More From The Lakes International Comic Arts Festival — Comic Arts Europe Guests Revealed & The Debut Of A “Festival Fringe”

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival keeps the announcements coming for one of the UK’s big comics events.

Happening 29th September – 1st October 2023, which is just around the corner the way this year seems to be racing away from us, the Lakes International Comics Art Festival (LICAF) has announced another set of guests coming through its partnership with Comic Art Europe and the inaugural Festival Fringe events, spearheaded by creators that include Dan Berry, Lucy Sullivan and Kev F. Sutherland.

The partnership with Comic Art Europe, an organisation supported by four comics events, Lyon BD, LICAF, Escola Joso, Centre de Còmic i Arts Visuals, and Centre Belge de la Bande-Dessinée (the Belgium Comic Strip Centre), brings James Albon, Silvia L. Ballart, Bernard Hage (aka The Art Of Boo), Štepánka Jislová, and Eva Pavlic to LICAF this year, all part of the organisation’s goal of uniting comics artists and groups all over Europe.

 

The CAE-sponsored guests join an already rather packed list of guests for 2023 in the town of Bowness-on-Windermere, including Charlie Adlard, Gigi Cavenago, Gustavo Duarte, Hunt Emerson, Gerhard, Mai Koraiem, Michael Lark, Lucie Lomová, Dave McKean, Bill Morrison, Seif Eddine Nechi, Steve and Annie Parkhouse, Sean Phillips, Pieter De Poortere, David Shenton, Václav Šlajch, and Bryan and Mary Talbot.

The whole weekend kicks off with the previously announced (and previously reported) comedy night with Josie Long and Frankie Boyle on Friday 29th September.

 

As for the Festival Fringe, it will include a number of events organised by fringe members led by cartoonist, illustrator, podcaster, and educator Dan Berry. Fellow Fringe members include David Gaffney, Lucy Sullivan, Joe Latham, John Allison, Kev F Sutherland, Lucy Porter, Rachael Smith, Lyndon White, Roger Langridge, and Zara Slattery.

Information on confirmed events can be found on the Festival Fringe page, along with links to the web sites or social media of the event participants. But we’re sure we’ll be finding out more about what Berry et al have in store in the course of the next couple of months.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere 29th September to 1st October 2023

Now, a little PR about the Comic Arts Europe guests…

“James Albon is an award-winning illustrator and writer based in Edinburgh. He studied illustration at Edinburgh College of Art, and went on to a postgraduate scholarship at the Royal Drawing School in London.

As well as having written several graphic novels, including A Shining Beacon (2018) and The Delicacy (2021), he has illustrated books by Mark Twain and John Steinbeck for the Folio Society, produced editorial illustrations for The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and Libération, and has received awards from the V&A Museum, American Illustration, and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers.

Love Languages, supported by Comic Art Europe, is his fourth graphic novel.”

“Silvia L. Ballart is a Spanish comic artist, script writer and illustrator. From 2016 to 2021 she attended Escola Joso in Barcelona to study Graphic Art. There she was educated in a diversity of areas such as script writing, drawing and narrative, among others. It was then when she discovered her love of comic books and comic-making. It led her to become one of the five winners of the second Comic Art Europe Open Call with her project, The Hermit.

She is currently working as a teacher, and in the process of publishing her first book.”

“Bernard Hage, commonly known as “The Art of Boo”, is an illustrator and cartoonist who struggled with writing his own biography while referring to himself in the third person.

He was born by accident and grew up in a small and boring town, which had no electricity, infrastructure, or girls. Bernard received his education at an accessible private school, where highly experienced tutors greatly contributed to corrupting his sense of creativity.

During his early years, he succeeded in getting himself into undesirable situations, which helped nurture his childhood traumas, and was credited by renowned bullies for always being in the wrong place at the right time. He also succeeded in getting friend-zoned countless of times and has been hailed as a “brilliant listener”.

Bernard chose a career in advertising that eradicated his ethics and social life simultaneously, so he quit his job in 2012. After surviving a profound existential crisis, he hosted his first solo exhibition, Undressed – Society’s Reflection in Its Brands at Artlab gallery, Beirut, in 2014. He then launched his first book of illustrated short stories and an original music soundtrack titled In the Dead of Night – Bedtime Stories for Grown Ups in 2017. His father missed both events.

His recent book, Anatomy of A Hummus Plate, published in April 2021, is a compilation of social and political cartoons that documents Lebanon’s economic and political collapse. Launched in Beirut, the book received disappointing reviews, most of which originated from furious vegans who were misled by the title and thought the content was no laughing matter.

In his spare time, Bernard composes music on his piano, labeled as “neo-experimental-medium-rare-Indie” by his intellectual middle-aged divorced neighbor, with whom Bernard agrees.

Recently, his music became more appreciated among the other neighbours, as it turned out it drives burglars and bandits away. His records are mostly played on weekends, in lieu of a security system when the neighbours leave for their mountain retreat.

Bernard is known best for his cartoons. He’s published weekly with L’Orient Le Jour since 2018, the French language Lebanese daily that offered him a very large amount of exposure in return for his hard work.

His work has been hailed by regional and international media, popular blogs and his mother.

Currently, Bernard resides in Berlin, where he pursues his dream of becoming a young millionaire by introducing sense of humour to the local community.”

“Štepánka Jislová (1992) is a Czech comics author and illustrator. She has completed eight graphic novels so far, ranging from ironic superhero dystopias like this year’s SUPRO (Crew publishing) to personal autobiographical testimonies, like Hairless or Matter of Heart (both released by Paseka publishing). She is the co-founder of Komiksodejky, the Czech branch of Laydeez do Comics.

During the short instances when comics lets her out of its grasp, she does yoga, hikes and dreams of living in the woods.”

“Eva Pavlic first developed an interest in making comics during her studies in architecture and urbanism. She earned a Master Degree in Architectural Engineering from The University of Ljubljana and a Master Degree in Art from the Royal Danish Academy of Art and Architecture in Copenhagen. While making the Master Thesis for the former, Pavli? wanted to

challenge the traditional forms of architectural representation and test the ways a comic book format can investigate the relationship between body, building and the space in between.

Through her work she wishes to continue blending the boundaries between the technical, empirical and epic in an attempt to better understand and communicate on the way we experience our built environment.”