Camden Town Comic Book Store, Ex-Mega City: Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet Camden is the comic book store on Inverness Street, the short side road off Camden High Street, and it opens from 10am to 6pm Monday to Saturday and from 11am to 5pm on Sunday, with bank holidays on the 10am to 6pm pattern. The address is 18 Inverness Street, London NW1 7HJ. Until February 2025 the same shopfront was Mega City Comics, one of London's longest-running independent comic shops.

Mega City was Martin Kravetz's shop, and when he announced his retirement in early 2025 there was a real chance it would close. Instead, Forbidden Planet took over the store on Friday 14 February 2025, as reported by the comics news site downthetubes that day. Kravetz described the handover as linking the world's largest comics retailer with one of the country's oldest indie comic-book stores, still trading from its original location on Inverness Street.

The deal kept the people regulars knew. Mega City's two sales staff, Vik and Jack, stayed on and joined the Forbidden Planet team, and existing customers with a Mega City shop save account had their regular orders carried over. The shop closed briefly for renovation before reopening under the new name. Forbidden Planet's owners, Vivian Cheung and Nick Landau, said at the time that they wanted to respect Martin's personal and highly impressive legacy.

The takeover also had a personal angle. Forbidden Planet's chief operating officer, Andrew Sumner, said he had been a Mega City regular since the 1990s, when he was publishing magazines out of Greater London House, calling in three times a week and buying hundreds of comics from Kravetz. The company's own statement pitched Camden Town as the cradle of Britpop and the centre of Japanese anime culture in London, which explains why it wanted a foothold here.

The core of the Camden shop is still the weekly comic. Forbidden Planet's store pages track new releases by Wednesday date, and its subscription service lets you build a monthly list from publishers including Marvel, DC, Image, Titan, Dark Horse, IDW, Dynamite, Boom! Studios and VIZ Media. For a Camden regular, the practical route is to set the list up and collect from Inverness Street, which is how the shop save accounts from the Mega City era continued.

Forbidden Planet also sells its own exclusive and variant covers, plus signed comics and graphic novels, and those sections are shared across the chain. That is the clearest change from the Mega City days. A small independent shop could rarely offer exclusive covers, while the Camden branch can now order from the same pool as the Shaftesbury Avenue megastore, alongside the back issues and pre-orders Mega City was known for.

The shop follows the chain's categories, so beyond American comics you will find manga, light novels, science fiction and fantasy books, toys and collectibles such as Pop! vinyl and statues, clothing, and gaming stock. The manga range is organised by genre online, from shonen and seinen to shojo and isekai, with series such as Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man and My Hero Academia promoted most. Camden's anime crowd makes manga a natural fit for this branch.

On price, Forbidden Planet runs its offers across the whole chain rather than branch by branch. In 2026 its website has carried a 5 for £10 deal on graphic novels and 5 for £5 on paperback books. Sale stock varies by store, so treat those deals as a bonus if your branch has the titles you want, rather than a reason to make the trip on their own.

Camden Market weekends are crowded, and Inverness Street sits right on the walk between Camden Town station and the market stalls, so Saturday afternoons bring a lot of passing trade. If you want the counter staff's attention for a pull list or a back-issue hunt, come soon after the 10am weekday opening. Sunday's 11am to 5pm hours are shorter than the rest of the week, and the last hour before closing tends to be the quietest.

One honest point for visitors: this is now a chain shop, and the bigger signings, launches and in-conversation events are held at the London megastore on Shaftesbury Avenue rather than here. Camden's appeal is a smaller room with staff who have served the same customers for years. If you want the largest range in one place, go to the megastore. If you want a neighbourhood comic shop, stay in Camden.

Inverness Street has its own small run of food and market stalls and leads straight on to Camden High Street. Forbidden Planet's own statement about the takeover named The Good Mixer, the Inverness Street pub tied to the Britpop years, as the place to celebrate a purchase. Turn north up the high street and in a few minutes you reach Camden Lock, where the Regent's Canal passes the market buildings and the lock gates.

From the lock, the canal towpath runs west toward Primrose Hill and Regent's Park. It is a flat walk of about twenty minutes past moored narrowboats, ending with a climb to the top of Primrose Hill for one of the classic views over central London. On a dry evening it is the best way to end a Camden afternoon. Walk back the same way, or cut through the streets of Primrose Hill village to Chalk Farm station on the Northern line.

Address: Forbidden Planet Camden, 18 Inverness Street, London NW1 7HJ. Hours: Monday to Saturday 10am to 6pm, Sunday 11am to 5pm, bank holidays 10am to 6pm. Nearest station: Camden Town, Northern line. Formerly Mega City Comics, run by Martin Kravetz, taken over by Forbidden Planet on 14 February 2025. Stock: weekly comics, subscriptions, graphic novels, manga, toys, clothing and games. Chain offers in 2026: 5 for £10 on graphic novels, 5 for £5 on paperbacks.