Comics, art and a weekend in London

We’ve always been fans of comics and quirky illustrations and a few years back one of our friends recommended we go to visit the East London Comic And Art Festival (ELCAF) while we had time to fill in London. It’s rare that we skip anything nearby with comics or art in the name and the only thing disappointing when we arrived was the fact that we weren’t around for the whole event. Ever since then we’ve been making a weekend of the festival every year and it’s been exciting to see it move around and grow since the first year.

This year we stayed just around the corner from the event in a lovely apartment which we booked through Airbnb. We use Airbnb for most of our travels now when we have a bit of spare cash to spend and this was one of my favourite places so far. Sometimes the listings are a bit lifeless with just a bed and a kitchen for short stays, but this time it was the host’s home which he had opened up while he was away on business. The place was full of books, photos and postcards from all around the world and it wasn’t long before it felt like a home for the weekend rather than just a place to stay.

London is now home to quite a few of our friends so when we visit it’s a good time for a catch up. On the Thursday evening we were able to meet our good friend Mat and he never fails to recommend somewhere tasty. We caught up over pork belly and Hawaiian inspired bowl food.

The following two days were filled with comics, with ELCAF beginning on the Friday afternoon. A number of the stalls change between Friday and Saturday and it was good to meet the artists who were around Friday only. The festival also got a lot busier and the heat was almost unbearable on Saturday afternoon so being able to browse while it was less hectic was nice.

We had a great time at ELCAF, both speaking to the artists, pouring over beautiful work and seeing a couple of talks from some very talented people. We got to take part in a doodle workshop too, plus hack some toys together on the Saturday which was our favourite part of the first ELCAF we went to.

I’d love to run something similar in Liverpool, which I might look into next year, but for now we just have to have our annual taste of it in London.

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