Neptune Distribution was a comic distribution company established in Leicester

Leicester

Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...

 in 1986. It was set up to challenge Titan Distribution

Titan Books

Titan Publishing Group is an independently owned publishing company, established in 1981. It is based at offices in London, England's Bankside area. The Books Division has two main areas of publishing: film & TV tie-ins/cinema reference books; and graphic novels and comics reference/art titles. The...

's monopoly

Monopoly

A monopoly exists when a specific person or enterprise is the only supplier of a particular commodity...

 on the UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 comic distribution business.

The proved to be successful with the company expanding into publishing in 1988 with Trident Comics

Trident Comics

Trident Comics was a comic book publishing company based in Leicester, UK, specializing in black and white comics created by new British talent...

 and later help found Apocalypse Ltd

Apocalypse Ltd

Apocalypse Ltd was a publishing company formed out of an alliance of Pat Mills, John Wagner, Alan Grant and Kevin O'Neill along with Neptune Distribution, who were also involved with Trident Comics....

, publishing Toxic!

Toxic!

Toxic! was a British weekly comic book published by Apocalypse Ltd. A total of 31 issues were published from March 28-October 24, 1991.-History:...

, a weekly title meant to compete with 2000 AD

2000 AD (comic)

2000 AD is a weekly British science fiction-oriented comic. As a comics anthology it serialises a number of separate stories each issue and was first published by IPC Magazines in 1977, the first issue dated 26 February. IPC then shifted the title to its Fleetway comics subsidiary which was sold...

.

However the company expanded too quickly and financial problems meant the distribution side of the company was sold to Diamond Comic Distributors

Diamond Comic Distributors

Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. is the largest comic book distributor serving North America. They transport comic books from both big and small comic book publishers, or suppliers, to the retailers. Diamond dominates the direct market in the United States, and has exclusive arrangements with most...

in 1992.