The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, Sheffield Hallam University and The University of Manchester, the organisations behind Comics Up Close, have just issued their Call for Papers for their next academic conference taking place in February 2024. The deadline for proposals is 19th November.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has launched a series of “Comics in the Classroom” videos on its YouTube channel as part of its ongoing Comic Potential project. The videos offer teachers some really straightforward tips and techniques on how comics can be used in the classroom across all age ranges – not just for teaching English, but across the curriculum.

Michele Hutchison has been announced as the winner of the inaugural Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation, for her translation of The Philosopher, The Dog and the Wedding by Barbara Stok, published in English by SelfMadeHero. More Awards for translation, inspired by the late Sophie Castille, are set to follow, across Europe.

Belgian cartoonist Pieter de Poortere is set to unveil the first British edition of his beloved character, Dickie, at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) this coming weekend.

Just part of the fun around the Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2023 is a geocache challenge, “The Quest for the Windermere Ghost”!

To play, start your challenge from Bowness-on-Windermere Tourist Information. Then, using your mobile device, head over to pyts.link and enter the game code KIXG to start!

The worlds of research, science and comics have been brought together to deliver a powerful message about climate change. 

Three leading comic creators – award-winning comic creator Darryl Cunningham, satirical comic creators War and Peas from Germany, and comic creator, academic and illustrator Sayra Begum – have collaborated with the CONSTRAIN project, a consortium of fourteen European partners, tasked with improving near-term climate projections, to develop comics exploring the climate change challenge. 

Ahead of their participation in the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, the Institut français in London has organised a Drink & Draw session with French illustrators Lucie Arnoux and Nicolas Wildnext week, on Thursday 28th September. 

This is an occasion to share a drink and exchange with illustrators that are making an impact on the French comics scene today, while creating art together during a special drawing class.

We're delighted to confirm our exhibition plans for this year’s Festival (Friday 29th September – Sunday 1st October 2023) in Bowness-on-Windermere – and announced some guest changes and additions to the previously announced line-up of over sixty international comic creators, including an appearance by Jenny Ryan from ITV’s The Chase.