By identifying with the relatively exotic and beautifully produced volumes from Europe, Escape distanced itself from the action-adventure style of 2000AD and the American superheroes of Marvel and DC and established itself not only as something new but also important.

In 1981, having passed the Fast Fiction stall and distribution to Phil Elliott and before starting Escape, Gravett was employed as promotions manager for Pssst!, an attempt to publish a British equivalent of the lavish French bande dessinée magazines.

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.

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.

Of the twelve issues published in this format eight had covers by non-British illustrators as Escape moved away from its small press origins and fully embraced a more international, Art-based ideology.

A year later, and after protracted negotiations, Escape became the first periodical to be published by Titan Books,[2] a graphic novel repackaging house responsible for collections of Judge Dredd and American titles such as Swamp Thing.

[3]To this date, althoughEscape magazine has not yet returned to publication, Escape Books has released two hardcover graphic novels, 'The Great Unwashed' by Warren and Gary Pleece in 2012 and 'There's No Time Like The Present' by Paul B. Rainey in 2015.

Publications such as Deadline and Heartbreak Hotel shared the combination of comic strips by relative newcomers and lifestyle articles designed to reach a non-comics audience.

Later issues of Crisis featured Paul Grist and reprinted European work while the short-lived Revolver employed Escape regulars Rian Hughes and Julie Hollings amongst others.

While, with the exception of Eddie Campbell, the core group of artists associated with Escape did not necessarily go on to great riches, the magazine did publish early work by notable creators including Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, Paul Johnson, James Robinson and Rian Hughes.

While the magazine did carve out an important niche and break new ground, the work of Knockabout Books and Warrior and aspects of the Harrier Comics line should be taken into account.