Welcome to August at Broken Frontier Towers! As I said last month from hereon out we will be endeavouring to start the month at BF with a little round-up of the four weeks before and some info about what you can expect here for the four weeks ahead. And, yes, I’m sticking with ‘Andytorial’ as the title because it’s been a long-held dream of mine at Broken Frontier to come up with a worse name for a regular feature than ‘Small Pressganged‘. I’m sure you’ll be as delighted as I am to see that dream fulfilled…
Our Marathon LDComics Online Comics Fair Coverage at BF this Past Month
We didn’t actually consciously set out to create one of our event months for this. It just kind of organically happened! We received so many review requests for the LDComics Online Digital Comics Fair that it became a sprawling coverage entity in itself across BF through July. You can read all 34 reviews and one creator commentary here on the site. And, yes, the fair is over now so you can’t buy them from that direction now but my advice would be to keep an eye on the online stores of the creators involved if there’s something that takes your fancy. There were comics we sat back on, for example, because I know there will be alternative print editions coming that we can focus on later.
Huge thanks to my collaborators on this (not so) mini-project. The work that BF’s Lydia Turner and Gary Usher put in on this was simply astonishing. And thanks too to LDComics who collaborated so closely with us to make sure that the artists concerned knew where to come for coverage support. It’s absolutely essential to have that appreciative working relationship with event organisers when putting together something like this to ensure not simply a connection with creators but also to repost and publicise our hard-working team’s efforts on their behalves. Sorry, too, that we couldn’t get to every comic. We were simply overwhelmed with requests. But please do resubmit for potential review if you do publish it in a different format or on an alternative platform in future.
Small Press Day 2025 – What a Joyous Celebration!
We’ve already covered this in great detail with a visual round-up of the day here and our Lydia’s report on the Cardiff ArtHole event but Small Press Day is a major part of BF’s year. We have, after all, been co-organisers since the very beginning a decade ago. Congrats by the way to Lyds who became the first BF team member to chair panels in 2025 with her double-header at SPD in Wales (Lydia, above, far right). This was the biggest Small Press Day since before the pandemic and, given how many venues from that era that used to hold SPD events are no longer with us, that’s one hell of an achievement. I genuinely believe it was also the best received one to date.
Leeds Comic Collective at the Brew Society
One small disappointment this year was the near zero coverage of SPD in any substantial way (outside of Broken Frontier and the ever supportive Down the Tubes), either beforehand or after. Given what a joyous day of small press celebration SPD was in 2025 for our 10th anniversary this was a little baffling. What can we do in 2026 to make it easier to give the biggest day on the comics calendar dedicated to just small press comics a shout-out? Let the Small Press Day team know here and we’ll see how we can work together to make that happen!
Oh and I got to meet some fantastically talented emerging comics creators at the Small Press Day/BF one-to-one Zoom calls the day after and chat to them about their work. Always an absolute privilege and a great route for those booking an appointment to get on my ‘Six to Watch’ radar for the following year…
Coming this Month: Caption: Rebirth Festival in Oxford
Seriously, what the Caption team has in store for you lovers of UK small press comics in Oxford this month is well worth making the trip for. We will have a major Broken Frontier presence at Caption with the opening panel being a Broken Frontier Six to Watch one where I will be chatting with artists on our mentoring programme, both past and present – Mike Armstrong, Dominique Duong, Shane Melisse and Cara Brown. On other panels you also have Six to Watch stars Beck Kubrick and Zen K. taking part.
Check out the full details of what’s happening here. I think this is going to be a very special weekend. I will also be doing portfolio reviews but if you want to chat with me informally either about your work or about BF I will be around on the Saturday if you catch me at the right moment. Or alternatively I will be in Oxford the Friday night beforehand if that’s easier. Just give me a shout!
Coming Soon: Thought Bubble Month 2025 at BF is on the Horizon
So… we won’t have major themed coverage events on the site in August but planning has already begun here at Broken Frontier Towers for Thought Bubble Month 2025. This is an absolute monster in terms of pre-planning and, as with last year’s herculean effort, we will be liaising with the TB team to make sure the submission process for new comics is as smooth as possible. The earlier you get things to us the better and we’ve already had our first Thought Bubble 2025 debut comic review request so it’s never too early!
Join the Broken Frontier Team
A quick reminder! We are always looking for new team members from as diverse a range of backgrounds as possible. Please do check out the Join Broken Frontier page if you’d ever considered contributing to BF.
Catch you again next month when we’ll be on the cusp of UK comics festival season again!
