The Forbidden Planet International Blog

Escape Books is back. Again. In fact I’ve just found a blog post on the FPI Blog that said exactly the same thing back in Jan 2010. Announced recently over at Paul Gravett’s Blog At The Crossroads, the iconic name is returning to comic publishing after many, many years.

For those unfamiliar with Escape, it’s the magazine and publisher formed by Gravett and Peter Stanbury and active during the 80s. Head to Wikipedia for an overview, but essentially it was a hotbed of UK and Euro talent, which eventually led to Escape branching out to comic and graphic novel publishing, including Eddie Campbell’s Alec and Gaiman and McKean’s first offering Violent Cases. Like Dez Skinn’s Warrior, and Knockabout (in idea if not in style), Escape magazine, and Escape publishing was very much the forerunner of the upsurge of recent UK comic publishing houses.

Well, Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury are at it again:

“Escape is back! That’s right, Escape Books, the publishing company I co-founded with Peter Stanbury which revolutionised British comics in the Eighties, is back in business. We’re about to launch the first in our new line of quality graphic novels, namely The Great Unwashed by Warren Pleece and Gary Pleece. Step up, step up, for their bleakly hilarious end-of-the-pier cabaret of dreamers and lost souls, spanning eras and locales from Brighton and back again! ….. Most of all, we want to get this wonderful book to you directly by building up a community of graphic novel readers and connoisseurs worldwide, who come to Escape Books for the finest in comics.“

As Gravett say, the first book is Warren and Gary Pleece’s The Great Unwashed, a collection of new material alongside some of their rather brilliant (as far as my terrible memory tells me anyway) work from their self-published Velocity magazine back in the 80s.

And there’s already a second book on the table as well, although as yet unscheduled. Paul Rainey’s excellent sci-fi soap opera There’s No Time Like The Present is to be published in (I imagine) 2013. Or, as Rainey puts it:

“…it is my honour to be able to announce that Escape Book’s next graphic novel is There’s No Time Like The Present. The collection features the complete 320 paged story written and drawn by myself, tweaked for improvement including extra panels, dialogue and pages, with all of the art grey-toned for improved impact. No release date has been confirmed just yet but Escape Books and I will endeavour to keep you abreast of any updates.“

The new Escape Books website is here: http://www.escape-books.com/