Posted in: Comics | Tagged: london, london book fair

Finding Comics & Graphic Novels on Display at London Book Fair 2023

Live from London Book Fair! The masks are (mostly) gone, the big publishers are in play and, yes, there are plenty of comic books around the place.

Published Tue, 18 Apr 2023 08:57:12 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Live from London Book Fair! And it has come back hard-ish. Smaller than at its heyday, it's still much bigger than last year. The masks are (mostly) gone, the big publishers are in play and, yes, there are plenty of comic books around the place. Some you'll know, some you'll get to know. Saw some friendly faces, Mike Holman at Diamond, Nick Landau at Titan, Tim Pilcher, Joel Meadows, Tony Bennett from Knockabout, Marvel UK, as well as making some new friends at Glenat, Kodansha and Penguin… and taking photos of everything vaguely comic book related I could find. I'll be writing Bleeding Cool from the Media Room at London Book Fair for the next couple of days, if you happen to be around. I'm told Dirk Wood is in the building and I might want to check out how he's doing… but I might have to get past the crush of secret royalists who have all turned out for Sarah Ferguson making a London Book Fair debut for whatever nonsense she is pushing for kids right now. General chatter around graphic novels is that after rapid rising, things are plateauing at the moment, which some publishers are grateful for as at least they have an idea of how many to print, The manga drought seems to b over, and bookstores have as much manga as they can stock right now. But kids graphic novels continue to eat into everything….

The London Book Fair is held every year in April. and is principally a global marketplace for rights negotiation. from different territories to different media. Initially formed in 1971 as The Specialist Publishers' Exhibition for Librarians, with 22 exhibitors, the event and purpose grew rapidly and was renamed the London Book Fair or LBF in 1975, and the librarian focus was dropped. Held at the Olympia exhibition centre until 2006, it moved to the London ExCel building. before switching to the Earls Court Exhibition Centre until 2015 when it returned to Olympia. The 50th event was due to take place in 2020 but was cancelled as a precautionary measure against coronavirus contagion. So while this is the 51st London Book Fair, it seemed to miss out on the celebrations somewhat.

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