Posted in: Comics, Recent Updates | Tagged: Comics, london, steve cook

Ten Years Of Orbital Comics, With Steve Cook

Published Sat, 28 Jan 2012 04:11:53 -0600

I remember going to Orbital Comics in London when it first opened ten years ago. I was working in Soho for the ad agency Radioville, and this new comic shop had opened on Old Compton Street, and was suddenly my closest comic shop. And fickle customer that I am, that meant I stopped going to either Forbidden Planet, Comics Showcase or Gosh Comics. B Hive had recently closed – sue, it appears, to no longer being supplied by Diamond, and getting its comics via the owners' other shop in Brighton. Oh and staff, not being paid, had started to pay themselves in stock. Some of which ended up in Orbital.

Orbital was a small basement shop, below a tattooist, and placed directly in the middle of Gay London. Quite handy, since it seemed to do a roaring trade in comics covered in muscly, beefy men. They seemed to sell quite a lot of original Slaine artwork as well.

Oribital then moved to across the gig mecca The Astoria on Charing Cross Road, still in a basement, but now coping with the hundreds of emo kids queuing for tickets to The Lemonheads or whatever the kids were into back then. I literally had no idea.

Then CrossRail came along and both the Astoria and Orbital's premises had to be knocked down, so Orbital mved into the old Photographer's Gallery next to Leicesters Square station. Above the ground, space to stetch out, even if only in one direction, the gallery and side shop have made it a rather respected institution in London comic shops now. I enjoy going to Forbidden Planet and Gosh. But the kids prefer Orbital. Well, it has a stuffed black and white tiger on a leather cushion, doesn't it?

Here's Steve Cook's poster for the store's tenth anniversary, unveiled here for the first time.