Questo weekend, in Kendal (Cumbria, UK), si svolgerà il Lakes International Comic Art Festival del quale abbiamo già scritto nelle settimane scorse. A questa edizione del Festival dei Laghi saranno presentate alcune graphic novel interessanti, vediamole nel dettaglio.
Come sempre vi invito leggervi il programma del Festival , lo potete anche scaricare nel formato PDF (Download the Lakes Internationals Comic Art Festival Programme).
Mario Benenati
New Comics and Graphic Novels set to launch at this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival
Kendal, 9th October 2017: The Lakes International Comic Art Festival tales place this weekend in Kendal (13th – 15th October 2017). Along with its free Family Zone, comic creator talks, signings, exhibitions, illustration portfolio reviews, Finnish Village (and sauna!) there are a number of new comics and graphic novels getting their launch at the hugely-popular annual event.
Among them are Grandville: Force Majeure by Festival Patron Bryan Talbot (published by Jonathan Cape), Graphic Science by Darryl Cunningham (Myriad Editions); and the Festival’s very own tribute to comics legend Will Eisner to mark his centenary, the Spirit Centenary Newspaper.
Grandville: Force Majeure launches at the Festival just as news breaks that the rights option for a proposed Grandville TV series have been bought by Euston Films, with Doctor Who and New Tricks writer Julian Simpson adapting the graphic novels.
Festival partner Page 45, the award-winning Nottingham-based comic shop, will be offering all three new titles in the Georgian Room of the Comixology-sponsored Comics Clock Tower, where Festival Patron Emma Vieceli will be signing her brand-new Young Adult LGBT graphic novel BREAKS (co-created with Malin Ryden) on both Saturday and Sunday morning.
Dozens of comic creators will be selling new independently-created comics, artwork and more, throughout the weekend in the Clock Tower, including Marc Jackson, who’s new comic Here Comes Cat Stevens! was commissioned by LICAF; and Australian comic artist Bruce Mutard, who brings his new work Post Traumatic with him, along with a number of other antipodean creators as part of a Caravan of Comics.
Look out, also, for the annual Festival anthology edited by Dan Berry, assembling comic stories created during the Festival’s Cartoon Cafe Challenge sponsored by Wacom over the weekend and printed within 24 hours of creation!
The Spirit Centenary Newspaper features a cover by Becky Cloonan and work by Brendan McCarthy, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, Graham Dury and Simon Thorp, Chris Samnee, John M Burns, Sergio Aragonés, Peter Milligan and Duncan Fegredo, Seth, Jason Latour, Jonathan Ross and Bryan Hitch, and Michael Cho.
The project, the brainchild of comics academic John McShane, was realised with support from IDW Publishing and Kitchen Sink Press publisher Denis Kitchen. Proceeds from sales will go to LICAF’s Creators’ Development Fund.
“I don’t know how real editors do it, but curating this project has been well worth the wait,” says Sean Phillips, who edited the newspaper. “All the creators involved have more than surpassed my expectations to produce a great tribute to Will Eisner’s The Spirit.
“Creators include some of my favourite artists and writers and the hard part was deciding who to ask. Luckily everyone said yes, including my absolute favourite, John M Burns. Sorry to everyone else, but having John draw a page for this is one of the highlights of my career. All the pages are great, but this one was a real thrill!
“My thanks to everyone involved with fitting this project into their busy schedules, even if some people’s definition of the word ‘deadline’ is more elastic than mine…”
Celebrating Will Eisner’s work, the Festival also ran a Revealing the Spirit of the Lakes competition, the winners to be announced at the weekend. Students across the globe were invited to celebrate the incredible creative comic art legacy of Will Eisner and his iconic vigilante – The Spirit – by imagining a vigilante hero or heroine for the Lake District.
The top five entries will go display in the Warehouse Café at the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal, until 5th November, alongside The Spirit of Eisner exhibition.
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns for its fifth year to Kendal, Cumbria this weekend, from 13th to 15th October 2017. Celebrating comic art from across the world, the weekend festival takes over the town of Kendal, on the edge of the Lake District.
The festival brings the biggest names in comic art to Cumbria with over 70 special guests from across the comic world. This year, artists, creators and writers from Japan, the US, Canada, Australia, Finland, as well as European comic creators will take part in the festival.
• The full programme of events is now live on the Festival web site, along with details about its new Weekend Pass
• Buy your tickets for the fifth Lakes International Comic Art Festival here
• Web: www.comicartfestival.com
• Download the Comics Festival app from iTunes here (requires iOS 10.3 or later. Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch)
• Read the Page 45 guide to the Lakes International Comic Art Festival
Notes for Editors
About the The Lakes International Comic Art Festival
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is the only one of its kind in the UK, taking place in one of the UK’s most beautiful areas – the English Lake District in the North West of the country, in the market town of Kendal. Modelled on European-style festivals, such as Angoulême in France, it takes over the whole town for a weekend of comic art. Its aim is to celebrate the whole spectrum of comic art, inspiring existing comic art fans and creators and, it hopes, generating new audiences and creators too. It invests in creators through a commissioning programme and has an emphasis on developing international collaborations.
