Safari Festival: The new wave of alternative and arts comics, curated by indie publisher Breakdown Press

Now in it’s third year, Safari Festival will once again be exhibiting the best of the comics’ avant-garde in London later this month. The founders, independent comics publisher Breakdown Press, will be taking it as an opportunity to present their latest round of books, including comics by Michael DeForge, Zoë Taylor and Antoine Cossé.

Michael DeForge’s On Topics 2 contains two comics on The Prime Minister of Canada and Talking Sweat; Stathis Tsemberlidis’ Pinoplectic Intertia brings together five years worth of his mystical strips for Decadence Comics – the publishing collective he co-founded with Lando; and Zoë Taylor’s Joyride follows a woman’s journey from a party and into the woods, via the ambiguous storytelling she’s become known for.

In our earlier piece on Breakdown Press, they spoke of wanting to only publish work that they considered important, and since they have proved this with some great books including Richard Short’s Klaus, Conor Stechschulte’s Generous Bosom and re-issues of Sasaki Maki’s alt-manga comics from the late 60s.

Alongside their own releases, Safari Festival will host the likes of Landfill Editions, Rob Flowers and Will Sweeney, as well as special guests Simon Hanselmann, Joan Cornellà and Laura Callaghan. This year they’ll also be hosting satellite events across the city, and have teamed up with charity Hope Not Hate, who are working to remedy the rise in xenophobic and racist hate crimes in London.

Safari Festival takes place on 27 August at Protein Studios, Shoreditch.