A week of exhibitions and talks with leading cartoonists Dave Coverly, Malak Mattar, Lucie Arnoux, Ben Jennings, Will McPhail, and more...
From Enola Holmes to Women in Technology, from the personal to the political, from the bitingly satiric to the playfully funny, Galway Cartoon Festival 2024 has it all! From Friday 4 to Wednesday 9 October, Galway will play host to some of the biggest names in cartooning: Dave Coverly, creator of the legendary single-panel cartoon Speed Bump; Gaza artist Malak Mattar, whose work is both affected by and a response to, the Israeli occupation; Lucie Arnoux, writer/artist on the Enola Holmes comics; European Cartoon of the Year 2023 winner Ben Jennings; The New Yorker’s Will McPhail; and leading Irish cartoonist, Dean Patterson.
The Galway Cartoon Festival 2024 programme will be launched by the Deputy Mayor of Galway City, Labour city councillor, Niall McNelis, on Thursday 29 August at 6pm in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop.
The Festival, now in its 8th year, will be guided by the themes of Beasts, Women in Technology, and General Mayhem. Filled with drawing and discussion, workshops, exhibitions, and talks, it promises to be the most exciting, expansive, and ambitious cartoon festival yet!
Festival guests
Since creating 'Speed Bump' in 1994, Dave Coverly’s celebrated gag cartoon has been syndicated in The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times, winning Best Panel from the National Cartoonists Society four times. The Festival will hold an exhibition of Coverly’s work, while Coverly will give a public talk, ‘How To Be A World Famous Cartoonist’.
Malak Mattar has come to wide attention for her astonishing grayscale painting, No Words, her deeply personal response to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and the atrocities being inflicted upon her fellow Palestinians. The author/illustrator of the best-selling children’s book, Sitti’s Bird: A Gaza Story, Mattar will be in Galway from 8 to 10 October for an exhibition and book launch.
French illustrator and comic-book author Lucie Arnoux is best known as an artist on the Enola Holmes comics series, and for her graphic novel autobiography, Je Ne Sais Quoi. She will hold a workshop, ‘The Comic Book In Practice’ and give a public interview on the influence of comic books on her life and career.
Each year, Galway Cartoon Festival showcases an artist who has made a significant contribution to the art in Ireland, so 2024’s solo exhibition will feature one of the North’s finest, Dean Patterson, whose work appears in Private Eye, The Phoenix, The Idler, and others.
Ben Jennings’ (The Guardian, The i Newspaper) will give an unflinching - but very funny - dissection of contemporary Britain after 14 years of Tory government in his William Hogarth inspired exhibition ‘Snowflake’s Progress’. The inspirations behind this show will be discussed in a public interview, ‘Snowflake Under The Microscope’.
Another Festival public interview highlight will be ‘An Englishman in The New Yorker’, with The New Yorker’s Will McPhail, winner of the Reuben Award's Cartoonist of the Year 2017 and 2018 and the British Cartoonists Association's Young Cartoonist of the Year.
An American’s view of Galway will come via Disney/Marvel/Netflix artist, Joey Mason, with the launch of his book, Quay Street Sketches, inspired by his time in the city. For Galway Cartoon Festival 2024 he will hold a residency and exhibition in Áras Éanna, Inis OÍrr.
A very special visitor to this year’s Festival will be Co Kerry cartoonist and illustrator Ciaraíoch (Ciara Kenny), whose work draws on social justice, Feminism, nature, and Irish history and mythology.
The festival will also feature cartoons and contributions from such major Irish cartoonists as Tom Mathews, Mick O’Hare (co-creator of Zig and Zag and Podge and Rodge), Graeme Keyes, and Jim Cogan, while the Festival Image was created by Portuguese political cartoonist, Cristina Sampaio.
Exhibitions and events
Galway Cartoon Festival celebrates creativity, storytelling, the power of satire, and the joy cartoons bring to our lives, encapsulated in this year’s themes: Beasts, Women in Technology, and General Mayhem.
There will be group exhibitions under the above themes, with the Women in Technology exhibition collaborating with Galway Science and Technology Festival and the Insight Centre for Data Analytics.
There will be panel discussions, including ‘Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Making Graphic Novels (But Were Afraid To Ask); Irish language cartooning events, including Tarraing É I nGaeilge, the annual show of cartoons as Gaeilge in An Taibhdhearc and Áras Éanna, Inis Oírr; and a chance for the public to draw alongside leading cartoonists in ‘Can You Speak Doodle?’.
Galway Cartoon Festival will also facilitate visits by Galway city and county schools to festival exhibitions, to inspire the next generation of cartooning talent.
Galway Cartoon Festival launches its full festival programme at 6pm on Thursday 29 August in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop. All are welcome to the launch. For more information see galwaycartoonfestival.ie.
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