After it’s return from a several year hiatus in 2025 the small press and self-publishing comics festival Caption returns in August with a pirate theme. And Broken Frontier will also be returning to Caption’s Oxford home with some more ‘Six to Watch’ spotlights!
You can read our report on Caption 2025 here.
Caption Comics Festival announces its 2026 dates
The 2026 Caption Comics Festival, dedicated to independent and self-published sequential art, will be held in Oxford at Seacourt Hall on the weekend of the 8th-9th of August.
Caption is the UK’s longest running comics event that focuses on professional networking, support and community. This year’s guests include Broken Frontier’s Six To Watch comics creators as well as Broken Frontier’s editor-in-chief, Andy Oliver.
The 2025 Broken Frontier panel at Caption hosted by Andy Oliver with (right to left) Cara Brown, Mike Armstrong, Dominique Duong and Shane Melisse
Each year the event adopts a theme, with this year’s being pirates. That informs the nature of some of the events including the traditional Saturday night quiz as well as a special comedic theatre performance.
There are also creator panels, which this year are dedicated to comics journalism, the impact of AI on art intelligence and how creative communities can provide well-being support.
Caption is a non-profit event run entirely by volunteers with its organising committee made up of working creators and journalists that have a special interest in comics. Its focus is on supporting artists instead of the typical comic convention approach of fandom and signings and meet’n’greets. At Caption there’s no dividing line of access between creators and readers. It’s also different from other events in that the only sales table is shared for everyone with only a 10% cut asked for to support the event’s running costs.
Caption mascot Jack Sparrow
“We have some fairly high- profile people coming and also people who are just literally doing it in their bedroom, photocopying or printing it themselves. It’s quite a mix but it is all very friendly and really nice – and people do come from all over the country to take part.” – Peet Clack, freelance illustrator
“It’s all about small press publishing and giving advice to people who are trying to break into the industry.” – Alex Fitch, host of Panel Borders, Resonance FM
Tickets for Caption 2026 are on sale now at https://caption.sumupstore.com.
A Caption day pass is £20 and a weekend pass £30. Concessionary rates are due to be announced soon.
Contact: captionfest@gmail.com Webs: https://captionfestival.co.uk/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/captioncomicfest.bsky.social
