Despite being in Leeds for three years now, this was my first year attending Thoughtbubble. The Thought Bubble Festival is the UK’s largest event celebrating sequential art. It is a huge coming together of different artists that produce work from superhero comics to independent and small-press works. The festival is essentially a way for artists and writers, creators of art in general to come together and buy/sell work with the addition of having a domain to communicate and meet people in the process.
The festival was a little different from what I expected and was a lot larger than I had imagined, so much so that it was almost overwhelming at times in terms of the amount of content and entertainment confined to a single area. Even having spent several hours there I left feeling like I hadn't managed to see everything I wanted to, or at the very least the things worth seeing for me personally. It was an especially positive experience seeing the broad range of work and levels of professionalism that were present. I had the chance to speak to semi-profession artists, students and full time artists and gather experience and insight from each one of the individuals I approached. I tried to use this as an opportunity to gather information regarding the processes of different artists as well as some industry insight, at the time partly in preparation for the COP3 comic book I wanted to produce. Most of the responses said that it took a day to several days per page from beginning to end, and this sounded like a lot of time but of course a lot of work goes into a page worth of illustrations - and combined with the writing and colouring/inking etc. it seemed like an appropriate time frame on reflection. So this was something to keep in mind moving forward with my own practice.
I made a few purchases whilst I was there and was very happy with the selection I made. I purchased three books in total and attempted to buy stories and comic books that I wouldn't normally consider, I did this in an attempt to broaden my reading and insight into the different work out there. Finally, after leaving the festival it had me considering the opportunities in the future to attend myself and if I produced the work necessary to attend as an artist, the benefits it would have in terms of getting feedback, talking to people and getting my work seen.
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