried a few kits.
In college, in Pullman, WA, there was a haberdasher who had a pretty nice hobby section in one corner of the store. I can’t remember the name of the place, but it’ll come to me about midnight tonight 