Two years ago queer comics fair inQ! debuted in London to heavy footfall and the most buzzing atmosphere possible for a first-time event. This month, across the weekend of September 26th-27th inQ! returns with double the days, double the guests and double the fun. It’s another fixture in the small press scene’s events renaissance in the capital; one that has been reflected across the country. To mark its return we caught up with founder Lauren O’Farrell (aka Deadly Knitshade) who, on behalf of the whole inQ! team, chatted with us about the importance of queer comics community, what we can expect from the revitalised event, and feedback to inQ!’s first incarnation…
Poster by KitsuneArt
ANDY OLIVER: Let’s start by asking you about the origins and ethos of inQ!, what it looks to celebrate, and why dedicated spaces for queer comics are so important in 2026?
LAUREN O’FARRELL: InQ! Came about in 2023 during a casual chat at a WIP Comics meeting (all hail WIP!) in the Royal Festival Hall. Cee Starling, Ed Firth and I were pondering the lack of London comic fairs (happily that is very much not the case a few years later). We batted around a few ideas about a queer comic fair, but came away with much enthusiasm but nothing concrete.
The chat lit a fire under Cee, who came back in early 2024 year with a possible venue at the brilliant London LGBTQ+ Community Centre, right in the heart of London on the banks of the Thames. I stepped in with my background in chaotically running events (I used to run pop-up knitting events in London in a past life), and inQ! grew from there.
Our main aim is to create an island of queer joy in the worryingly rising tide of anti-queer sentiment surfacing in the news. We want to build a welcoming and inclusive comics event, where anyone and everyone can wander into the rich world of queer culture through comics (and zines and graphic art too).
Lauren (centre) holding up a friend
Queer comics have quite a history (just look at the current Queer As Comics exhibition at the Quentin Blake Centre), but as we’ve seen from the bigger festivals like Thought Bubble, LICAF, and other queer comic fairs such as PrideCAF in Bristol, there is a real movement right now for queer creators to share stories, build community, educate, and support each other. We’re here, we’re queer, and we are going to make glorious comics about it! Get used to it!
AO: Who makes up the inQ! organising team?
O’FARRELL: Currently Team inQ! is three main volunteer organisers, who run inQ! in our spare time.
Cee, who does our complicated data wrangling, keeps check on regulations, and does some of the behind the scenes organising work.
KitsuneArt, who drew our wondrous London-flavoured poster this year, runs our Bluesky, and helps with decision-making.
And me (Deadly Knitshade) as inQ! Head Organiser. I create all the graphics and copy, built and run the website, run our Instagram, and do a big chunk of the dozens of jobs that need doing to make a comic fair tick. I also designed our dashing new 2026 logo featuring the cuteness of inQi the butterfly, who has evolved from Ed’s classy 2024 butterfly, to the mischievous winged wonder you see on all our stuff today.
Logo by Lauren O’Farrell
We’ve also had a bit of help at the application stage from Wilson So, and some design assistance from the talented Ria Grix in final run-up to the fair. My sister, Natali O’Farrell also pitches in on fair days, as our onsite Fair Manager.
inQ! is not for profit, we don’t get funding, and everything we make goes back into running the fair. So the Team runs on our love of comics, goodwill, and our absolute dedication to do something we feel is making a difference. Sometimes we get nice biscuits too. And we do like biscuits.
AO: Going back two years to the first inO! what did you learn from that inaugural event? What were the successes and, conversely, the challenges of putting on the festival for the first time?
O’FARRELL: We learned that running a Comic Fair is really hard work! But it’s always worth it in the end.
inQ! 2024 was so busy we barely had time to think. It was the most popular event the Centre had that year. Our exhibitors had a ball, and the visitors did too. All of us came away with warm fuzzy feelings, and a definite community grew up around the fair.
Many of our exhibitors this year applied because they loved the energy at the last fair. One applicant wrote “The last InQ! was one of my favourite fairs/markets I’ve ever done. The people who tabled were great fun, and the people who attended were lovely. It was a truly blessed vibe!” That pretty much says it all for me.
inQ! in 2024
Challenge-wise it is hard to get attention for a new comic fair, in a sea of lovely London events. Lucky for us our exhibitors, and the wider comics community took us to heart and shared like crazy. It was a lovely thing to see the waves of support. Our Drink and Draw fundraising event sold out, the Fair was packed all day long, lots of exhibitors sold out of their comics.
The main thing we learned what was an appetite there is for queer comics and zines. So much so that this year we’re running for a whole weekend!
AO: What was some of the most rewarding and memorable feedback to that first festival?
O’FARRELL: For me it was the faces of people, particularly younger visitors, as they walked through the door and saw the space, and all the types of comics on offer knowing that every single creator was part of the LGBTQ+ community. The safe space we created changed how many people held themselves as they entered, real sparks of joy happened. It was quite moving to see queer kids explaining flag colours to their parents, or groups of teenagers excitedly chattering around a creator’s table. The workshop area was a flurry of scribbling and giggling, and the Community Table sales were non-stop.
