Thought Bubble Festival move to September for annual comics gathering confirmed

ThoughtBubble Anthology 2016 - Cover

The Thought Bubble Festival team have confirmed that, as rumoured among British comic fans for some time, next year’s week-long event will take place in September 2017 – and announced their first guest.

“We’d like to say another massive thank you to everyone who came out and made this year’s events such a huge success,” the team say in a statement on their official site “and a special shout-out to our amazing (and ever-growing) army of red-shirt volunteers who helped make Thought Bubble 2016 possible.

“Looking ahead, we’ve been hard at work this year planning for Thought Bubble’s future, as we enter our second decade of putting on events to help promote the greatest story-telling medium in the known universe, and the creators who inhabit it.”

After nine years of putting on their flagship convention at Leeds Dock, 2017 will see Thought Bubble heading back to the area of the city where Thought Bubble began, with the introduction of a brand-new, expanded festival village in the heart of Leeds City Centre. As well as this geographical move, next year’s Thought Bubble will also be moving in the calendar, taking place from 18th – 24th September 2017, with the convention falling on the weekend of 23rd – 24th September 2017.

“While we’ve enjoyed our festivals being the de facto closer of the comics event calendar, a move to earlier in the year gives us more opportunities to work with local partners,” say the organisers, “and get the whole of Leeds involved in celebrating comics – helping Thought Bubble to grow as we look ahead to the festival’s future, and how we can bring our message to a wider audience.”

The new multi-venue site in central Leeds will include a series of huge marquees that will take over popular outdoor spaces in the city including Millennium Square and Victoria Gardens in front of the art galleries. In addition, some of the city’s favourite venues will play host to events in the festival programme with Leeds Town Hall, Carriageworks Theatre and Leeds City Museum all involved, and many more to be confirmed. A map of this area of the city can be found here.

Musician and comic writer Gerard Way

Musician and comic writer Gerard Way

The Festival has also announced they will be celebrating the first anniversary of US comics publisher DC Comics Young Animal comics imprint, by welcoming the line’s curator Gerard Way as Guest of Honour.

Gerard is also the writer/co-creator of other hit comics such as Umbrella Academy and The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, as well as being former frontman of My Chemical Romance. Many more guests to be announced in the new year.

“We’ll be bringing further 2017 festival details, including how to get involved with our convention, our new festival image, and more information on guests who’ll be attending 2017’s events, in the new year,” say the team, “and if you’d like to keep up-to-date with everything that’s planned, please subscribe to the blog, follow us on Twitter, or like our page on Facebook.”

Thank you again to everyone who has supported Thought Bubble these past ten years, and helped the festival grow into such an exciting fixture in the comics’ calendar – we hope you’ll all join us on this next part of our adventure!

• DC Comics Young Animal comics at ForbiddenPlanet.com

DC Comics Young Animal titles on amazon.co.uk



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