THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2026! Thought Bubble hits its 20th edition this year and we put a shout out for contributions from the community with their favourite memories. Here’s what they had to say!
Ricky Miller (Avery Hill Publishing)
Thought Bubble has always been our most important show of the year, and I’ve just realised this is our 15th anniversary of going there! We first brought issue one of our anthology, Reads, to the festival in 2011. We sold two copies all weekend and overdid the partying (one of us ended up napping under the table…).
We’ve grown alongside the festival, and last year we were delighted to stage a retrospective exhibition of Avery Hill’s work with Thought Bubble at the Mercer Gallery. It might be my proudest moment in comics, and it was wonderful to show the artwork of so many of our brilliant creators in such an amazing space. It would never have happened without Thought Bubble. What the organisers have done for comics in this country over the last 20 years is hard to overstate. Congratulations to the whole team, past and present, and special thanks to Chloe and Martha for all their help over the years!
Shri Gunasekara (Runner)
My favourite memory from Thought Bubble is actually getting together with my partner. Thought Bubble is now low-key our anniversary.
Dominique Duong (The Dog and the Cat)
One of my favourite memories was going for dinner with a bunch of friends and new people after a Saturday finished. It was just great to eat delicious Indian food and have great chats with everyone, old friends and new.
Bex Ollerton/Schnumn (Lavender Clouds)
Kate Ashwin (Widdershins)
One year, my table was across from Gerard Way, who was signing Umbrella Academy books for the whole con with very little breaks like an absolute trooper. His queue was quite literally round the block, unsurprisingly full of MCR fans, and we kept a running tally of how many kids left his table crying in joy – for the record, it was 11.
Zoe Delautre Corral (The Lifespan of a Dragonfly)
Thought Bubble 2025 was my first Thought Bubble ever, and I will never forget it. I felt encouraged to go and take part largely by the amazing support I received from Broken Frontier, which has been career-changing for me as an illustrator and comics artist. The energy throughout the entire weekend at Thought Bubble was of immense excitement and celebration for the art of comics and the beauty of its diversity and of those who make it. It was truly moving and humbling to feel part of a community that is large, alive and inclusive. Truly unforgettable.
Katriona Chapmen (Avery Hill Publishing)
I first attended Thought Bubble 15 years ago – it was one of my first tables at a convention and I was terrified. But I met so many great people there, and it soon became my favourite event of the year. This year I’m a guest for the first time which is incredibly exciting!
Last year Avery Hill Publishing and I organised a big exhibition of comic art that launched as part of Thought Bubble 2026 at the Mercer Gallery. It was amazing to go from a nervous first-timer to being part of last year’s event in a way I never could have imagined when I started out! Being able to lead a tour of an exhibition I helped organise, and talk to visitors about why comics are great (and why Avery Hill and all their artists are great) was unforgettable.
MrBe (Gosh! Comics and Broken Frontier Drink and Draw Online regular!)
Most impactful was the first time I took my eldest to TB at the Armoury in Leeds. Still at school at the time she was due to decide on her degree soon . She knew she wanted to do art, but what course? Graphics, Fine Art, Illustration etc. We met the legend that is Jodie Bellaire and she spoke to her. Jodie sat her down and talked through the options, her career and choices etc. Jodie never told her what to do, but selflessly gave up much of her time to discuss it and, most importantly, inspired my daughter. She left clutching one of her ‘Comics Are For Everyone’ T shirts but more importantly a desire to follow her dreams.
I’m so proud of her and what she’s achieved and loving that several years down the line she now has a career in comics and publishing herself. I’d like to think that her old nerdy comic collecting dad played a part in that! But so did Jodie and the whole atmosphere of TB.
Fast forward and last year we were both at TB, and I saw a little lad who’d been at the Phoenix stand coming away clutching his goodies.
He was with his mum, and looking around that hall, and all the creators present, he turned to his mum and said something like ‘so all these people are drawing comics? I could do that too?’ Every TB is someone’s first, and it must open up their eyes to so much potential.
Long may it continue.
Chris Mole (Secrets of the Majestic)
My favourite (of many) Thought Bubble memories is spending a ludicrous amount of time mucking around in the men’s toilets at the Majestic; either the year that I decided to assemble an entire anthology full of Thought Bubble creators about that specific toilet, or the following year when we held a full professional photoshoot in there with most of the folks in the book attending. I’m aware this makes me sound like a weirdo but that toilet represents everything I love about Thought Bubble – community, laughter and just generally having a great comics-adjacent time!
