| Nick Landau | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | British |
| Area(s) | Editor, writer, publisher and retailer |
Nick Landau is a British media figure, currently co-owner of the Titan Entertainment Group, which publishes Titan Magazines and Titan Books.
Contents |
In the mid-1970s, after finishing a post-grad course at film school, Landau got his break when he came to the 2000 AD offices to interview then-editor Pat Mills for Comic Media News.[1] Mills was already planning on resigning once the comic had become established, and following the interview, had decided that Landau would make a suitable chief sub-editor, saying:
Nick was clearly an exceptional person and I knew he would be of great value, but Sanders rightly regarded most comic fans with deep suspicion, irrelevant to a mainstream undertaking. I agreed with feeling and still do. Nick was the exception to an otherwise golden rule.[2]
Landau didn't get that job due to his lack of experience, but he was soon given the same position at IPC Magazines' Action. When Mills stepped down after sixteen issues, replaced by Kelvin Gosnell, Landau was brought in as Gosnell's chief sub-editor.[3] Gosnell was overwhelmed by the amount of work needed to launch Starlord, and Landau took up the slack. As Gosnell describes it, "As soon as Starlord came on the scene, I lost it. I had to have someone running 2000 AD and that was Nick Landau. He was halfway between editor and chief sub"[4] and Roy Preston was made a sub-editor to take up the slack and help Landau.[5] With the focus on the launch of Starlord (issue #1 was cover dated May 13, 1978), Landau, Preston and art editor Kevin O'Neill had more creative freedom. As Mills says, "Some of the best decisions on 2000 AD's future were made while they were running the show. They were responsible for "The Cursed Earth," credit cards and encouraged talented artists like Garry Leach and Brian Bolland,"[6] although Gosnell disagrees, stating that "[t]his wonderful gush of creative freedom they felt when I started on Starlord nearly got 2000 AD taken off the market."[7]
They ran into legal problems over fill-in stories for "The Cursed Earth" (which satirised the big food companies, including figures like Ronald McDonald and the Jolly Green Giant)[8] but the main problems came over Inferno, the sequel to Harlem Heroes. Concerns were raised over the violence in the story, but the sequence of events is unclear, as David Bishop writes in Thrill Power Overload, "[t]rying to determine exactly what happened next is problematic, due to conflicting memories and the passage of time."[9] The outcome was that, with issue #86 (cover-dated 14 October 1978), when Starlord was merged into 2000 AD, Landau was moved into the same role at Battle, swapping places with Steve MacManus.[10] Landau soon resigned from Battle and made the move into the world of commerce.
Landau first saw the opportunity to distribute American comics in the UK in the 1970s, when only a small range of US comic books were available in British news agents. He says the reason he opened the first store was because he was a distributor for imported comic books in the 1970s, and with the closure of one of his leading customers he needed to take a radical step to avoid going out of business himself.
Landau established the Forbidden Planet chain of shops – the first was opened in Denmark Street, London in 1978, also known as 'Tin Pan Alley' – and now runs the business, as part of the Titan Entertainment Group (TEG), with current business partner and wife Vivian Cheung.
As well as the shops, TEG now includes Titan Books, publishers of both new and licensed graphic novels and film and TV tie-ins; Titan Magazines, publishers of Star Trek Magazine, the Wallace and Gromit comic, UK editions of Simpsons Comics, and many other titles; and Titan Merchandise, producers of high-quality licensed merchandise for global properties, including Marvel Comics, Doctor Who, Kick-Ass, and Hammer Horror.
TEG no longer distributes comics. In 1992 Forbidden Planet and Titan parted company with then-business partner Mike Lake, who sold Titan Distributors to the US comics distributor Diamond Comic Distributors[11] and then established his own Forbidden Planet line of stores, Forbidden Planet International, mainly in northern England and Scotland.
Landau puts the success of Forbidden Planet down to the location of the store and the success of Star Wars, which prompted a surge of interest in science fiction memorabilia and comics.
Customers have included Ridley Scott, who was looking for storyboard artists during the making of Dune. Landau recalls his team ended up providing the director with a number of people from the comic book industry.
Although TEG has made some attempts to establish Forbidden Planet abroad, there are no longer any TEG-owned FP stores outside the UK.
He has also written some comic stories: