Making Its Mark: British Comics Take To The World Stage With Lakes International Comics Festival

The Lakes International Comics Art Festival (LICAF) continues to expand its comics outreach and engagement – this time sending six British/UK based comic creators to fly the flag for British Comics Now at this year’s Toronto Comic Art Festival (TCAF).

We’ve reported on LICAF’s new British Comics Now project before but they’ve now finalised the first six creators to benefit from the project, a nationally-significant project for British comics, a major investment in the global exposure, distribution and recognition of the sector.

On their way to TCAF (11th – 12th May) are Jason Chuang, Isabel Greenberg, Clio Isadora, B. Mure, Bex Ollerton, and Martin Simpson, all incredible British comic makers deserving of a far wider audience. But this is just the start, with the intention of British Comics Now being to take more creators out to key international festivals and provide them with a dedicated pavilion to promote both themselves and their works and Brit comics as a whole.

British Comics Now starts with TCAF in May 2024 and continues, with another set of six comic makers, at the Angoulême Festival in France in January 2025, one of the biggest and most famous comics event in the world. The whole thing comes as part of an initiative from the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF), funded by Arts Council England, The Adlard Family Charitable Foundation and The British Council.

“LICAF is highly-regarded on the international comic art stage by cultural institutes, publishers, other professionals and creators. We have 35 active partnerships across the world, working on a variety of projects and in 2023, no less than 27 countries were represented at the Festival. We use our position to the benefit of British creators including organising residences, exchanges and professional development training and creating commissions as part of international projects.” – Festival Director, Julie Tait

Very sensibly, LICAF have brought in Andy Oliver, EIC at the great comics site Broken Frontier to advise on British Comics Now, with input on which creators would be best suited to benefiting from the project.

“British Comics Now parallels everything we look to do at Broken Frontier in terms of community initiatives. This is a fantastic opportunity for artists that will showcase the incredible vibrancy, diversity and creativity of the UK comics scene to new international audiences.” – Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere Friday 27th – Sunday 29th September 2024

Way more info at www.comicartfestival.com

 

JASON CHUANG

Jason Chuang is an illustrator and storyteller based in Taiwan and the UK. His practice focuses on the exploration of human emotions through the creation of symbolic imageries, coating them with elements of the absurd and poetries.

 

ISABEL GREENBERG

Isabel Greenberg is the author and illustrator of four acclaimed graphic novels; The Encyclopedia of Early Earth, The One Hundred Nights of Hero, Glass Town, and her latest release, Young Hag. She has been a New York Times graphic books bestseller and has been nominated for two Eisner awards. She is also the illustrator of a number of children’s books, including and a picture book for younger readers called The Midnight Babies.

She is a graduate of the University of Brighton and The Royal College of arts, and currently teaches on the illustration BA and MA courses at Camberwell College of Arts. She lives in London.

 

CLIO ISADORA

Clio Isadora is a London based cartoonist and illustrator, originally from Manchester she grew up in North Tyneside. She is of Burmese and British heritage. Her work is goofy, cynical, and often themed around labour, identity and rotting.

Clio’s first graphic novel, Sour Pickles, came out in October 2021 with Avery Hill Publishing. She is currently working on her second graphic novel due out in 2025 with Avery Hill Publishing.

 

B. MURE

B. Mure is an illustrator, cartoonist and educator based in Nottingham. Currently he is working on Disciples of the Earth, the fifth book in the Ismyre series with Avery Hill Publishing, due out in July 2024. He likes punks, dogs and rolling around in the dirt.

 

BEX OLLERTON

Bex Ollerton is an Eisner-nominated comic artist known for her work surrounding mental health, autism, and ADHD. She is the organiser and editor of award-winning anthology, SENSORY: Life on the Spectrum, and her solo debut, Lavender Clouds, releases this year.

Ollerton strives to use the medium of comics to communicate things that can be hard to talk about, in a way that’s both impactful and fun. She’s currently working on a much darker graphic novel about domestic violence.

 

MARTIN SIMPSON

Martin Simpson is a freelance illustrator and comics creator based in Yorkshire, who has illustrated for the likes of Apple, Image Comics, Scholastic, Templar Publishing, The Chicken House Publishing and Puffin Books.

His comics work has included a one-man anthology, called Misc (self-published), The Needleman (published by Soaring Penguin Press), as well as covers and pin-ups for a variety of comics projects and publishers.

In 2020, Martin began to collaborate with a team of six UK based comics artists to help create and contribute towards the much-lauded SKRAWL Comix Magazine.

2023 saw the release of NORD, Martin’s first full length graphic novel for Soaring Penguin Press, which received a fantastic critical response, earning him a recent ‘Broken Frontier Awards’ nomination for ‘Best Artist’.