Trident Comics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Trident Comics was a comic book publishing company based in Leicester, UK, specializing in black and white comics created by new British talent. It was formed in 1989 as an offshoot of the company Neptune Distribution, and went out of business in 1992 when Neptune Distribution did.

[edit] History

Trident Comic's aim was to provide creator-owned opportunities for not just established talent such as Neil Gaiman, Eddie Campbell and Grant Morrison, but new talent such as Mark Millar, Paul Grist and Dominic Regan. Trident Comics's main editor was Martin Skidmore, a British comic fan who had been previously best know for editing the fan-magazine, Fantasy Advertiser, a title which Trident Comics published when Skidmore joined the company.

Its first release in early 1989 was the Trident Sampler, a 32 page free sampler issue festuring previews from forthcoming titles. This was followed shortly afterward by Trident #1. Trident was an anthology title, and its first issue featured work such as Eddie Campbell's Bacchus, Neil Gaiman and Nigel Kitching's The Light Brigade and Grant Morrison and Paul Grist's St. Swithin's Day.

Trident proved successful and was followed shortly afterward by Saviour#1 by Mark Millar and Daniel Vallely. This was Millar's first published work and again proved successful for Trident Comics. In 1989, Trident Comics also launched Man-Elf ( created by Michael Moorcock ) as well as Fantasy Advertiser on a bi-monthly basis. However, this success was tempered by criticism of titles shipping late, something which began to affect its titles more and more.

In 1990, Trident Comics released its best known title, the collected and recoloured St. Swithin's Day by Morrison and Grist. It proved controversial due to its subject matter, it even had questions asked about it in the House of Commons. It quickly sold out and was one of the few titles Trident sent to a second print. After this success, 1990 saw more titles such as Paul Grist's Burglar Bill, Mark Millar and Andrew Hope's, The Shadowmen and Eddie Campbell and Phil Elliott's Lucifer.

Many of these titles suffered from the late shipping that had been a problem previously with the company. This affected sales greatly as well as the reputation of Trident Comics. Another factor was Neptune also forming Apocalypse Ltd ( their main title was the weekly Toxic! ) in 1991, this stretched all of Neptune's company's to their limit. Eventually during 1992 Neptune Distribution went bankrupt and took Trident Comics and Apocalypse Ltd with them.

Several Trident Comics titles did find new publishers, including St. Swithin's Day and Bacchus , but many did not and remained unpublished.