The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, working in collaboration with celebrated Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, is delighted to publish Safaa and the Tent, the diary of cartoonist Safaa Odah, from Gaza, with all profits from sales going to Safaa.

The University of Cambridge is researching the intersection of comics and autism in partnership with the Comics Cultural Impact Collective and the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, and others, beginning with the creation of a Best Practice Guide to help make comics communities as inclusive and accessible as possible for autistic people. 

As we begin a fresh new year and as the range of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival’s work continues to grow, we thought it would be the perfect time to tell you more about our current work, future plans, our funding and ongoing opportunities for creators. So don’t miss our free online LICAF Now & Next event on Thursday 13th February 2025, which will include a Q&A session with MC and Festival Patron, Lucy Sullivan. 

We're delighted to bring you the fourth issue of Between The Lines, our free online magazine focusing on Festival guests and other matters comic, edited by John McShane, designed by Steve Kerner.

Macmillan Children’s Books has announced an expanded programme of publishing with John Patrick Green, the author-illustrator mastermind behind the graphic novel series InvestiGators. The agreement, for seven titles across the InvestiGators and the companion Agents of S.U.I.T. series, comes as the series enjoys a 134% sales increase through the UK TCM. The deal takes the combined series to 19 titles with publishing running through to the end of 2028. 

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to announce its initiative to promote British comics on the world stage, British Comics Now, is offering two new opportunities to creators to get their work seen overseas as part of a wider promotion of British Comics. 

British Comics Now – LICAF@The Comic Art Museum

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to invite applications for our 2025 Exhibitor Marketplace, which will take place on Saturday 27th and Sunday 28th September in Bowness-on-Windermere, the Lake District. This year’s marketplace is sponsored by eminent UK comic artist, and LICAF patron, Sean Phillips.

Opal22 Arts and Edutainment, in partnership with the Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, recently launched its Culture Comics: Graphic Novel Competition.

This nationwide initiative invites young people aged 12–18 to unleash their creativity by crafting original stories and graphics. Through two thought-provoking prompts, the competition aims to explore young people’s perceptions of Black culture while offering an educational platform to celebrate its richness on a national scale.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to announce that comic writer and artist Lucy Sullivan has joined the organisation as a new patron.

Lucy joins fellow comic exponents Yomi Ayeni, Kate Charlesworth, Keli Lark, Michael Lark, Sean Phillips, Bryan Talbot, Mary Talbot and Zoom Rockman as an advisor to the Arts Council funded LICAF, as it continues its mission to promote comics and comics literacy throughout the year, in partnership with local, national and international organisations.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is continuing to develop its strategy to champion comics part in promoting literacy, buoyed by its own research and others.As part of its involvement in Comic Art Europe, the Festival published a report on findings gathered at Abraham Moss Community School in Manchester, a project bringing together four European organisations to demonstrate the importance of comics in societies across Europe.