Nick Landau was significantly involved in comics fandom since the late 1960s, co-editing the fanzine Comics Media (he produced copies of his 'zines on a duplicating machine at comic shop Dark They Were, and Golden Eyed) and running comic marts, before breaking into the industry in the mid 1970s when he interviewed Pat Mills, then the editor of IPC's 2000 AD. Mills decided Landau had potential, and shortly afterwards he was hired as a sub-editor, first on Action, then 2000 AD, effectively becoming its editor by default as his superior Kelvin Gosnell was busy on Starlord. He also wrote installments of several 2000 AD strips in collaboration with Roy Preston, including M.A.C.H One (a character they killed off) and Dan Dare, though the M.A.C.H One story M.A.C.H Zero was credited to Steve MacManus. Landau was removed from 2000 AD by managerial decree (replaced by Steve MacManus) and placed on Battle Picture Weekly, but soon left IPC to first set up Titan Distribution with his business partners Mike Lake and Mike Luckman, and then the first Forbidden Planet bookshop, in London (Lake having already departed, Landau and Luckman eventually went their separate ways in 1992, Luckman selling Titan Distribution to Diamond Distributors before going on to found the Forbidden Planet International chain; Landau kept the original Forbidden Planet stores). They also founded Titan Books, and subsequently Landau created the Titan Entertainment Group (which now includes Titan Comics and Titan Magazines), as well as the short-lived Eagle Comics line. On the whole, he's done rather well for himself.
Notes[]
- Landau, Luckman and Lake was later used as the name of an intergalactic holding company in the American Marvel Comics universe, which appeared in such titles as Wolverine and Deadpool. This is almost certainly not a coincidence.
- Pat Mills has written a blog post about some of 2000 AD's unsung heroes which mentions Nick Landau and can be found here.