Lakes International Comic Art Festival Reveals Festival art, announces first guests for 2023
by Richard Bruton
The Lakes International Comics Art Festival, one of the two BIG UK comic festivals has just announced the first guests and unveiled its festival art from Mohamed Salah.
Yep, it may only be March now but the convention and festival announcements are coming thick and fast.
Now, there’s two very obvious big festivals here in Britain – by which I mean comics events that celebrate comics, not the comic conventions that simply don’t really have any comics involved. We have Thought Bubble in November and we have the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in either October or November – this year it’s Friday 29th September – Sunday 1st October.
Taking place in the beautiful surroundings of Bowness-on-Windermere, the Lakes, or LICAF, is modeled on the Angoulême idea of the festival taking over the town and making the festival something that involves both the town and the festival guests and visitors in the whole weekend. It’s a great show, a great festival, and usually has a stellar range of guests from across the world.
They’ve just released this year’s Festival art by Egyptian comic creator, Mohamed Salah and their first round of guests have been announced – Dave McKean, Lucie Lomová, and Awkward Yeti creator Nick Sulek, and, of course, Mohamed Salah. This is in addition to the Festival’s announcement for its Lakeview Comics Marketplace lineup, bringing together a massive number of comic creators, publishers and other creatives for the Festival.
“I thought of the Festival’s poster as a celebration of stories. Stories, I believe, are the closest thing we have to a collective memory, a bridge connecting our past and future. I wanted to capture the ‘sense of wonder’ that makes them just that.
And to have a good looking lake, of course!” – Artist Mohamed Salah on his LICAF artwork
Mohamed Salah Ismail is a comic book artist and visual artist from Egypt who’s been involved in art since 2002 and has worked in comics, visual arts, animation, editorial cartoons, illustration, and advertising. His work is published in magazines such as Samir, Bassem, and Toktok, and in newspapers such as Al-Masry Alyoum and Al-Shorouk. (Mohamed Salah Ismail on Instagram: @abusalah)
We’ve got a host of surprises lined up for this year’s Festival. Not just a great, diverse, world-spanning comic creator lineup, but exhibitions, kids stuff to stir imaginations, and much more.
– LICAF Event Director, Julie Tait
Dave McKean you really should already know about – comic artist, illustrator, photographer, graphic designer, filmmaker, and musician. He’s been involved with Neil Gaiman’s comic work from the beginning, right back to their very first comics work, Violent Cases, published back in 1987, but he’s also worked on The Sandman, The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch, Signal To Noise amongst others. His breakthrough comic work was the Grant Morrison-written Arkham Asylum. Then there’s his own magnum opus, the brilliant Cages. And after all that comics work, he’s become a renowned illustrator, photographer, filmmaker, innovative performances,
Lucie Lomováis is an award-winning Czech comics artist and illustrator, whose books have been translated into French, German, and Polish. Her latest graphic novel, Každý den je nový (Every Day Is New) won the 2022 Muriel Award for the best Czech graphic novel. The English translation of her graphic novel Divoši (Savages) is due out from Centrala Publishing in spring 2023.
The Awkward Yeti and all of its work are authored and illustrated by cartoonist Nick Seluk. It was his dream since he was a kid to be funny, and someday he hopes to be. His New York Times bestselling series, Heart and Brain, has brought popularity to The Awkward Yeti on social media, and he now copes with the pressure of trying to entertain millions of fans online. In 2018, his first children’s book was published by Scholastic, titled The Sun is Kind of a Big Deal, the first in a three-book series.
This years’ Lakeview Comics Marketplace includes over 90 comic creators, publishers and illustrators, including… (deep breath)
Chris Askham, Yomi Ayeni, Sayra Begum, Clark Bint, Tim Bird, Lewis Campbell, Jon Davis, Pete Doree, Emma Evans, Ed Firth, Simon Furman, Steven Fraser, Warwick Fraser-Coombe, Jessika Green, Lyndsey Green, Katie Handley, Isabel Hatherall, Jack Harvey, Luke Hyde, Jenika Ioffreda, Owen Michael Johnson, Roger Langridge, Joe Latham, Russell Mark Olson, Shaun Martland, Drew Marr, Chris Mole, Alex Moore, Beatrice Mossman, Nigel Parkinson, Markus Pattern, Mollie Ray, Reabault, Emma Reynolds, Schnumn, Paul Shinn, Martin Simpson, Matt Simmons, Zara Slattery, Cam Smith, Matt Smith, Rachael Smith, Lucy Sullivan, Kev F Sutherland, David Taylor, Tom Ward, Kevin Wells, Lyndon White, Kate-Mia White, Steve White, Dan Whitehead, Andrew Wildman, Manon Wright & Tal Brosh.
Independent Publishers, and other Exhibitors include: 1826, 77 Publishing, After the Robot Apocalypse, Art-Bubble, B7 Comics, The Cartoon Museum, Catfood Comics, Centrala, CoCo Comics, Colossive Press, Comics Youth CIC, Conundrum Press, Doctor Geof, Drawn Strip, Fanfare UK, First Graphic Novel Competition, Foxhat, Galaxia Prince, I&M Illustration, Indie Novella, Iqbal A. Comics, Kaarinart, Kannter Art, Knockabout Comics, LDComics, Meraki Comics, MoonSquid INK, Nevercity Creations, Nona Gallery, Parable Games, Peak Hare Collective, The Pig Patch, Power Comics Studios, RAWHEAD, Scratch Comics, Sector 13 Comics, SelfMadeHero and Sloth Comics
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere on 29 September to 1 October 2023.
