Getting a message across, in powerful visual form, is important to many of the comic creators at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival, the organisation itself utilising the comics form with its international Ten Years to Save the World project (www.10yearstosavetheworld.com), supported by the British Council, in partnership with Komiket in the Philippines and Manchester-based Creative Concern.

Getting a message across, in powerful visual form, is important to many of the comic creators at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival

This year’s guests include Alison Bechdel, who has helped redefine how the LGBTQ+ comics world looks and where it is found.

Talking to The Guardian last year, Alison Bechdel elaborates about the comics form, “when I got started as a cartoonist in the early 1980s, I was conscious of it as a form that nobody was going to criticise, and that just gave me a great sense of freedom and possibility,” she said. “It’s just really super accessible, not only in the ways it can be distributed but in the ways it’s assimilated, the ways we read it, the ways we ingest these words and images..”

Alongside established names, LICAF has always highlighted the work of European creators perhaps unfamiliar to comic fans in the UK

Award-winning Finnish creator Ulla Donner uses comics and “attempts to deal with anxiety-inducing subjects with a light touch,” although right now, she cautions that “it feels difficult to be light and silly about anything at all”. Her third book, Den naturliga komedin (“The Natural Comedy”), is about deforestation, fungi, and more… all with a touch of La Divina Commedia.

Bex Ollerton, aka Schnumn, creates introspective comics about mental health and neurodiversity, and is a leading light in the autistic comics community. She’ll be talking about her work alongside Lancashire-based artist Mollie Ray, whose debut graphic novel Giant, exploring the mental and physical health issues of cancer, is to be published in 2024; and Ukrainian artist Asya Voitenko, whose career was interrupted by the invasion of her country, is now working on a new comic inspired by her experiences of being a war survivor and refugee.

Reece Irvin Williams is a poet and writer from Manchester whose writing reflects on the nuances of Black British life and is steeped in his Caribbean heritage. He’ll be launching his debut comic anthology A Requiem for Black Boys, created with artist Ian Bobb, exploring themes of Black British masculinity in a rare combination of poetry and comic art.

Twins Cartoon is the pen name of the Egyptian twin brother’s duo Haitham and Mohamed Raafat El-seht who are at the vanguard of the comics scene in the Arab world and the driving force behind many ground-breaking initiatives challenging the Egyptian and Arab public to take new perspectives on the issues of the day – no easy task.

One of LICAF’s international partnerships is with Comic Art Europe, co-financed by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union, delivering a very special range of residencies across the UK and the continent. Be sure to check out a presentation of work with the theme Visions of Tomorrow, fascinating critiques of the present world.

Included is the work of Maria Suducan and Portuguese artist Filipa Beleza, whose latest book, Conflicted, is a book of gag cartoons about our often good, often empty, attempts at helping and reflecting about the environment and guaranteeing a sustainable future - and the conflict we feel regarding our visions of it. French artist Marine des Mazery offers Underwater Fate, about rising sea levels and, metaphorically, how humans can tackle the phenomenon in the future; and German artist Meikel Mathias reflects on conspiracy theories and the heights they reached during the worst stages of the COVID pandemic that impacted us all.

Many of our exhibitors at the Lakeview Comics Marketplace are also using comics to tell important messages, such as the team from Cardiff-based Arts in Health charity Re-Live, who are launching a new comic called Coming Home; a Life Story anthology comic created with UK military veterans. Revealing true stories of UK military veterans’ mental health journeys, written by veterans, the anthology is illustrated by a mix of classic and digital British comic creators, and features legendary artist Ian Kennedy’s final work as a powerful double-spread painted cover.

Comics, telling a story, making a difference. The possibilities are endless…

Article by John Freeman - writer and editor at Downthetubes

RELATED EVENTS - SATURDAY 15 OCTOBER

Twins Cartoon from Egypt
1.00 – 2.00pm @ Old Laundry Theatre

Launch of Reece Williams’ “A Requiem for Black Boys”
1.00 - 1.40pm @ Lake District Boat Club

Drawn to Silliness – Introducing Ulla Donner
2.00 - 2.40pm @ Lake District Boat Club

Resident Artists Show and Tell – including Comic Art Europe artists
2.00 – 5.00pm @ Windermere Jetty Museum Comics in the Boathouse

Fun Away From Home with Alison Bechdel
4.00 – 5.00pm @ Old Laundry Theatre

RELATED EVENTS - SUNDAY 16 OCTOBER

Re-Live’s Coming Home Launch with Arts in Health charity Re-Live
11.30am - 12.10pm @ Lake District Boat Club

Journeys into the Mind with Bex Ollerton, Mollie Ray and Asya Voitenko
12.30 - 1.10pm @ Lake District Boat Club