BHP Comics publisher Sha Nazir has announced that he is to wind down BHP as a comic book publisher. Set up in 2011 as an underground comics collective Black Hearted Press, had grown by 2015 into a limited company rebranded as BHP Comics, becoming one of Scotland’s premier indie publishing companies. It was shortlisted for publisher of the year multiple times and was a consistent presence on the List Hot 100.

In mid-2019, BHP successfully expanded into the US market. Volumes included Art & Sketches volumes from Frank Quitely and Charlie Adlard, as well as the series Killtopia, John Wagner and Alan Grant’s Rok of the Reds, Clare Forrest’s Mighty Women of Science, Gary Chudleigh and Tanya Robert’s Plagued: The Miranda Chronicles, Jack Lothian and Garry Mac’s Tomorrow, its Full Colour and Bold comics diversity projects, its women in politics anthology We Shall Fight Until We Win and its books found in every secondary school in Scotland.

However, Nazir stated that the challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit significantly impacted the business with shrinking profit margins and escalating costs, exacerbated by Brexit, had rendered international publishing less economically feasible for the company.