Forbidden Planet (bookstore)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (August 2006)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

The London Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue

Forbidden Planet is a science fiction, fantasy and horror bookshop in London, England, with a chain of smaller stores across the British Isles, named after the movie Forbidden Planet.

As well as books the store sells comic books, manga, videos, DVDs, video games, and a wide variety of movie and television merchandise.

1 History
2 Appearances in pop culture
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

Forbidden Planet was the second major comics store in London eventually replacing what had been the leading shop, Derek Stokes, 'Dark They were and Golden Eyed' (which had started around 1970). Much of FP's growth came after the demise of DTWAGE which went out of business around 1980. Forbidden Planet had grown out of the Titan Comic Distributors business of Mike Lake, Nick Landau and Mike Luckman, Titan itself having grown out of Comic Media Distributors. It began life in 1978 as a small store in Denmark Street. As the scope of the store expanded beyond comics to embrace film and TV a 2nd store was opened just around the corner on St Giles High St. The store's success led to overcrowding, necessitating a move to much larger premises on New Oxford Street.

As well as improving their London store the original partners paired with James Hamilton and Kenny Penman (today the main shareholders in Forbidden Planet International with Andrew Oddie, Richard Boxall and Colin Campbell) to open other stores. Penman and Hamilton were owners of one of the UK's oldest comics and SF stores 'Science Fiction Bookshop' in Edinburgh which opened around 1975. On September 30, 2003 the London store moved to even bigger premises at the eastern end of Shaftesbury Avenue.

The Forbidden Planet in Manhattan, New York, at the corner of Broadway and East 13th Street.

The original chain split into two rival firms, called Forbidden Planet and Forbidden Planet Scotland (later renamed Forbidden Planet International). Forbidden Planet International grew beyond Scotland to include stores throughout the Midlands, in Wales, Northern Ireland the Republic of Ireland and majority ownership of the store in New York City. The New York store can be found on Broadway near Union Square.

FPI also runs a blog featuring comics and SF related news, reviews and interviews with novelists and comics creators and has recently begun podcasting too. As well as the main webstore with a wide range of comics, SF and cult merchandise and graphic novels (including a number of British small press titles) there are also sites dedicated to new comics and back issues.

In total, between the two groups who trade under the same name, there are currently some 30 stores worldwide.

[edit] Appearances in pop culture

The New York store was featured in an issue of The Authority vol. 4, #2. When the eponymous superhero team ends up in our world, they visit Forbidden Planet and discover several graphic novels that feature them, and abscond with them without paying for them.

The St Giles High St store appeared in The Daredevils issues #3 and #4 in a Captain Britain story.

Landau, Luckman & Lake, a fictional organisation in the Marvel Universe, is named for the original three founders.^[1]

British store employee Jan Waicek was quoted in the May 2000 issue of Maxim magazine, in an article titled, "Hardest of the Hardcore" which examined various items with extreme statistics or traits ("Hardest Dinosaur, "Hardest Natural Disaster", "Hardest Aircraft", etc.). Waicek was asked his opinion on who is the "Hardest Superhero", and cited Wolverine's adamantium skeleton and claws, and Superman's near-invulnerability.^[2]