5 By 5 Festival Cancelled

By John Freeman on June 25, 2009

The mysterious 5 By 5 Festival announced for this year, which caused plenty of discussion on comics news groups on both sides of the Atlantic after it was wrongly linked with rumoured plans for a ComicCon in the UK, has been cancelled.

Organiser Liam Fisher told downthetubes this morning that the Festival has been cancelled “due to a lead sponsor dropping out last minute.

“To continue this year we would have to charge and that’s not something we want to do,” he says. “We’re planning to launch the festival next year exactly how we intended it to be and we’ll be presenting monthly four day film events from August onwards.”

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.

Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.

He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.