publish a British equivalent of the lavish French bande dessinée magazines. While disillusioned with the direction, or lack of, Pssst! was taking, his job brought him into contact with many more new and innovative cartoonists around the UK. To some of these, such as Glenn Dakin in Manchester, he introduced the concept of self-publishing small press comics and sending them out to like-minded souls, thus widening the net for Fast Fiction. Pssst! was forced to close after 10 issues, leaving Gravett with a good idea of how not to run a magazine and a pool of talent. The A5 years The first seven issues of Escape were published between 1983 and 1985 as A5, or digest-sized, booklets of between 56 and 84 pages in length with black and white interiors and colour covers. The covers were wrap-around and, for the first five issues, hand-separated by Stanbury until full-process colour became viable. The smaller size was chosen to physically differentiate it from other comics around at the time with a nod to the photocopied small press comics that usually came in this format. It was also easy to put in your pocket. The first issue had a print run of 2000 and had a disproportionate reaction from the music and style media bringing in subscribers and advertising, notably the NME and Time Out. While the contents of each issue followed a pattern of running homegrown talent alongside features on comics from around the world (with an emphasis on European BD and American "art comics") the roster of artists changed regularly with new creators being brought in every issue. Despite, or more likely, because of the wildly different styles and approaches embraced by the magazine Escape had a solid identity and loyal, if disparate, readership. As the landscape of the comics industry changed through the 1980s Escape was there to report it and try to influence where people should be looking. The Titan years In 1986 Escape changed to the larger industry standard American magazine format (8.25"x11") enabling them to reprint work by the international creators they'd previously only written about. Jacques Tardi and Gary Panter appear in issue eight and George Herriman's Krazy Kat became a regular feature. The logo also changed to a bold new design with extra prongs for the E and A and the magazine took on a more professional feel. Of the twelve issues published in this