British Comics Now is back for 2025 with two amazing new opportunities for British creators. The initiative “aims to be a nationally-significant project for Britain’s comics and graphic novels sector, delivering a step change in the global exposure, distribution and recognition of the sector.” Spearheaded by the Lakes International Comic Art Festival we followed it across the year at BF in 2024 and will again in 2025 with my own involvement on the selection panel for the latest round of applications. You can read all our British Comics Now coverage so far (including some great interviews with creators!) here at BF. Chances like these do not come around very often. Read the the press release below and then get applying!
British Comics Now – Two New Opportunities for British Creators – Apply Now
Bowness-on-Windermere, 13th January 2025: The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is delighted to announce its initiative to promote British comics on the world stage, British Comics Now, is offering two new opportunities to creators to get their work seen overseas as part of a wider promotion of British Comics.
British Comics Now – LICAF@The Comic Art Museum
LICAF has been invited by the Comic Art Museum in Brussels to run a British Comics Now weekend, running 17th October – 19th October 2025. The format of the weekend will be structured around events focussing on and highlighting comics from one showcased country, a model used previously by the museum with enormous success. The 2025 event will focus on all things British-comics related.
The weekend coincides with the ‘Museum Night Fever’ initiative, where Brussels Museums open their doors to the public until midnight. The weekend will feature a range of events by British Comics Now creators, as well as invited Belgian creators; there will be opportunities for speed-dating with Belgian and Francophone publishers, and for networking with each other as well as with a wider group of creators, the Museum team and other partners.
This is comic creators chance to experience one of the world’s most important and famous comic art museums, to promote your work as part of a co-ordinated and well-publicised/attended weekend, to receive feedback from publishers and others and to meet your Belgian counterparts.
The Festival is looking for four creators who can offer workshops (any age group), who can draw live, participate in discussions, run masterclasses (on any subject) and/or offer a presentation or activity which is novel and quirky.
Travel, accommodation (four nights) and subsistence will be paid for. There will be a briefing session in advance of the weekend. The team of selected creators, accompanied by LICAF team members/mentors will meet in London and travel together by Eurostar to Brussels.
British Comics Now – Catalogue of New British Comics by Independent Creators
The Festival intends to create a British Comics Now catalogue, to be promoted between October 2025 and September 2026: a selection of exciting new work by British creators designed and printed to a high standard and targeted at overseas publishers, festival directors and other key players in the comics industry. The catalogue will be promoted to industry professionals, not the general public.
LICAF aim to showcase the range and diversity of comics and comics creators and, in particular, to highlight those where rights are available (this can be worldwide or in specific territories/languages).
The catalogue will feature around 30 creators in this first edition.
The panel who will decide who will participate in each element will be Andy Oliver (publisher of Broken Frontier), Lucy Sullivan (creator), Bobby Joseph (creator and UK Comics Laureate) and Julie Tait (Director, LICAF).
The deadline for applications for both elements is 21st February 2025, 5.00pm GMT. Decisions will be communicated to all applicants by 28th March 2025, by email.
• If you have any queries about the application process please contact Carole Tait via carole@comicartfestival.com
• The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is a year-round organisation promoting comics and comic creators, with its annual festival returning to Bowness-on-Windermere 26th – 28th September 2025 | Web: www.comicartfestival.com | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube
• Sign up for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival Newsletter: http://bit.ly/3m1TFs6
