The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has announced more guests for its annual weekend long gathering in Bowness-on-Windermere, returning Friday 29th September – Sunday 1st October 2023.
Tickets are on sale now for the event with Mehdi Annassi, aka Machima, Lina Ghaibeh, Peter Hogan, Bill Morrison and Steve and Annie Parkhouse joining previously-announced guests: Charlie Adlard, Gerhard, Gigi Cavenago, Michael Lark, Lucie Lomová, Dave McKean, Marek Rubec, Festival poster designer Mohamed Salah, Rachael Smith and “Awkward Yeti” creator Nick Sulek.
A wide range of internationally acclaimed creators is still to be announced over the next two months. Over 90 comic creators, publishers and artists will also be at the event, as part of the Lakeview Comics Marketplace.
The announcement of the team behind the Dark Horse hit comic Resident Alien, Peter Hogan and Steve and Annie Parkhouse, who have provided the Festival with the funniest biographies ever about their respective careers, comes just as their second Omnibus collection is due to hit comic shops, on 18th May, with a third, eight-episode season of its TV adaptation due to arrive on our screens in the autumn.
“We’ve got a great mix of creators in our line-up, from Britain and abroad, and it’s wonderful that Steve and Annie Parkhouse, who live in Cumbria, are joining this year’s event,” says Festival Director Julie Tait. “2000AD and Marvel UK fans will be pleased to hear that they and Peter Hogan are joining us in Bowness this year.
“We’ve always tried to introduce new comic creators to our audience, alongside respected, appreciated creators who are more well known. We’re confident we’ve got a great mix this year.”
The Festival is also aiming to boost its offering for younger comic readers, as well as established fans with a crowdfunding campaign to support the work of its “Little LICAF” team. The organisation is determined to help grow new audiences, echoing the work of many other comic events, representatives of several of them visiting the Festival this year for an event that will provide an opportunity for an exchange of ideas.
Early backers of the Little LICAF Crowdfundr can choose to buy a Festival 2023 Weekend Ticket for just £20, but only a limited number are available.
FESTIVAL DATES: The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere 29th September to 1st October 2023
• The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is online at: www.comicartfestival.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Little LICAF on Facebook | Little LICAF on Instagram
• Sign up for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival Newsletter
Latest Festival Guests Biographies
Mehdi Annassi, aka Machima
Mehdi Annassi, aka Machima, is a self-taught multidisciplinary visual artist based in Casablanca. He started his career in the video game industry in 2008, and has worked since then as a digital artist, illustrator, graphic designer and street artist.
In addition to his commissioned work (murals, comics, posters, illustrations, animations, and more), the award-winning artist, awarded creative of the year 2015 on the Maroc Web Awards, is known for his contribution and involvement on Moroccan comic art scene, as a founding member of Skefkef, the first Moroccan independent comics magazine written in darija.
Apart from designing walls and posters for his freelance clients, Mehdi Annassi is currently working on his first graphic novel. His work has been shown in Morocco, Spain, Egypt, France, UK and Lebanon.
• Follow Mehdi Annassi, aka Machima on Tumblr | Murals | Instagram
Lina Ghaibeh
Lina Ghaibeh is a half Syrian, half Danish comics and animation artist living in Beirut. She is an associate professor at the American University of Beirut where she teaches and is founding director of the Mu’taz and Rada Sawwaf Arabic Comics initiative at AUB. Her academic research focuses on Comics in the Arab world as part of contemporary Arab Culture. Lina’s animation and comics work has been screened and exhibited at several international film festivals and comics Salons, and her animation shorts explore issues of identity & belonging with Beirut as a site of inspiration. Lina is an identical twin, the evil one.
Lina Ghaibeh is online at: linaghaibeh.wordpress.com | The Mu’taz and Rada Sawwaf Arabic Comics Initiative
• The Public Source, a Beirut-based independent media organisation: thepublicsource.org/contributors/lina-ghaibeh
Peter Hogan
Peter Hogan is best known as the writer and co-creator (with Steve Parkhouse) of the critically acclaimed Resident Alien series of graphic novels. So far there are seven volumes in print, with two more on the way. The comic has also been adapted into a TV show, which has just finished filming its third season.
