Lakes Comic Art Festival celebrates 50 yrs of Doctor Who
Grab your sonic screwdriver and set the time-space co-ordinates on your TARDIS’ for Kendal, 17th October 2014! The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has announced a number of events to celebrate 50 years of Doctor Who in comics, the world’s longest-running science fiction TV-inspired tie-in strip.
Doctor Who fans celebrated 50 years of the Doctor Who TV show last year, but some may not know that the first comic strip based on the show was published one year after the series launch, in TV Comic. Since then, Doctor Who has featured in numerous comic titles including Countdown, Doctor Who Magazine and Doctor Who Adventures in the UK. IDW were the first US publisher to produce a regular Doctor Who title, as well as several limited series – a license recently picked up by Britain’s very own Titan Comics, out from July onwards.
Lined up for this year’s Lakes Festival are Dez Skinn, the talented editor and publisher who brought Doctor Who Weekly to life back in 1979, the precursor to today’s Doctor Who Magazine. Dez will be on hand to talk about both the origins of the Weekly and his many other comic creations, including the acclaimed anthology comic, Warrior.
Marking 50 years of Doctor Who in comics, the festival will also deliver a special panel – Fifty Years of Doctor Who comics in 50 Minutes – featuring Doctor Who artists Mike Collins and Martin Geraghty and writers Scott Gray, Nick Abadzis and Robbie Morrison. Former Doctor Who Magazine editor John Freeman will host the panel.
Also at the Festival are a number of creators who’ve had their own dealings with the world’s favourite time traveller, including Dave Gibbons (who drew the first Doctor Who Weekly main strips), IDW Doctor Who artists Mark Buckingham and Gary Erskine and cartoonist Kev F Sutherland, who created several cartoons for DWM during John’s tenure.
These Doctor Who-connected guests are the latest addition to a guest list that includes a range of British and overseas creators including The Walking Dead artist Charlie Adlard, 2000AD artist Jock, self-taught Japanese artist Junko Mzuno, digital comics frontiersman Scott McCloud, leading US comics writer Gail Simone, the creator of the multi-award winning Bone Jeff Smith, Dutch underground comics artist Joost Swarte and Emma Vieceli will also join many other comic creators for Kendal’s second comics extravaganza.
The full line up of guests is due to be announced this coming Friday – 25th April – when tickets go on sale. Check out www.comicartfestival.com for more info.
