International Comic Festival of the Lakes in Bowness underway

The Lakes International Comic Art Festival kicked off on Friday and will continue through Sunday with a host of events and exhibits featuring some of the world’s most famous names in comics and cartoons – including artists involved in The Simpsons, The Walking Dead, Jack Black’s Tenacious D, and more.

This tenth edition of the iconic festival is the first to be held at the new lakeside site – taking place in venues such as the Windermere Jetty Museum and the Old Laundry Theatre.

Festival director Julie Tait explained why the change of scenery is so exciting.

“We’ve had the festival in Kendal for nine years but felt it was time for a change for a whole range of different reasons – we know the backdrop of Windermere and the Lake District itself is a great attraction for artists and visitors,” she said.

“We have even more well-known artists this year due to venue changes, and we want to try to reach a wider audience.

“Bowness has quite a large South Asian audience that comes regularly on the weekends, so that gives us some new opportunities.

“We have 26 countries represented, so it’s a real global spectrum of comics – they don’t just do comics either, these people do gaming and animation, so there’s a lot of crossover.

“We also have even bigger names this year – American artists have worked in most superhero franchises – Wonderwoman, Spiderman, Batman – everything really.

READ MORE: From The Simpsons to The Walking Dead, what to expect from the comic festival’s return

“We have Charlie Adlard, lead writer of The Walking Dead, and the creator of The Simpsons working alongside Matt Groening, two guys who worked alongside Jack Black in Tenacious D.”

Julie predicted it would be a stellar weekend and said curious visitors can just turn up to take advantage of the festival’s many free areas.

“It spans all genres, so you could be into horror, or comedy, or noir, crime, whatever,” she said,

“It’s a slow time of year for Bowness, so hopefully it will bring extra people to the area during a quiet time, rather than bringing extra people into an already busy time.”