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.

“Enter the Mulberry Tree and Fly Free”, the first exhibition of comic art from Palestine of its kind to take place outside of the Middle East and North Africa region, opens at Left Bank in Leeds today, 6th November, running until 28th November 2024, as as part of this year’s Thought Bubble Festival.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is celebrating the success of its inaugural International Comic Rights Market, which took place at its annual Festival weekend last month in Bowness-on-Windermere.

Some international comic creator guests of the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, which took place last month, attracting hundreds of comic fans to Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District, also took part in local outreach work with schools during their visit to Britain.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) is delighted to announce Juanjo Guarnido as the winner of the Sergio Aragonés International Award for Excellence in Comic Art.

Juanjo was presented with the award during the Opening Night event of the Festival’s weekend-long Festival in Bowness-on-Windermere. 

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, in partnership with Comica and VIP Brands, is delighted to announce that Alexa Frank has been announced as this year’s winner of the Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation – English, for 2024, for her translation of  “沖合の雷” (“Offshore Lightning”) by Saito Nazuna, translated from Japanese, published by Drawn & Quarterly.

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival, in partnership with Comica and VIP Brands, is delighted to announce that Alexa Frank has been announced as this year’s winner of the Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation – English, for 2024, for her translation of “沖合の雷” (“Offshore Lightning”) by Saito Nazuna, translated from Japanese, published by Drawn & Quarterly.