This year, the Lakes Festival is moving to a pass system for the festival. The main events programme will be exclusive to pass-holders, there will be exclusive guest-related goodies and a fancy wristband identifying you as a festival supporter.
Web Links
• Press wishing a Word version of the Festival Programme will fine one here on GoogleDrive
• Festival-related imagery for publicity purposes is available from the Festival Flickr page
• For more information on the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, contact: Julie Tait: julie@
Grandville: Force Majeure
Grandville: Force Majeure launches at the Festival just as news breaks that the rights option for a proposed Grandville TV series have been bought by Euston Films. The series will be a mixture of live action, with CGI for animal and other effects, adapted for television by Doctor Who and New Tricks writer Julian Simpson.
In Grandville Force Majeure, the fifth, final and longest stand-alone volume of the Eisner and Hugo Award-nominated Grandville series by master storyteller and graphic novel pioneer Bryan Talbot, Detective Inspector LeBrock is in the middle of a gang war, wanted for murder, truly alone and outside the law, on the run from both the police and gangster assassins. He’s the victim of a diabolical scheme to annihilate himself and everyone he holds dear, engineered by mastermind crime lord Tiberius Koenig, one of the most despicable villains in the history of detective fiction.
A fiendishly ingenious story of love, tenacity, treachery and tragedy, this is a veritable rollercoaster of a detective thriller, featuring Grandville’s trademark high-octane excitement, humour and deduction on a Holmesian scale as we finally meet LeBrock’s mentor, Stamford Hawksmoor, and discover LeBrock’s untold backstory.
Fan-favourite characters Detective Sergeant Roderick Ratzi and LeBrock’s vivacious fiancée, Parisian prostitute Billie are joined by a new badger in town! Enter Tasso, an Italian badger who’s bigger, meaner and uglier than LeBrock – but is he a force for good or evil? A battle royale ensues as LeBrock fights against truly outrageous odds. How can he possibly survive?
• Bryan Talbot Official Site: www.bryan-talbot.com
• Take the Grandville Costume Challenge! Two pages of Grandville artwork, worth about £350 each are being offered as prizes for the two best costumes based on characters from the Grandville books worn at the Lakes International Comics Art festival on Saturday 14th October. If you want to enter, simply turn up at “Grandville, the Last Chapter” at 1.15pm in the Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre and the pages will be awarded at the end of the event!
Graphic Science
by Darryl Cunningham
Overlooked, sidelined, excluded, discredited: key figures in scientific discovery come and take their bow in an alternative Nobel prize gallery.
Much is known about scientists such as Darwin, Newton, and Einstein, but what about those with lesser-known names who have nevertheless contributed greatly to human knowledge? Celebrated author Darryl Cunningham draws compelling portraits of eight scientists who for reasons of gender, race, mental health, poverty – excessive wealth, even – have not won the recognition they deserve.
Antoine Lavoiser: the father of French chemistry who gave oxygen its name, Lavoiser was a wealthy man who found himself on the wrong side of a revolution and paid the price with his life. The contribution to his work by his wife Marie-Anne Lavoisier is only now being fully recognised.
Mary Anning: a poor, working-class woman who made her living fossil-hunting along the beach cliffs of southern England. Anning was excluded from the scientific community whilst wealthy male experts took credit for her discoveries.
George Washington Carver: born a slave, Carver become one of the most prominent botanists of his time, as well as a teacher at the Tuskegee Institute. Carver devised over 100 products using one major ingredient the peanut.
Alfred Wegener: a German meteorologist, balloonist and arctic explorer, his theory of continental drift was derided by other scientists and was only accepted into mainstream thinking after his death. He died in Greenland.
Nikola Tesla: a Serbian American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, physicist, and futurist best known for his contributions to the design of the modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. A competitor of Edison, Tesla died in poverty despite his intellectual brilliance.
Joyce Bell Burnell: a Northern Irish astrophysicist who discovered the first radio pulsars (supernova remnants) as a postgraduate student. Antony Hewish, her thesis supervisor, shared the Nobel Prize in physics while she was excluded.
Fred Hoyle: an English astronomer whose controversial positions were often in direct opposition to prevailing theories, an approach that contributed to his being overlooked by the Nobel committee for his stellar nucleosynthesis work.
Darryl Cunningham Online: darryl-cunningham.
Robo Hats by Marc Jackson
As well as Here comes Cat Stevens! Marc Jackson’s first official published comic book, commissioned by LICAF as part of their working with artists programme, Marc Jackson is also launching a new four issue mini-series called ROBO-HATS, which will also be available online, five pages a week, after the event.
Marc is among the many creators taking part in Cartoon-A-Room over the Festival weekend – offering 7- 12 year-olds the chance to cartoon alongside the very best in the world!
