Last Updated:
2 June 2009

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British Comics Events and Exhibitions

Convention and exhibition information welcome. E-mail downthetubes. Please include details of event citing date, venue, guest list, admission details, contact information including web site and e-mail where applicable. Information on numbers attending would also be useful, but this will not be published. If you use Yahoo's Upcoming Service, please add us to your network and we can more easily add your events to this page, thanks.

2009
• June • July • August • October • November

2010

• January • May

Jump To: • Regular Events • Exhibitions

2009

JUNE 2007

UK (Northern Ireland) 4 - 6 June: 2D, the Northern Ireland Comics Festival
Completely Free Festival with Workshops, Panels, Exhibition, Signings, Sketching, Panel Discussions and Portfolio Reviews Free Tablespace for Small Press, Dealers, Creators and Publishers Events will be held in the Verbal Arts Centre and Sandinos Bar, Derry, N. Ireland

UK 26-29 June 2009 Sectus 2009 (Harry Potter)
Bodelwyddan Castle, North Wales. £290 inc 3 nights' accommodation with breakfast/dinner, rising to £300 on 1 Nov 08, £310 on 1 Feb 09. (Instalment plan available.) Contact 114 Bassnage Rd, Halesowen, W. Midlands, B63 4HF.

JULY

UK 25-26 July 2009 Satellite 2
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Glasgow. GoH Iain M.
Banks. £40 registration; £10 supporting/junior (5-14), £1 infant (0-4).

Wednesday 28th July – Sunday 2nd August 2009: Alternative Press Festival 2009
A festival of events in London over five days celebrating the small press, self publishing and being creative in the print media. More info at: comicsandzines.wordpress.com

Wednesday 29th July: Alternative Press Festival Anthology Book launch
7pm – 9pm Housmans Radical Booksellers, 5 Caledonian Road, London N1 9DX Free

Launching an Alternative Press anthology to showcase some of what's going on in the small press scene at the moment; it will include work by Mark Pawson as well as a foreword by Roger Sabin and a variety of work from different areas of the scene. The evening will include the declaration of our aims and agendas in the form of a manifesto, as well as talks and discussion on the subject of the contemporary small press scene.

Thursday 30th July: Alternative Press Fair: Are you 'zine friendly?
7.00pm – late The Foundry, 86 Great Eastern Street London EC2A 3JL. Free. Contact: garethbrookes69@hotmail.com for more info

An evening to launch the idea of zine friendly events! In the two weeks around this event the APF will be hosting a zine wall at the Foundry and asking artists and small press creators to come down and contribute to this ongoing exhibition. There will be music and good times: the twist is that Zinesters, comix and small press creators are invited by the Foundry's owner to come along and sell their material. There will be a communal table for individual zines and the selling of zines out of bags, or DIY carriers is encouraged! After all, it is a zine friendly event, the question is: are you zine friendly?

Friday 31st July: Alternative Press Fair: Spoken Word Night Out!
7.00pm – Late Venue TBC Free

In order to promote poetry in the small press, APF will be holding an evening of poetry, zine readings, story telling and other performances from artists creating work in the print media themselves.

AUGUST

Saturday 1st August: Alternative Press Fair: Collaborama!
11.00am – Late The Miller, 96 Snowsfields Road, London Bridge SE1 3SS Free. Contact jimigherkin@yahoo.co.uk for more info

An all day event which will comprise many elements of the small press coming together. Tables will be set out in the main space downstairs at the miller for zinesters, comix and small press creators to exhibit their work. There will also be space where any combination of visitors and exhibitors can get together to create pages which will be used to create a zine of the day. The garden will have a barbeque and the upstairs space will be used for workshops, film screenings and talks. In the evening Resonance FM’s Radio Orchestra will be performing a piece written by Ed Baxter which will be interpreted and illustrated live by two teams of small press artists on overhead projectors!

Sunday 2nd August: Alternative Press Fair
11.00am - 7.00pm St Aloysius Social Club, 20 Phoenix Road, London NW1 1TA. Nearest tube: Euston. Free.
The APF will be returning once more to St Aloysius Social centre, where in February they held the first Alternative Press Fair. Join them for chilled out Sunday to celebrate comix, zines, poetry, book arts and radical literature. The event will have space for around 80 exhibitors and many more visitors. Contact peterlally@gmail.com to book space.

