Lakes International Comic Art Festival Announces First Guests For 2025
by Richard Bruton
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is one of the two big shows in the UK. Along with Thought Bubble, The Lakes/LICAF are at the forefront of giving comics fans a really great experience… a proper comic show.
Well, we’re a long way off from the 2025 LICAF that takes place across Bowness-on-Windermere over Friday 26th – Sunday 28th September 2025, but that’s not stopping them announcing the first phase of guests for the show – and it’s an impressive list already.
The highlight for so many will obviously be Euro comics legend Lorenzo Mattotti, responsible for such works as Fires (1986), Caboto (1992), Stigmate (1998), The Raven by Lou Reed (2011), and his Eisner Award-winning Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (with Jerry Kramsky) in 2003. He’s a major draw for so many, one of many big names that are to be announced by The Lakes in the coming months.
Also announced, we have, in alphabetical order, Shelly Bond, Simone Lia, Bill Morrison, Robbie Morrison, Mike Perkins, Sean Phillips, Chris Shepherd, Lucy Sullivan, Donya Todd, and Craig Thompson. There shall be many more to come.
I must admit, I haven’t been to the Lakes Festival for a fair few years now, being a continent away tends to curtail the trip to be honest. But I did go to several of the festivals when it was based in Kendall. And it was a really quite wonderful experience, a whole town taken over by comics, so much to see and do, comics everywhere you looked. Definitely not one of those crappy shows where comics are relegated to a side alley away from the ‘media stars’ who are flogging overpriced signatures and photos thanks to them being a Z-lister in some film and TV franchise. No, The Lakes is all about the comics, and do a damn fine job of it. I have no reason to doubt that the shows in Barrow are no less a great weekend than the ones I enjoyed in Kendall.
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere Friday 26th – Sunday 28th September 2025. Find out more at www.comicartfestival.com.
