13th October 2019, Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal UK
The Lakes International Comic Art Festival (LICAF) once again took over the town of Kendal in the UK’s picturesque Lakes District, with plenty of comics talent from across the globe appearing at numerous venues – from the Westmoreland Shopping Centre to the Brewery Arts Centre – to meet and greet with enthusiastic fans.
The latter venue has a couple of stages including a full cinema/theatre space in which three master storytellers talked with Chris Thompson about the lure and appeal of the DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS system and roleplaying games in general: two regular players in the form of Becky Cloonan (THE PUNISHER, SOUTHERN CROSS, GOTHAM ACADEMY) and Andy Diggle (2000AD, THE LOSERS, HARDCORE) and also a relative noob to the scene, Si Spurrier (CODA, X-MEN LEGACY, STAR WARS).
In this hour conversation, the group discussed their own history with role-playing games, how the nature of interactive storytelling informed their own narratives, and what they got creatively out of playing in their sessions. Thompson is quite experienced in playing D&D from an early age, too, so for Spurrier, this became the deep-dive introduction to role-playing that he felt he needed to get into the scene himself!
Thanks to the team at Lakes International Comic Art Festival for hosting the session, and to Si, Becky, Andy and Chris for allowing me to record it.