One exhibitor sent us feedback after that said “You could feel the passion for comic creating from both exhibitors and participants in the air. On top of that, a comic fair to celebrate the queer community in London is rare!”
The inQ! exhibitors of 2024
AO: You’re returning to the London LGBTQ+ Community Centre with an expanded line-up. How does inQ! differ in that regard from 2024?
O’FARRELL: inQ! 2026 is the more confident older sibling of our 2024 fresh-faced fair. Twice the exhibitors, and a few more tables meant we have squished in even more creators, AND we’re running on Saturday the 26th and Sunday the 27th of September. On top of that, we have a Special Guest Signing Table this year. So we really are packing them in. It’s like a Pokemon evolution of the last fair. We pack more punch as we have more amazing queer creators, and we’re twice as excited about it!
AO: How difficult was the process of curating the festival?
O’FARRELL: This is the first year we have done applications, and it’s been a task and a half. We have tried our best to mix established creators, and those who are newer to the scene. We did a fair amount of research into each hopeful, and often got distracted by their wonderful work and had to steer ourselves back to the job in hand.
Every single person who applied was annoyingly brilliant. We spent an entire day, and several rounds of tea and far too many snacks, wrangling over who we could fit in. We only have space for just under 40 exhibitors. It didn’t come down to arm wrestling for our faves, but it almost did. If we could have said yes to everyone we would have. We wanted to!
Rein Lee and RedBear Universe in 2024
AO: One of the great joys of events like this is discovering new voices. I found the comics of Rein Lee at inQ! in 2024 for example and went on to champion their work as one of our Six to Watch creators in 2025. With a mix of established and emerging voices at inQ! who are some of the newer talents we should be looking out for over the weekend?
O’FARRELL: This feels like you’re asking us to pick favourites. We could never! All of our exhibitors are equally marvellous.
That said, we are excited about seeing people’s work who we haven’t seen much of before. So we picked some work that has caught our eye on social media or at comic fairs lately.
We spotted Pitahpat at the Goblin Fair in Deptford this year and loved their Comic About Komiks. We’re fans of Mo Morrell’s work (their posters for SLCZF and Goblin Fair were glorious) and are excited to see what chaos they bring. Riotbones has a new graphic novel called Strange Cases out in October, so we are hoping for some sneak peeks. RedBearUniverse has posted some gems online we hope to see in print. Asia Kazub’s folklore-based work is beautiful, and they are rumoured to be bringing unicorns to inQ!. And we’ve been entranced by the panelling prowess and colours in Lily Vies‘ work on Instagram, so it will be great to see it in print.
Also Rein is indeed amazing and we are happy they are back again this year at inQ!
You and the readers should absolutely check out the full lineup for Saturday and Sunday on our website and get excited. Your next favourite artist/s could be in there!
AO Can you tell us about the Special Guest Signing Table and who we can expect to see there? And also about the Community Table for those not exhibiting this year?
O’FARRELL: The idea with our Special Guest Signing Table is that we shoehorn in even more queer creators. So we are giving 5 artists 2-hour slots on the signing table to share their books.
On the Saturday we have:
Ed Firth, who is debuting a brand new zine at inQ! this year after having time away working on his next graphic novel
The talented Rachael Stott, who has worked on the likes of Fantastic Four, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Supergirl, and Spider-Man.
Kay Medaglia, author of SelfMadeHero’s best-selling One Year Wiser with, and the recently released and rather brilliant Comics Therapy.
And on Sunday:
IGNATZ award-winner Shazleen Khan who is exhibiting on the Saturday, but returning on the Sunday for a signing slot too. Their BUUZA!! Volume 1: Good Morning, Salwa came out earlier this year, and is a thrilling ride.
Hamish Steele, whose Go-Man vs Star Dragon was freshly published just this week, so visitors are in a prime spot to get their hands on a copy.
Aaaand the fabulous Daisy Crouch, creator of the wonder that is Very Hungry Women, a queer horror comic about cannibals, superheroes, and being bad at letting go. What’s not to love? And I believe Daisy is one of Broken Frontier’s Six to Watch too!
Our Community Table is free for creators to bring their comics along to sell. We have a full set of rules on how this works over on our website. We can’t wait to see what people bring. Last year it was our busiest table. We had to swap out volunteers before they melted.
AO: And, finally, what are you hoping that both punters and participants take away from the experience of inQ! 2026?
O’FARRELL: Lots and lots of lovely comics, zines and fond memories of being a part of a buzzing and brilliant creative queer community. With two days of comic fair, there’s double the opportunity to fall in love with a story someone has lovingly created. And with our absolutely strict ‘no AI ever ever EVER’ policy, you know a human put their heart and soul into it. Long live queer comics!
For more on inQ! visit the website here
All photos above by Luisa Starling
Interview by Andy Oliver
