THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2024! As announced earlier today at Broken Frontier our Thought Bubble Month of coverage begins today on the site and what better place to start than by chatting with festival directors Martha Julian, Amy Bellwood and Chloë Green? We caught up with this triumphant trio to talk about the history of TB, what we can expect from this year’s biggest con to date, and the year-round planning that goes into making an event like Thought Bubble a reality…
ANDY OLIVER: Let’s begin by asking you to give us some background on each of your positions as Festival Director at Thought Bubble and what your roles entail?
MARTHA JULIAN: When did I start at Thought Bubble? 2011? I volunteered at every Arts Festival going after taking voluntary redundancy from Leeds Uni, including Thought Bubble in 2011. I set up the chairs! I got a weekend ticket as a thank you, then pestered Lisa [Wood, aka artist Tula Lotay, Thought Bubble founder] for work from then on until I started officially in 2012.
Martha Julian
AMY BELLWOOD: I started at Thought Bubble in 2018, before that I worked in Leeds Arts University working on their events, end of year shows, graduations and prospectus! Getting that ready for print and general organising of events.
CHLOË GREEN: And then I started in 2019! Just as admin originally. And role-wise, because we’re such a small team we all do a little bit of everything.
MARTHA JULIAN: Yeah there are certain areas we specialise in, but the lines are very blurred and we all help each other out.
Amy Bellwood
AO: In terms of events Thought Bubble is one of the great success stories of UK comics. From more humble beginnings in 2007 as a one-day fair in the basement of Leeds Town Hall to its current status as the mammoth end-of-year comics celebration that it’s become. How would you describe the ethos and aims of it both as a festival and a convention?
JULIAN: Lisa set out for it to be a focus on comics as a means for education, that was always the bare bones of our ethos, and it hasn’t stopped since then.
BELLWOOD: It’s for people that make comics and people that read comics. It’s a celebratory event.
GREEN: Yeah, those aims really haven’t budged much at all since the beginning. For comic makers, for comic fans. It’s simple but it’s what we look back on to make judgments on what we do.
BELLWOOD: That starts from curation, everything that we do, it doesn’t stray from that.
Chloë Green
AO: Just before the pandemic in 2019 Thought Bubble moved location to Harrogate from its previous home in Leeds. What do you think have been the main advantages of the new venue in terms of accessibility and location?
BELLWOOD: If you compare Harrogate to New Dock or Leeds City Centre, the convention became more about building marquees, and arranging security, and closing roads; moving to Harrogate Convention Centre wasn’t because we didn’t like Leeds, it’s that the work to be in Leeds was taking away from the programming. The logistics were hard! Having everyone spread out and in different buildings made it feel disjointed too.
JULIAN: Logistically being in Harrogate is a lot easier for us, so we can focus our time on making the convention great.
GREEN: Yeah definitely. Coming to Harrogate the feedback was how big it felt, even though it wasn’t bigger than in Leeds, it was just everyone got to be together under one roof and see it all. You don’t have to run between buildings to catch up with comic pals.
JULIAN: Harrogate definitely brings a sense of cosiness, a smaller town that we’re taking over!
BELLWOOD: We create a proper bubble! Harrogate itself too; it’s easy to get to by train, it’s got nice bars and hotels.
AO: You have your most impressive exhibitor list to date this year with a huge line-up of tabling artists across the halls. Given the incredible vibrancy of both the UK and the international indie and small press scenes, how difficult is it to curate that list every year in a way that represents the breadth of practice available?
GREEB: I’d say really difficult. Haha!
JULIAN: It IS difficult, but we get the right applications too. It’s not like we get this list of applications and go “oh god!” We’ve been around 17-18 years, the people we want to see applying are applying!
GREEN: All three of us curate the exhibitor list, we all have different genres and styles that we gravitate towards and that helps us have a nice variety of exhibitors, but it’s not just that, we actively think about what will appeal to older comic fans and younger comic fans, people that aren’t us. Like we’ll think “this isn’t necessarily for me, but it is excellent work that will appeal to X demographic”
BELLWOOD: Yeah, if there is a difficult decision to make, we always try and pick the best of the genre, the best representation. The main thing that we stick to is that it’s always comics, that always takes precedence.
GREEN: I think as well, we are always aware of people who are new and just getting into comics, and how their catalogue of work might not be as vast as others, but we can see the potential. Like, how many people have we seen apply one year with one comic, and the next they come back with two things, and the next three things… It’s really nice to think we, hopefully, have given them a boost.
JULIAN: Yeah, and we’re always looking for younger, newer voices.
GREEN: AND we all read a lot of comics, new stuff, old stuff, we keep an eye on who’s winning awards, and who is doing something new and interesting. Getting the balance right is a year around knowledge-building thing.
AO: Thought Bubble is a festival as well as a two-day convention so what can we expect this year in terms of satellite events and exhibitions across Yorkshire?
