THOUGHT BUBBLE MONTH 2026! There has been something of a break between issues of this anthology series but if you’ve been eagerly anticipating the return of the SkrawlLordz collective (and their carefully curated list of guest artists) then Skrawl #3 may just be the best issue of the run to date. This time around Mark Hughes, Russell Mark Olson, Nick Prolix, Martin Simpson, Pete Taylor and Gustaffo Vargas are joined by a number of other creators including Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ artists Olivia Sullivan and Dominica Claribelle.
Cover by Russell Mark Olson
Let’s start with a quick rundown of the work on show here from the Lordz themselves. First up we have Peruvian cyberpunk specialist Gustaffo Vargas who continues in that vein with the story ‘Meandro’ featuring a boat-led expedition searching for the mysterious Yagua tribe that you know from page one is not going to go according to plan. This is Vargas working, interestingly, in a looser style than we are used to seeing but it’s one that fits the mood of the story while using ever more experimental layouts. This man can control the reader’s eye across a page like few other artists can and it really shows here.
Martin Simpson
Next up we have ‘Shortcut to Nowhere’ by Martin Simpson, a depiction of a digital high that is simply outstanding in its use of double-page spreads to visually reframe intoxication in tech terms. As far as plot goes it’s as slight as can be and yet it remains an astonishing piece of comics. Perhaps the finest thing I have seen from Simpson to date. Continuing in that vein of using the form to its fullest potential we have Matthew Hardy and Russell Mark Olson’s ‘The Internal Organs’, a tale of heists and organ leggers (as 2000 AD would have called them anyway) that plays with perspective to push its narrative along.
Pete Taylor
Pete Taylor’s ‘Comics Will Break Your Heart’ is an excellent satirical take on the early years of serial comics that does all kinds of clever meta stuff while also using very concentrated applications of colour to expand its themes. While Mark Hughes gives us ‘Zoom!’, a largely silent story that employs a fluid sense of motion to make its romantic point.
Nick Prolix
If this is all sounding unashamedly effusive that’s because it is. Skrawl #3 is full of absolute and joyous punch the air moments as time and again we are treated to inventive examples of things that comics, and comics alone, can do. The highlight of the issue though is a short that deceptively appears to be doing something far more modest and yet it’s an object lesson in how to a more text-based story and do it well. Nick Prolix’s ‘Remembrances’ is an observational piece on losing a parent and it’s beautiful and heartbreaking in equal measure. Also a reminder that we’ve seen far too little of Prolix’s always appealing cartooning in recent years.
Dominica Claribelle
This issue is also bursting with extras like a Tom Humberstone essay and an Alison Sampson interview but we were always going to be drawn to the ‘Six to Watch’ material and it doesn’t disappoint. Dominica Claribelle provides a new twist on an old fairytale theme in ‘Bess & the Charmer’, proving once again what an incredibly versatile artist she is. And Olivia Sullivan is on hand with more abstract comics work that the reader can take as either oblique graphic poetry or interpret as commentary on being trapped in an existential capitalist cage.
Olivia Sullivan
If you’re looking for pure language of comics brilliance at Thought Bubble this year you cannot go wrong with Skrawl #3.
Mark Hughes, Russell Mark Olson, Nick Prolix, Martin Simpson, Pete Taylor, Gustaffo Vargas, Phil Breach, Zé Burnay, Jonathan Edwards, Matthew Hardy, Tom Humberstone, Dominica Claribelle, Olivia Sullivan, Artyom Trakhanov • Self-published, £10.00
Review by Andy Oliver
TheSkrawlLordz are at Table B39-40 in the Travelling Man Hall at Thought Bubble.
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
