The Lakes International Comic Art Festival has revealed Gemma Correll's art for this year's Festival, which will feature on posters and other promotional materials, including a collectable set of bookmarks, and revealed Posy Simmonds and Bill Morrison as guests for this year's weekend-long event in Kendal (9th - 11th October 2020).

Always varying the style of its promotional messages each year, reflecting the diversity of comics, Gemma's art delivers a wonderfully light-hearted approach, reflecting the all-ages appeal of the Festival itself.

Gemma Correll is a writer, artist and cartoonist. Originally from rainy East Anglia, England, she currently resides in sunny Orange, California with her trusty pug sidekicks, Mr Pickles and Zander. Her work includes The Worrier’s Guide to Life and A Pug’s Guide to Etiquette, as well as her award-winning eponymous series of quirky, humorous greetings cards and gift products which are sold all over the world.

"We're thrilled with Gemma's art for this year's Festival," commented Festival Director Julie Tait. "She has a unique and quirky art style that reaches across generations."

Gemma is also one of the guests at this year's Festival, a line-up that includes The Guardian cartoonist Posy Simmonds, who is currently working on a new graphic novel, The Simpsons and Futurama Creative Director Bill Morrison, who is also a writer and artist at Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics, and The Phoenix writer and artist Robert Deas.

Previously announced guests for this year's Festival, running Friday 9th - Sunday 11th October in Kendal include Charlie Adlard, Steven Appleby, Comics Laureate Hannah Berry, Inko, Chie Kutsuwada, Terry Moore, Sean Phillips, Mike Ramirez, Bryan and Mary Talbot, and many more.

Again offering a diverse range of British, European and international guests supported by funding from the Arts Council and other partners, local, national and international, this year's event will include creators from Africa, Australia, China, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the Philippines and North America. Events will include talks, panels, live draws, film screenings, the return of our comic creator workshops by popular request, our free Comics Clock Tower, free Family Zone events, Windows Trail - plus a full day conference for comics academics.

• The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Kendal at various venues across the town 9th - 11th October 2020 | Tickets and Festival Passes are on sale now at https://www.comicartfestival.com/buy-tickets • Web: www.comicartfestival.com | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Podcast

Meet the Guests...

Gemma Correll is a writer, artist and cartoonist. Originally from rainy East Anglia, England, she currently resides in sunny Orange, California with her trusty pug sidekicks, Mr Pickles and Zander. Gemma’s published works include The Worrier’s Guide to Life and A Pug’s Guide to Etiquette, as well as her award-winning eponymous series of quirky, humorous greetings cards and gift products which are sold all over the world and displayed in pride of place on her Grandmother’s mantlepiece.

Gemma’s comics appear at TheNib.com, The Lily and on GoComics and in her regular self-published zines. She has also collaborated with charities, including Mental Health America and The Red Cross. Gemma’s influences include Lynda Barry, Matt Groening and Mimi Pond as well as old Disney cartoons, folk art and the sense of purpose that comes from drinking a lot of coffee.  

Robert Deas is an award winning UK comic artist and the creator of Trailblazers and co-creator of Izzy Newton (with Joe Brady), both of which appear inside the pages of the all ages comic The Phoenix. The graphic novel Troy Trailblazer and the Horde Queen was the winner of the 2016 Stan Lee Excelsior Award Junior, voted for by young readers from over 200 schools across the UK.

As well as his creator led material, Robert has also worked extensively with Medikidz, a publisher specialising in medical comic books that explain illnesses to children using a team of young superheroes that travel inside the human body. Robert’s early career was characterised by a string of graphic novel adaptations of literary classics such as Manga Shakespeare: Macbeth and Pride & Prejudice for SelfMadeHero. Other clients include Medicine X, Disney, IDW, The Book Trust, Rubicon Canada and First Media.

Robert is currently working on the latest series of Trailblazers, which started inside the pages of the Phoenix in January. Robert is a popular Lakes Festival regular, having lead the We Draw U Draw event at the festival for the last few years.

Bill Morrison is best known for his work with The Simpsons and Futurama as Creative Director, writer, and artist at Matt Groening’s Bongo Comics. He began his career as an illustrator, painting dozens of movie posters including many for Walt Disney Pictures, such as The Little Mermaid, Bambi, Peter Pan, Cinderella, and The Jungle Book.

When Matt Groening founded Bongo Comics, Bill was on board as art director and drew the very first Simpsons comic. He soon took on the role of Creative Director, editing Bongo’s entire output, and writing and drawing stories and covers.

In addition to his Bongo work, Bill has created thousands of Simpsons and Futurama drawings for T-shirts, video games, posters, toy packaging, books, calendars, limited edition prints, etc. Bill also worked with Groening on early character designs for the Futurama TV series and served as series Art Director. And he recently worked as character designer and artist on Groening’s Netflix series, Disenchantment. Most recently, Morrison created a graphic novel adaptation of The Beatles Yellow Submarine for Titan Comics, and was Executive Editor of MAD Magazine.

Posy Simmonds is best known for the strip cartoons and serials that were published in The Guardian, and the books that derive from them. These include Mrs Weber's Diary (1979), True Love (1981),  Literary Life Revisited (2016) and the graphic novels, Gemma Bovery (1999), Tamara Drewe (2006) and Cassandra Darke (2018). Tamara Drewe won the Prix Des Critiques in 2009.

Two of her books have been made made into feature films - Tamara Drewe,  directed by Stephen Frears in 2010 and Gemma Bovery, directed by Anne Fontaine, in 2014. She is married, lives in London and is working on another graphic novel.

Festival guests for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival 2020 revealed so far are: Charlie Adlard, Steven Appleby, Comics Laureate Hannah Berry, Neill Cameron, Gemma Correll, Robert Deas, Francis Desharnais, Inko, Marc Jackson, Bill Morrison, Nichola Jennings, Chie Kutsuwada, Lou McKeever, Metaphrog, Terry Moore, Benoît Peeters, Sean Phillips, Mike Ramirez, Zoom Rockman, Martin Rowson, Posy Simmonds, Lucy Sullivan, Bryan Talbot, Mary Talbot, Toybox and Emma Vieceli - with many more to be announced soon.

• The Lakes International Comic Art Festival returns to Kendal at various venues across the town 9th - 11th October 2020 | Tickets and Festival Passes are on sale now at https://www.comicartfestival.com/buy-tickets • Web: www.comicartfestival.com | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Podcast