Great Beast Comics, the company set up by creators Adam Cadwell and Marc Ellerby, has been quietly building up a catalogue over the last few months. Originally founded to create a professional foundation for their own comic releases – allowing them to establish press releases, create their own brand, and make comics more readily available to retailers – Great Beast have announced several new releases over the last few months, from other independent comic creators.

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The first news is that Great Beast will be republishing Robert Ball’s Winter’s Knight: Day One, which sold out it’s original print run and has been unavailable since. Not only will Great Beast be republishing the story both in print and through their digital store this May, but have announced that Ball’s follow up to the story, unsurprisingly called Winter’s Knight: Day Two, will be released this November at Thought Bubble.

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Ball will also be bringing a new comic through the company, called Dangeritis: A Fistful of Danger, due for release in May. Dangeritis sees Ball working with collaborator Warwick Johnson-Cadwell for the story, about a cut-rate James Bond styled hero called Derek Danger.

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The final announced project from Great Beast is Hitsville UK, from the creative team of John Riordan and Dan Cox. This will be an ongoing series, with issue #1 being released in July, ahead of issue #2’s new release in November this year. Described as a surreal soap opera set around a recording studio, the series had great acclaim back with the first issue came out – and I’m looking forward to what comes next.

This is all rather interesting and exciting, as it seems like Great Beast have managed to build themselves a solid foundation within the British comics scene, and are now managing to bring attention to several of their fellow creators. We don’t have a Marvel, DC, or Image here in the UK, so seeing comic companies build themselves up – like Great Beast, The Phoenix, or even bigger publishers like Titan and Rebellion – has been an incredibly exciting movement to follow over the last few years.