Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with Árni Beck Gunnarsson, a comics creator whose goal as a promoter of the comics form is simple – to promote what he thinks are good comics and to help creators, who have little or no time, to promote their works internationally.

Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with Lars Jakobsen, director and founder of the Art Bubble festival in Denmark, responsible for contacts with the Festival's guest artists, alongside the coordination and promotion of Danish cartoonists at foreign festivals through the Art Bubble network.

Lars is also a documentary filmmaker, illustrator and graphic designer, and owner of publishing house Fabel.

Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with Robert Deas is a British comic artist and the creator of "Troy Trailblazer", the science fiction adventure series appearing inside the pages of The Phoenix and The Sunday Times.

Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with a Belgian author of graphic novels Judith Vanistendael, whose credits include Dance by the Light of the Moon, When David Lost His Voice and Mikel (which will be published in English in September 2019).

Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with  Pierre Van Hove, an illustrator and graphic artist whose credits include Memoirs of a Book Thief, written by Alessandro Tota.

A free exhibition of art by Junko Mizuno, including paintings, drawings and sculptures, goes on display at the University of Cumbria's Brampton Road Campus in Carlisle, Cumbria in October - and the artist herself will make an appearance 10th October.

Junko Mizuno grew up in Tokyo, Japan but now lives in San Francisco. She has achieved international success with many exhibitions, festivals and books featuring her work over her career to date. She has even had art works made and retailed by Ikea.

Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with Emma Price, a multidisciplinary graphic designer and illustrator who, among other things, designs comic books. She's created logos and books with many talented teams including Image Comics' Savage Town and Angelic, Vertigo's Motherlands and Aftershock Comics' Stronghold.

Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with Kristina Ricken, a Danish artist perhaps best known as the creator of the web comic, Live fra Lolland (Live from Lolland), which has been collected into three books to date.

Every year, in the countdown to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in October, we bring you a series of interviews with guests at the event. This “Festival Focus” for 2019 is with Estonian artist Joonas Sildre. Currently living in Tallinn with his wife and four kids, he studied graphic design at the Estonian Academy of Arts (graduated 2004). Since then, he has been working as a freelance comic artist, illustrator and designer.

The stage is set! From the Depths, a celebration of the acclaimed Hellboy artwork of Duncan Fegredo opens this Saturday (21st September) in Kendal, ahead of this year's Lakes International Comic Art Festival next month.

As we previously reported, the exhibition will delve into Fegredo’s working techniques and uncover how images are summoned from the written script.