Status defunct Inaugurated 1999 | Genre Comics Country England Most recent 2004 | |
Comic Festival (also known as Comics Festival UK) was a British comic book convention which was held annually in Bristol between 1999 and 2004. It was devised and produced by Kev F Sutherland with the help of Mike Allwood of Area 51 Comics. The presentation of the National Comics Awards was a regular feature of Comic Festival from 1999–2003 (except for the year 2000, when the Eagle Awards were presented there).
History
Comic Festival was preceded by the United Kingdom Comic Art Convention, held annually (usually in London) from 1985-1998. The comics audience in the U.K. was in decline; Comic Festival's aim was to reach non-comic readers, children and families, and to enable them to enter the event at the cheapest possible prices. Once in, the audience would then be exposed to the widest range of comics material, thus building the readership of the future.
The festival began under the name Comics 99. In addition to the annual Bristol-based Comic Festival, secondary events were held in London in the fall of 2003 and 2004.
Charity auctions were held every year for the benefit of ChildLine. For Comics 99, Sutherland produced The World's Biggest Comic, which featured the work of 100 of the world's leading comic artists, auctioned to raise money for the British charity Comic Relief. Subsequent projects included the Charity Deck Of Cards which, in 2001, raised over £10,000 for ChildLine through the auctioning of the original art and sales of the limited edition decks. The Just 1 Page comic was produced every year at Comic Festival (and then continued on at Comic Expo).
Comic Festival was succeeded by the Bristol-based Comic Expo, which began in 2004 and continues to the present day.