The Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland has celebrated its 30th birthday with a publication highlighting social innovations that promote equality, featuring the work of Maria Björklund from Finland and the UK's Darryl Cunningham and PJ Holden.

The comic book – An Equal Future – Inspiring Social Innovations from Finland, the UK and Ireland has been published in Finnish, Swedish and English, the innovations selected following interviews with experts from the three regions.

Sarah McIntyre is the first guest of the first Lakes International Comic Art Festival Podcast of 2021 – an illustrator and comic creator who’s played a major part in past LICAF events in the past, and, we hope, the future.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to invite exhibitors to the ninth Festival in Kendal, which will run from Friday 15th to Sunday 17th October 2021, with the Comics Clock Tower open as usual on the Saturday and Sunday.

Full details on how to apply, including terms and conditions information, can be found here.

It’s Christmaaaaaas! and to celebrate, Mike Williams and Pete Taylor decided to challenge the whole Lakes International Comic Art Festival podcast team to give them their “Comic Fantasy Stocking Fillers” – and they did!

“We all got together for a good old Skype call, none of that Zoom nonsense for us,” says regular Podcast co-host Ian Loxam.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to announce its involvement in the Comic Art Europe project, working with the Lyon BD Festival in France, the Escola JOSO in Spain and the Belgium Comics Centre. 

Comic Art Europe is an international pilot project bringing together four European organisations promoting and championing the power of Comics and Graphic Novels. 

Pete Taylor and Mike Williams are joined by comic writer, artist and all round great guy Mark Hughes (aka Son Of Ken) on the latest Lakes International Comic Art Festival Podcast (Episode 85) to battle it out in the first of the semi finals of their Genre World Cup.

This time they discuss the genres of zombies and superheroes. Surely there’s an obvious winner here – but listen and find out who!

The digital anthology of select entries to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival‘s Race Into Space Challenge is now available to read for free online.

As we enter into another UK lockdown, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival Podcast brings back Mike Williams and Pete Taylor, having a good old chat with comic creator Gustavo Vargas.

If you’re a fan of Inspector Montalbano, created by the late Andrea Camilleri, then you may want to take a look at a terrific comic adaptation of one of his short stories, L’odore del diavolo (The Devil’s Smell”), the work of an international panel of talented young comic artists and graphic novelists, including Jon McNaught and Posy Simmonds.