It’s brought to you by the National Cartoonists Society in partnership with LICAF, the University of Cumbria and produced by Marc.
Marc Jackson: marcmakescomics.co.uk
Comics Galore – and More! – in the Comics Clock Tower!
The free Comics Clock Tower, sponsored by Comixology, will be host to many, many creators, publishers and other creatives, as well as being one of our events venues.
Plus, be sure to check out the work of even more creators busy in the free Family Zone!
About the Lakes International Comic Art Festival
A huge line up of both British and globe-spanning international comics talent is being lined up for this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival, taking place 13th – 15th October 2017.
From Australia: Rachel Ang, Leonie Brialey, Sarah Firth, Chris Gooch, Stuart Medley. Bruce Mutard and Mark Sexton
From the United States: Sergio Aragones; Jason Latour; Luke McGarry; Steve McGarry; Tom Richmond ; Stan Sakai; and Rick Stromoski.
From Canada: Michael Cho; Claudia Davila; John Martz; Ryan North; Mariko Tamaki; Jillian Tamaki; and Chip Zdarsky.
From the UK and Ireland: Comics Laureate and Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard; John Allison; Dan Berry; Hannah Berry; Gareth Brookes; Darryl Cunningham; Joe Decie; Graham Dury and Simon Thorp; Jonathan Edwards and FeltMistress (aka Louise Evans); the Etherington Brothers; Duncan Fegredo; Fumio Obata; Sean Phillips; Tony Husband; Marc Jackson; Tim Quinn; Paula Knight; Kermit Leveridge and Mal Earl; team Metaphrog; Emmeline Pidgen; Lew Stringer; Bryan Talbot; Mary M. Talbot; Emma Vieceli; Christian Ward; and Eleanor Yule.
Celebrating 40 years of the SF weekly comic 2000AD we have Peter Milligan and Steve MacManus.
From Europe: Ivan Petrus; Benoit Peeters; Miguel Dominguez; Jason; and Aimée de Jongh. The Festival will also have a special delegation of creative talent from Finland, in partnership with the Finnish Institute, along with many Moomin-themed celebrations. The line-up we can reveal so far includes Johanna Rojola, the equivalent of our Comics Laureate in Finland – and one of Finland’s leading comic artists; and comics art rock star, Petteri Tikkanen
The Comics Clock Tower will also be packed with comic creators from across the UK and beyond, who will be announced in May.
The Festival is the only one of its kind in the UK, taking place in one of the UK’s most beautiful areas – the English Lake District in the North West of the country, in the market town of Kendal. Modelled on European-style festivals, such as Angoulême in France, it takes over the whole town for a weekend of comic art. Its aim is to celebrate the whole spectrum of comic art, inspiring existing comic art fans and creators and, it hopes, generating new audiences and creators too. It invests in creators through a commissioning programme and has an emphasis on developing international collaborations.
The Festival’s dedicated organisers are determined to build on this year’s growing visitor numbers still further in 2017, reflecting their aim to deliver a truly European-style comics festival involving the whole of the local community and visitors in a truly unique comics experience.
Festival Sponsors and Benefactors
The Patrons of the Festival are comic creators Boulet, Sean Phillips, Bryan Talbot, Mary Talbot and Emma Vieceli, and Stephen L. Holland, owner of the award-winning independent comic shop Page 45 in Nottingham.
The Festival is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. It is supported by Choose Cumbria, Cumbria County Council, South Lakeland District Council, Kendal BID and Kendal Town Council
Our main sponsors are comiXology, Westmorland Shopping Centre, Lancaster University, the University of Cumbria and Wacom.
Our founder partners are the Brewery Arts Centre and Kendal College.
We are also supported by the Australia Council for the Arts, The Finnish Institute in London, Wallonie Bruxelles International, Institut Français du Royaume-Uni, Knockabout Press, Fanfare Press,and the National Cartoonists Society.
Thanks also to our generous donors: Charlie Adlard, Lynette Adlard, Graham Dury, Peter Kessler, Bryan Talbot, Sean Phillips and Simon Thorp.
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival welcomes donations to our work. Find out more about making a donation on our web site
Festival Charity: OCD Action
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is proud to be supporting the work of OCD Action. As the UK’s largest and most comprehensive OCD charity, OCD Action is able to provide accurate and up-to-date information on OCD and related conditions. The charity runs a helpline, advocacy service, support group network and forum to help people with the disorder, and also works to raise awareness in the media and campaigns to improve access to quality treatment for OCD.
• For more information about OCD Action visit www.ocdaction.org.uk
Lakes Festival: Some Past Releases
The fifth Lakes International Comic Art Festival run 13th – 5th October 2017.
• Sign up for the Festival’s newsletter here
• The Festival’s all-new web site offers full ticket sales, guest and Festival information plus more Festival news. Bookmark it now: www.comicartfestival.com
• For further information contact: Julie Tait – julie@comicartfestival.com
• Images of most announced guests, Festival poster and mascot images can be found here: www.flickr.com/photos/