UK 8th August 2009 Cymru Con - Welsh National Comics Convention
Venue TBA
Entrance fee £5. For an additional £1 you will be entered into a prize draw to win loads of comic book-related goodies - all proceeds go to Ty Hafan (a Welsh childrens charity).
Exhibitor tables will be £40 each or £70 for two before May 09, and £50 each or £90 for two after May 09. More info from enquiriesATcynrucon.co.uk
Guest include Mike Collins, John McCrea, Liam Sharp, Dylan Teague, Ian Churchill, Jock, Kev F Sutherland, Rob Williams, Rufus Dayglo and more. See the web site for the latest line-up.

OCTOBER

UK October 2009 British International Comic Show 2009
thinktank, Birmingham
• Latest guest information on their blog
• Review of the 2008 event
• Review of 2007 event

UK 24-25 October: London MCM Expo
Excel London
Huge, very successful multi-genre event with comics and managa elements alongside SFTV, Film and Gaming guests

NOVEMBER 2009

20 - 22 November 2009: Thought Bubble 3
Saviles Hall Leeds, England.
Throughout this year's event Thought Bubble, now in its third year and which attracted some 1600 comics fans last year, will hold workshops, talks, comic related film screenings and a huge 'book crossing'.
In our 2009 book crossing they'll attempt to turn Leeds in to one massive comic store, by leaving graphic novels all around the city for people to pick up in our goal to promote literacy though sequential art.
Thought Bubble is a non-profit making organisation dedicated to spreading the word of comics and manga though free workshops for children and adults and other comic related activities.
If anyone is interested in helping, appearing or finding out more about this years event just send me an email to Lisa Wood at thoughtbubble@hotmail.co.uk.
Table prices for this year's one day con on Sat 21st November are:
Small Press £40
Professional £40
Retail and Publisher £60

2010

JANUARY 2010
See Upcoming for more events

UK 17-18 or 24-25 January 2010 ConRunner 2
'The North, probably Sheffield or Manchester'. Rates to start at £30. More TBA. Contact 56 Jackmans Place, Letchworth GC, Herts, SG6 1RH.

France Late January - February 2010: Angouleme Comic Festival
In France, comics or Bande Dessinées (meaning literally Band of Drawings or Strip) are an accepted and lively part of French culture, read and enjoyed by millions, in large part due to the variety of material available for all age groups. The annual Angoulême BD Festival is the Cannes of the comic world. Every January, a celebration of comics takes over this quiet, provincial French town for a four day festival, culminating in the annual awards given to recognise the very best in French and foreign comic art.
• An English couple, Robert and Veronica Van Kimmenade, are offering bed and breakfast/evening meals half and hour from Angouleme. Please see their website www.lavieilledistillerie.com which is under continuous amendment and extension, or call 0033 545 78 59 73 or email veronica AT lavieilledistillerie.com

MAY

UK May: Bristol Comic Expo 2010 (Bristol)
Ramada Plaza Hotel and Mercure Hotel, Bristol
Organised by Mike Allwood. Britain's longest-running and biggest comics festival.
• Read our review of the 2009 Expo

Radio: Panel Borders
Resonance 104.4FM
The weekly radio show about comics, every Thursday at 5.00pm (podcasts available)

Online Facebook Comic Con
Ongoing
Facebook Comic Con is an unofficial virtual comics, animation and media convention bringing together the robust community of industry professionals and fans registered on Facebook.

EXHIBITIONS

UK: 12 September - 28 November 2009: True Stories by Phillip Marsden
Riverside Gallery, Richmond. Tel: 020 8831 6000

A retrospective look at cartoon and comic strip works from the last five years, including Clam & Elgar, Aesop’s Fables, the collaborative Blackout and the occasional True Stories series, chronicling curious instances from the artist’s daily life, presented here in its entirety for the first time.

Permanent: The The Victoria and Albert Museum, London hosts the National Art Library, and its Comics Collection forms part of the Library's Special Collections, to which access is restricted. For more information, see Registering to use the National Art Library. An appointment is necessary for access to the Krazy Kat Arkive at the Archive of Art and Design.
2000AD fans may be interested to know, however, that an electronic version of the catalogue for an exhibition held in 2001 of original comic book artwork from the comic is available online.

Permanent: The Art of War
Britain's National Archive has an ongoing exhibition, The Art of War, which includes comics used as propoganda during the Second World War and more.