Ka-Pow! Comics, Huddersfield
I’ve been recognised by a few comic creators who watched me review their books in five minutes, which is nice, but last year, a random con attendee walking the aisles stopped me to say he really liked my videos, and it made my day!
Lauren O’Farrell AKA Deadly Knitshade (inQ! Queer Comics Festival)
Offering the 9-year-old daughter of a friend of mine, that I hadn’t seen in a decade, a space for her first comic on my table if she came back with one next TB in 2024, her coming back in 2025 with her first comic, a whole bunch of my nearby comics friends joining a signing queue for her when she came back to the table to see how the comic was doing. Her face as she realised the queue was for her. Thought Bubble magic.
Peter Morey (Animal Spirits)
Hales Bar karaoke on the Thursday eve before TB 2021: local karaoke hero singing ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush in a broad Yorkshire accent and the whole bar singing along. A lot of us also sang things to (with?) the most supportive and involved karaoke crowd I’ve ever seen.
Best line ‘HEATHCLIFF! I’m chuffing cold at the end o’ this window’
Also doing live drawing backing boards with Becky at our table 2018,19,21,22… 2021 I put ‘THOT BUBBEL’ as the title to be cute and didn’t realise till Joe (Stone) explained that THOT is a rude acronym :/
Karrie Fransman (CCIC, Death of the Artist)
One of my fave memories is needing to get into the hall for set up but realising I didn’t have a high viz. one of the lovely Red Shirts/volunteers literally took the shirt off his back for me. Thought Bubble volunteers are the absolute best.
Lucy Sullivan (Barking)
Mines a bit odd but… When Unbound screwed up ordering Barking for print (editor) Lizzie Kaye sorted an overnight print. We came up with the idea of wrapping them in tracing paper and me drawing on those covers. I had (daughter) Frankie with me, she was 4 and totally freaked out by too much noise, people and terrifying cosplay (Walking Dead live year). I had to draw sketch covers with her wrapped around me and pretend it was normal. Everyone was so lovely and understanding. I realised I had finally found my people.
Jenny Robins (Biscuits (assorted))
The family dressed as different time lord incarnations with a little baby Tardis and seeing people’s faces when they came out of Karrie Fransman’s Tale Spinner.
Emily Maher (WIP Comics anthologies)
I think mine might be walking around the hall in one of my favourite T-shirts that I’d bought one previous year and hearing a voice shouting excitedly “that’s my t-shirt!!” and turning around to see the artist I’d bought it from and we had a lovely chat.
Rebecca K Jones (Boomerang)
The Majestic toilets…
Kry Garcia (Guide to the Oblivion)
It’s tricky to choose one, I always love the conversations I have with other artists and attendees while on my table, they get me energized for the whole year. But maybe two Saturday night moments stand out:
In 2021, I’d only met Joe Stone and Nora Goldberg (and maybe Pete Morey?), I had lost all my social skills during the pandemic and I was terrified that I was going to be awkwardly standing in a corner in the Majestic, but the people in the Gosh/Broken Frontier Drink and Draw group took me in, were absolutely lovely, showed me the toilets and I even signed a card for Andy Oliver even though I had no idea who he was but people clearly missed him.
In 2024, when we made an effort to go to the Saturday party but it was loud and we were tired, and a bunch of us decided to have a chill night in at the Swan bar, with people coming later. I remember being very very happy, all cozy next to the chimney, talking to everyone. and maybe the Irish cream helped a bit too.
Joe Stone (Absolute Cinema and Other Stories)
I have a fond memory from my first year there back in 2018 when a group of young, fully gothed-up goths (one was carrying a bunch of dead roses) coming up to my table, picking up one of my mini comics about a missing cat, flicking through it and then saying ‘this is too sad’ and putting it down before walking off. Too sad for goths.
Nora Goldberg (Former Gosh/BF Drink and Draw co-host)
How amazing it was when everyone chipped in to help put the Drink and Draw exhibition together in 2021 and then Matthew Dooley stepped in at the last minute to be a guest artist for the night. A really amazing example of community support
Joe Decie (Collecting Sticks)
One of my favourites was when my son was maybe seven, he made a little zine. Tom Oldham (Breakdown Press/Gosh! Comics) mentioned it in a talk as “book of the show” and he quickly sold out 50 copies. Small bit walking around with £50 burning a hole in his pocket. Eyeing up a massive Zelda art book one of the comic shops was selling. He was told not to touch it. Big mistake. Big. Huge.
Thought Bubble 2026 runs from November 9th-15th with the convention weekend taking place on the 14th-15th. More details on the Thought Bubble site here.
Read all our Thought Bubble 2026 coverage so far in one place here.
Poster art by Núria Tamarit