A former music journalist and film critic, for the last thirty years Peter has mainly been a comic book writer. His work has been published by 2000AD, Marvel, DC, Vertigo, ABC/Wildstorm and Dark Horse, and he has collaborated with both Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman.
Bill Morrison
Bill Morrison has spent his career as an artist and writer working with the most iconic characters in popular culture.
Morrison began his career painting movie posters, including many for Walt Disney, such as The Little Mermaid, Bambi, and The Jungle Book.
Bill has also spent several years drawing The Simpsons for all kinds of merchandise, and writing, drawing and editing The Simpsons and Futurama comics for Bongo Comics. He was also Art Director on the Futurama TV series.
Recently, Morrison created a graphic novel adaptation of The Beatles Yellow Submarine, some of that work exhibited at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival in 2022, and was Executive Editor of MAD Magazine.
• Follow Bill Morrison on Twitter
Annie Parkhouse
Annie Parkhouse – nee Halfelven was born on the south coast of England to a lobster fisherman and a lobster fisherman’s fishwife. Annie’s mother had been a disciple of Madame Blavatsky in the late 1930s and taught her young daughter how to read the cards and summon dolphins.
During her teens, Annie would spend hours by coastal pools, combing her long blonde tresses while ullulating a siren song, laughing merrily as ships foundered on the jagged rocks that fringed the Sussex coast.
Gravitating towards the nation’s capital in 1970 she procured work in the publishing industry as a bodger’s mate and part-time psychic. With her quick wit and deft handwork, she soon became a full-time bodger, securing the approval of her senior editors.
As the juvenile market declined, she left to go freelance, but not before winning the affections of Wilbur Rankin, who by that time was masquerading as Stephen J. Parkhouse – a purveyor of taglines, toplines and Christmas cracker jokes. Their personalities meshed perfectly and before long they set up a business in Carlisle in the north of England, compiling secondhand comic titles featuring used superheroes for clients like Marvel UK.
Annie is now widely regarded as a legend in the comics world, having devised her own personal font which is much admired by artists who never leave enough space.
They know who they are.
Steve Parkhouse
Steve Parkhouse – the nom de plume of Wilbur Rankin, the well-known biographer who documented the lives of notorious gangland leaders Charles and Raymond Chutney, was born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1948.
His father was an army deserter and his mother was a pub pianist during those postwar years. When the family moved to London in 1955 it looked like life was on the up. But young Wilbur became easily influenced by the environment of petty crime and domestic conflict that flourished in London’s East End at that time. Or at any other time.
Having developed a rudimentary ability to draw cartoons by copying panels from the Beano, Rankin signed up for a graphics course in 1965 at a local college. But his tarnished personality had already developed and he quickly gained a reputation as a bad influence. He also met up with fellow student, Barry Smith, a street fighter from the East India Dock Road. Between them, they hatched a plan to blag their way into Marvel Comics in New York City.
While hatching the plan, Rankin changed his name to Stephen J. Parkhouse because “it sounded posh” and Americans would be easily fooled. The plan worked, the pair got away with it and became minor celebrities in the comics community.
Upon returning to Britain, Rankin teamed up with a charlatan tarot reader called Annie Halfelven. For the next few years, they rampaged through the lower levels of London society like a less fashionable version of Bonnie and Clyde.
Which just goes to show how easily people are taken in. However, at some point they had to justify their new-found social status by actually doing some work. Their attempts to do so continue to this day.
• Early backers of the Little LICAF Crowdfundr can choose to buy a Festival 2023 Weekend Ticket for just £20, but only a limited number are available
FESTIVAL DATES: The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere 29th September to 1st October 2023
• The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is online at: www.comicartfestival.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Little LICAF on Facebook | Little LICAF on Instagram
• Sign up for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival Newsletter
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.
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