Thought Bubble has a new home this year, in Harrogate Convention Centre – and some new quests are joining in, including GBBO’s Kim-Joy, who is making her debut. Also new to the Festival are Invader Zim creator Jhonen Vasquez, Brian Azzarello (Joker, Wonder Woman and Hellblazer) and Gemma Correll (NY Times and The Observer).
This, the UK’s largest comic art festival, welcomes the world’s best comic artists, illustrators, animators and writers in a week-long celebration of everything which is comic art. There’ll be talks, exhibits, book launches and workshops, with the Convention itself taking place on 9 and 10 November. Think Marvel, DC, Black Horse and Image and some of the most recognisable comic series such as The Walking Dead, Rick & Morty, Judge Dredd, Hilda, Star Wars, Hellboy and many more, as well as creators from TV/streaming giants like Nickelodeon and Netflix.
Thought Bubble’s Lisa Wood (Tula Lotay), who founded the Festival in Leeds 13 years ago, recently collected the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, previously awarded to industry figures such as Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller and named in honour of animator Bob Clampett, creator of Porky Pig and Tweety Bird. It’s an award for exceptional outreach, community and charity work.
Lisa said: “Having the outreach work we do outside of the comic convention recognised with the Bob Clampett award makes us all feel incredibly proud of what we do and spurs us to keep doing more. When I founded Thought Bubble in 2007, my aim was to create a friendly and inclusive event that showed everyone the wealth of sequential art. This is why seeing Thought Bubble grow every single year makes me so happy; we are reaching more people than ever before and showing them this amazing art form, introducing them to its incredibly talented creator and inspiring the next generation of comic creators! I’m excited to bring all of this to Harrogate Convention Centre this year.”
Yes, it seems a long way from the first year, when the Festival’s home was underneath Leeds Town Hall!
Tickets for Thought Bubble 2019 are on sale now and available here.
Photographs provided by Hanglands PR.
