20 Storeys Down began as an independent comic series, but it didn't behave like one.
Every issue became a bestseller on Amazon’s digital comic platform, comiXology, competing for attention in the same marketplace as Marvel, DC and the biggest names in comics.
Issue 1 debuted in the Top 5 of the Indie sales chart. Since then, the franchise has built a Facebook audience of more than 130,000 fans: a striking level of reach for a story with no corporate machine behind it.
The comic’s visual identity was brought to life by Marc Olivent, an illustrator with deep comics credentials. His work spans major publishers including DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Walker Books and Hachette Children’s Books, and his illustration work on Dark Satanic Mills was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.
As 20 Storeys Down expanded beyond the page, the world became larger, darker and more cinematic. The story developed, the mythology deepened, and the format changed, but the original DNA remained intact: historical accuracy, creeping mystery and the unsettling sense that London is built on secrets it would rather keep buried.
The podcast adaptation carries that same intent into sound.
Directed by Matt Holt, a Rose d’Or winning drama and comedy director with two decades of television experience, the audio series brings professional screen craft to the world beneath London. Holt’s credits include A Kind of Spark, Father Brown, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Horrible Histories and Coronation Street.
Writer Russ Bailey is a genre storyteller whose work moves between horror, comedy and the strange space where the two meet. His short films have screened at festivals including LSFF and Unrestricted View Horror Festival, and his festival-winning horror script YOMP has been optioned for production by Silent D Pictures.
The cast brings equal weight.
Geoffrey Austin Newland’s credits include 28 Years Later, HBO’s The Franchise, Outlander, Spooks, Da Vinci’s Demons, Coronation Street and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Eve Midgley is known for A Kind of Spark, The Worst Witch and stage work including The Lion King.
James McClelland is a RADA-trained theatre, film and television actor known for A Kind of Spark, Meet the Richardsons and playing Noel Gallagher in Creation Stories.
What started as a bestselling independent comic has become a wider story world.
The format has changed.
The descent continues.
