Comic Festival

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Comic Festival was a British comic book convention which was held between 1999 and 2004.

[edit] History

It was devised and produced by Kev F Sutherland with the help of Mike Allwood of Area 51 Comics and was held in Bristol annually. A second event was held in London in 2003 and 2004.

Comic Festival was preceded by UKCAC, run in London from 1985 - 1998, and succeeded by Comic Expo, which began in 2005.

Comic Festival, which began under the name Comics 99, started at a time when the comic reading audience in the UK was in decline. The aim of the event 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 comic material, thus building the readership of the future.

Charity auctions were held every year for the benefit of ChildLine. The first project in 1999 was the creation of the World's Biggest Comic, featuring the work of over 100 of the world's greatest comic artists. 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 National Comic Awards were a regular feature of the Comic Festival. The first, in 1997, took place as part of UKCAC and was presented by Jonathan Ross and Paul Gambaccini.