Lakes International Comic Art Festival Launches Its Little LICAF Crowdfunding Campaign

Help Support The Next Generation Of Comic Readers

Little LICAF is an energetic campaign to make comics accessible to a wider range of children through a dedicated free zone at our annual Festival, a year-round programme of research in schools, and the expansion of our collection of free online downloadable resources for children and parents to use at school and in the home. Here’s a few details and how to support it…

In 2022, the Festival invited youngsters to develop their creative drawing process of mark-making, and explore the concept of narrative, by telling a story without using words. Little LICAF created “Making a Mark“, a comic challenge inspired by a wonderful silent picture book by Peter van den Ende, The Wanderer– a resource to engage youngsters, families with children and educators, as part of our passion for getting comics into the classroom.

The Festival website also features “Comics and Well Being” – a bundle of resources that aims to offer teachers practical help as to how comics and visual communication can support the well-being of Sixth Form and higher/further education students.

The Festival also provide a diverse series of resources inspired by three comics taken from its anthology, Traces of The Great War.

The Festival believes that comics have a special power to engage, enthuse and inspire children and young people. The organisation place some emphasis on reaching disadvantaged young people eg those from lower socio-economic groups and those with hidden disabilities such as autism.

Little LICAF offers a free space at the Festival for children and their families, and also offers free online resources on the organisation’s official web site, with the aim of reaching non-comics readers, disadvantaged children and their families and those from the autistic community.

Under the Little LICAF banner, we also run projects to research the value of comics as a medium, for education purposes and as entertainment for younger people.

The crowdfunding campaign – now live on Crowdfundr – aims to increase the number of Little LICAF events at the Annual Festival, taking place once more in Bowness-on-Windermere, 29th September – 1st October 2023, in partnership with the Jetty Museum where they will take place.

Funds raised will also enable the continuation of the Festival’s year-round programme of research in schools, building on past work at Abraham Moss Community School, Manchester, where we began an important research project into Comics Literacy, in partnership with Comic Art Europe, with support from The Phoenix comic and Manchester City of Literature.

We hope support through our Crowdfundr campaign will enable the expansion of our collection of free online downloadable resources for children and parents to use at school and in the home, working with a variety of comic creators.

“Introducing children to comics at an early age can bring the joys of reading to even the most reluctant reader and have a big impact on their health and well-being, confidence and learning more broadly,” explains our Festival Director, Julie Tait.

“Our research in schools, complementing the work of other organisations, has gathered clear evidence that visual storytelling can cut through to children who struggle to read and write and/or those whose first language is not English, including refugees.

“We hope our modest Crowdfundr will help boost funds for this important part of our work and help us make this year’s Festival even more of a weekend to remember for younger comic fans.”

Backers of the Crowdfundr can also opt to buy a limited release discounted £30 Festival Weekend ticket (50 tickets available) and/ or a limited edition Festival 2022 print by artist and patron Sean Phillips, which can either be collected at this year’s Festival, or can be posted to UK supporters.

The annual Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Bowness-on-Windermere from Friday 29th September – Sunday 1st October 2023. Tickets can be booked now through the Festival web site.

Offering a heady mix of comics guests, panels, exhibitions, comedy, cosplay workshops and events especially tailored for younger comic fans through Little LICAF, the Festival has announced Charlie Adlard, Gigi Cavenago, Gerhard, Michael Lark, Lucie Lomová, Dave McKean, Marek Rubec, Mohamed Salah and Rachael Smith and “Awkward Yeti” creator Nick Sulek as guests – with a wide range of internationally acclaimed creators still to be announced over the next two months.

The Festival has also already revealed full details of exhibitors in its Lakeview Comics Marketplace, which includes a bigger, wider range of comic creators, publishers and other creatives than at any previous Festival.

The Festival weekend will open with an still-under-wraps comics and comedy night, mixing comic creators with comedians, which proved a hugely popular combination last year.