INTERVIEW - Thought Bubble 2012
Geek Syndicate
What is Thought Bubble? Here’s some information from the festival’s web site: The Thought Bubble Festival is the UK’s largest event of its kind – an annual celebration of sequential art in all its forms, including everything from superhero comics to independent and small-press artists and writers. Thought Bubble formed in 2007 as a non-profit-making organisation dedicated to promoting comics, graphic novels, and animation as an important national and international cultural art-form. Now in its 6th year, the festival has been extended over seven days with a jam-packed programme of events at a variety of venues across the city. Our aim is to cater to both longtime comic book fans and those who have never picked up a graphic novel before! The sixth Thought Bubble will take place from the 11th – 18th November 2012 at venues around Leeds and Bradford, with a centre-piece two day convention on 17th – 18th November
at Saviles and Royal Armouries Halls – Leeds’ largest conference venues. The guys and girls at Geek Syndicate have been huge fans of the show over the past few years, and 2012’s festival is shaping up nicely. We caught up with the organisers to get a heads up of the event. GS: Since its inception Thought Bubble seems to have grown leaps and bounds. What do you think is the secret to the show’s continued success? TB: Oh, man, that’s a tough opener! I don’t really know, myself and Lisa Wood (Thought Bubble’s founder and director) have this conversation every so often, usually after each year’s festival, trying to pin down what we did right (and wrong), but I reckon if we think about it too hard we’ll scare whatever it is away! Actually, having said that, I know what the main ingredient is to our success, and it’s definitely not a secret, and that’s our army of amazing
volunteers. We couldn’t put the festival on without all their hard work, and if you come to any of 2012’s Thought Bubble events over the festival week (11th - 18th November), then you’ll see first-hand just how awesome they are! GS: What changes, if any have you made to the way you’ve put the show together this year? TB: Mostly, it’s just getting on top of things early! We knew the guests that we wanted to bring over for the show, and the events that we wanted to focus on and develop, so we tried as much as possible to get all that information locked in as soon as possible. It just makes everything a bit less stressful in the late build-up having all that stuff finalised, meaning vR6?f?7W2??F?R??v?7F?72??BG&?V&?W6???F??r??B&6?6??????rWfW'?F???r27G&V???VBf?"WfW'???RGFV?F??r2?76?&?R??f??r6?BF?B?v^( ?fRW??FVBF?R&?w&??R??Bv^( ?&RWGF??r???W"&?vvW7BF??Vv?B'V&&?RWfW"?6??f??p?????