Alternative Press Festival plans exhibtions and other lead-in events

By John Freeman on June 6, 2012

Preparations are now in full swing for this year’s International Alternative Press Festival on 4th-5th August 2012 at the Conway Hall, London.

The second International Alternative Press Festival will bring together UK and European small press comix, zines, book arts and print and after the success of last year’s IAPF the organisers have hired an extra room this year for even more small press goodness.

Leading up to the main fair there wil be two weeks of exhibitions at London’s Orbital Comics including Dave Ziggy Greene, who draws for Private Eye and is published by French small press publisher Editions Meme Pas Mal.

Ten independent shops along Lamb’s Conduit Street in Holborn will also be exhibiting Comix artists work, including Kevin Ward, Hurk and Tobias Tak, and Comix Reader Issue 4 will launch as part of the festival with an exhibition at GOSH! Comics.

All this will culminate in the main fair at the Conway Hall on Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th August where there’ll be over 100 artists selling comix, zines, book arts, print and other self published work.

Also planned are workshops including a really cool Book Binding class with WeMakeBooks, while in the Bertrand Russell Room there will be a weekend of spoken word and poetry with Vintage Poison, ReadHorse Zine, Structo Magazine and the Camden School of Enlightnement.

• If you’re Self Publisher there are still spaces available and the orgaisers will be doing a second round of table allocations soon. Click here to apply on the Aternative Press Festival web site

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.