Zut Alors! The French are back for the 2015 Lakes International Comic Art Festival

 

 Benoît Peeters in 2010. Photo: Georges Seguin (Okki) [ GFDL | CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kendal, 3rd March, 2015: Following up on the popularity of several Continental guests in 2014, the Lakes International Comic Art Festival is pleased to announce the appearance of its first four French artists coming to this year’s weekend-long event in Kendal.

Winshluss (Vincent Paronnaud) is the successful author of Pinocchio and the recently-released In God We Trust, published in the UK by Knockabout Comics, which won the Fauve d'Or prize in Angouleme in 2009. He also works as an award-winning director in France with such films as Persepolis (2007 Cannes Jury Prize) and Chicken with Plums.

Academic, writer, thinker and biographer of Herge and Derrida Benoît Peeters is the author of the experimental Obscure Cities series (Les Cités Obscures) and Tokyo is My Garden (Tôkyo est Mon Jardin). Since 2003, he has been head of Bang! magazine with Fabrice Bousteau.

Published in the UK by Breakdown Press, Antoine Cossé grew up in the Paris suburbs but, aged 20, moved to London to study at Camberwell College of Art. Mutiny Bay – also published in French – is his most ambitious and substantial work to date.

Top French artist Boulet – recently announced as a new patron for the Festival along with Stephen L. Holland, owner of the Page 45 comic ship in Nottingham – has over 25 graphic novels in print in his native country including the Raghnarok and Chez La boîte à bulles series for Glenat. Two books in the Donjon (Dungeon) series, created with Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar, are available in English.

These four French creators, each at varying stages in their careers, are just some of the international guests heading to Kendal this year alongside British creators such as Bryan Talbot and Sean Phillips, and the award-winning Canadian comic book writer, artist, cartoonist and animator Darwyn Cooke.

This year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival (16th - 18th October 2015) will feature a huge number of international comic creators - possibly more than any other comics event of its kind in the UK - and also include numerous programming strands. These include appearances by top shoujo manga creators from Japan, Canadian creators, British comic writers and artists, along with the return of many popular events including the children-friendly Family Zone and eye-catching Windows Trail involving over 50 local businesses keen to support the Festival’s aim to be the “Angouleme of the North”.

In addition, the Festival is supporting a number of major commissioning initiatives, working in partnership with organisations across the UK and beyond, more on which will be announced shortly.

• The Festival is grateful the support of the Institut Francais the Wallonie Brussels International in bringing these four guests to Kendal in 2015 

• Tickets for this year's Lakes International Comic Art Festival go on sale from the Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal, from 1st June 2015