JULIAN: WELL, the festival programme is out now! But to highlight some specific pieces, the Enter the Mulberry Tree exhibition is going to be absolutely incredible! It’s in partnership with the Lakes, and we’re putting it into Left Bank Leeds which is a BEAUTIFUL venue.
BELLWOOD: The Banned Book talk is going to be super interesting, I’m definitely going to that!
GREEN: Creative Networks! We’ve got the thumbs up from a huge guest to do that talk in Leeds Arts University, we can’t say who that is yet but keep an eye out as it’ll be great.
JULIAN: We’ll be doing some free schools and libraries workshops with James Chapman this year too! Rainbow Age with Theo Parish will be excellent!
BELLWOOD: The Tim Bird Exhibition at the Mercer Gallery is going to be beautiful
GREEN: There is loads going on this year!
AO: And, similarly, what are some of the highlights for the comic convention programming?
GREEN: The kids’ comics stuff is going to be really great this year! We’ve got The Phoenix putting on a bunch of workshops, and doing guest signings, and they have tables all weekend selling their stuff too
BELLWOOD: A couple of panels I’m excited about, the Muslim Representation in Comics, and the Fireside chat with James Tynion and Christian Ward, they’re the ones I really want to see!
GREEN: I’m always excited about the Sketching Spotlights too, we have two new hosts for it this year so that’s going to be fun!! We have some horror panels, career spotlight panels, some funding workshops and loads of other cool stuff.
JULIAN: Yep! We have the Graphic Novel Reading Room back, loads of really nice adult workshops too. The Steve Dillon exhibition will be amazing! And just the whole newness of the layout, with the second entrance.
BELLWOOD: Yeah, it should feel different this year! It’s the same amount of space but it should feel bigger.
AO: Something that I think is incredibly important to talk about here, that may get overlooked, is the community aspect of Thought Bubble. Can you tell us a little about TB’s wider outreach work and micro-bursaries and why these initiatives are so important to you?
BELLWOOD: Supporting emerging artists is the way that we keep the comics industry going, that’s really important to us. Art jobs don’t get paid very fairly, and anything that we can do to support those new and emerging artists is what we need to do! And It doesn’t get done enough.
JULIAN: All the schools and library workshops and events we do are part of that, to show kids that art and comics are an option, if they want it to be.
BELLWOOD: This year we’re collaborating with The Lakes (LICAF), and CCIC (Comics Cultural Impact Collective). We try to share knowledge as much as we possibly can and build the UK comics community. Making comics and selling comics doesn’t have to be a mystery, so we try to share that. We don’t gatekeep anything.
GREEN: The bursaries are all part of that too, we know that conventions aren’t cheap so helping give people the opportunity with less of a monetary worry is important. And seeing bursary recipients come back the next year with more comics work is really, really cool. We just like comics and want people to be able to make them.
AO: Finally, it’s obviously been a tough few years for in-person comics events, and the pandemic cost us a number of established favourites. It seems like a time to be cautiously optimistic about the future now, though, given the number of new shows that have been springing up over the last year or two across the UK, especially on a grassroots level. Given your collective experience, what would you consider the most important ingredients for successful event organising, the key challenges to consider, and the pitfalls to avoid?
BELLWOOD: What’s kept Thought Bubble good, is that we’ve had a consistent ‘something’ and our consistent something is our ethos; and everything we do we make sure it fits within that. We can change venues and guests and programming, but it all fits within that ethos, and it means people know what we are and what to expect. It’s important to be clear about who you are and what you represent!
GREEN: If people ask me about starting a new comic event, the thing that always comes to my mind first is to look after your exhibitors. If they have a good time, everyone will have a good time. And people will keep coming back.
JULIAN: Listening to exhibitor feedback is really important.
BELLWOOD: Yeah, and plan your entire year out! Things take a lot longer than you think.
GREEN: Haha yeah, events are HARD, a lot harder than people think. We’re pretty big, but I think the bare bones are similar regardless of size; organise yourself, communicate well, tell as many people about it as often as possible because no one is going to come unless you tell them.
JULIAN: Oh, and remember that when things go wrong, people usually don’t notice.
GREEN: That’s such a good one! Maybe expect things to go wrong, and know that next time you’ll do better? Learn from those things. Start small too! TB started off small and got gradually bigger, and we have learnt so much as we have gone along.
BELLWOOD: And building up your reputation and people trusting you, it all takes time!
GREEN: Maybe, another thing, don’t be afraid to be niche? Make an event that you would want to go to. If it’s niche, and it’s something you’re really into, there will be other people into that too, you just have to find them.
JULIAN: And you’ll do it well! If it’s something you’re into and you care about, you’ll do it well.
Photo credits: Simon Godsave
Thought Bubble 2024 runs from November 11th-17th with the convention weekend taking place on the 16th-17th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2024 coverage so far in one place here.
Art by Rocío Arreola Mendoza
