Graphic Novel Reading Room

Graphic Novel Reading Room GNRR is a social event where people can read a wide range of graphic novels in company of others

Coming up next: MACC-POW! Comic Art Festival on the 26-27th June!It’s quite unbelievable but this will be my FIFTH time ...
18/06/2026

Coming up next: MACC-POW! Comic Art Festival on the 26-27th June!

It’s quite unbelievable but this will be my FIFTH time at this lovely family centred comic art festival in Macclesfield!

GNRR will take place on Saturday from 10am to 4pm at the new site of the lovely The Button Warehouse, who will meet all of your food and beverage needs. It’s free of charge for festival visitors throughout the day, it’ll be a little oasis from the marketplace and workshops where you can recharge and read comics and zines from hundreds of options!

Marc makes comics has made this festival a lovely stop in the festival calendar, with higher and higher profile guest and tabling artists tabling. This year my comics mum will also be there and some of my other faves and - I even invited Fluffy to come visit GNRR so I can help him in his journey of finding his life’s calling.

Plenty of workshops to chose from too, many free, with and Mollie Ray and many many others.

Savannah Storm (artist for the Care Matters comic we made together) and Comics Youth and many others will be tabling, it’ll be a fun weekend, do come along!

Some pics from Tuesday’s lovey GNRR The Treehouse Board Game Cafe . The system of pre-requesting books in advance worked...
18/06/2026

Some pics from Tuesday’s lovey GNRR The Treehouse Board Game Cafe .

The system of pre-requesting books in advance worked really well so everybody found what they wanted to read.

New levels of horizontal relaxation were unlocked, I think we need some hammocks in there!!! We had a lovely soft dog visitor and as a bonus I also included a photo of my cat Oto at the end.

We are off for the summer at the Treehouse, there might be some other events though during July and August in Sheffield - watch this space!!!

Third and final day of the Flood & Coast conference.Thankfully a shorter day, but by the end I could genuinely only comm...
11/06/2026

Third and final day of the Flood & Coast conference.

Thankfully a shorter day, but by the end I could genuinely only communicated using interpretive dance to explain how our project is different from most other offerings (art and soft focus looked something like a tube man/skydancer/inflatable man and science and enginieeeing like throwing shapes at raves 😂 iykyk)

We still had many good conversations, took votes on our logo options and feedback on our project in general, which will all feed into our next steps.

Apart from collecting lots of merch from other stands, I also played a cool game that was based on system dynamics, my discovery and obsession when I was at uni!

Massive thanks again to Sara Kenney and Jo Higgs at the Environment Agency steering the ship, and for the Comics Youth crew for taking word of our projects all around the conference!

Although the conference took a lot of energy, I surprised myself by actually enjoying it, and feeling quite fulfilled by the end 😂😂😂

Next up is collating all the contacts of people we met and spoke to, and following up with more irresistible charm, and some specific offers and asks. We felt we’ve had so many positive responses, hopefully we can turn them into actual partnerships, funding and new projects and collaborations we never even thought of, including new comics production and editing jobs for me 🤞🤞🤞

Watch this space for how we get on, you’ll be the first to know!

Day 2 at Flood & Coast conference by and the team did some more excellent moving and shaking, introducing our projects ...
10/06/2026

Day 2 at Flood & Coast conference by and the team did some more excellent moving and shaking, introducing our projects in co-production with the Environment Agency and .

Jo Higgs and Sara Kenney - leaders of the pack - spoke to a number of potential further funders and our team of young artists did what they do best: documenting, introducing themselves and their art and being the voice of a generation. (No pressure.)

And me? Following from Jo’s genius idea to see if we might be able to borrow one of the Environment Agency’s Incident Command Units vans, I had a thorough reccy to explore if that might work. And - subject to the EA saying yes - we might have found an intermediary measure before we can find full funding to build the Flood Cafe van, we could join the and EA vans to run some days of outreach where we could get proof of concept, and refine our offering. All they need to do is say yes! I could totally make that van feel cosy, colourful and full of comics/flood activities…!

Also found some other examples of the use of LEGO and Duplo models (last pic) so my cardboard model and Playmobil figurines were not an outlier at all!

Last day tomorrow to see if we can make more connections and inspire more industry people to invest in us and/or to use the power of comics to communicate with their audiences.

Until then…

First day of the Flood & Coast conference, presenting the concept design for The Flood Cafe: a mobile facility that uses...
09/06/2026

First day of the Flood & Coast conference, presenting the concept design for The Flood Cafe: a mobile facility that uses comics and the power of visual storytelling to engage and interact with young adults around flood related information, and the emotional and psychological effects caused by flooding and climate change.

The project has been co-designed with and funded by the Environment Agency and . Five young artists .art and Jasmine delivered amazing artwork for interior and exterior designs, a poster, a flyer/fridge magnet and a tea towel, that forms the foundations of our imagining of this new facility. Our seasoned designer designed our logo options and written up a social media strategy for our project - we are collecting votes over the three days on visitors’ preferences on logo designs, currently number 4 (last one, top left) is winning.

We all did much moving and shaking, introducing the concept and pitching for new partners and supporters, with a hope to get started on the next stage of building the actual van and trialling the events. The 3D model DIY’d together by me, including Playmobile figurines did much of the heavy lifting in helping to visualise the set up!

We collected much useful feedback, had interesting conversations and attracted many people to our quirky stand, a very different offering from most other things at the conference!

And our inspiration Flood Mary won another award and received a gift of a comic that invokes ‘Floody Mary’ three times from us, at her retirement party.

Two more days to go, let’s go!

ROLL UP ROLL UP!!! This will be the ast session before the autumn at the - come along for some sociable introverted tim...
08/06/2026

ROLL UP ROLL UP!!! This will be the ast session before the autumn at the - come along for some sociable introverted times - extroverts also welcome (but only with library voices)!

Back from my travels of Wales and England, spreading the love of comics across the nations with more books that I know what to do with 😂

Therefore a reminder: if you’d like to read a specific comic, let me know in advance because I can almost guarantee that it’s the very book you want that I won’t have packed otherwise, as are the laws of the universe.

Our lovely Treehouse hosts will supply us with their usual well-curated selection of food and drinks, at their specially designed tables where books and eating can live happily - and stain free -, side by side. Or should I say top and bottom! 😂

There are still tickets available, head over to Eventbrite via the bio to book - as it’s set for ‘donation’ (aka pay-what-you-like/can-afford) you need to book each individual ticket separately.

Hope to see you there!
Gabi

Brighton Open Market TODAY - Cartoon county spring fair!!!I’ll be selling duplicate comics from my collection to raise f...
31/05/2026

Brighton Open Market TODAY - Cartoon county spring fair!!!

I’ll be selling duplicate comics from my collection to raise funds for my tour, there will be lots of lovely comics folk there selling their high quality ware, come along!!!

First photo dump of the Graphic Novel Reading Room 2026!I first visited Hay Festival in 2018, and was inspired by the s...
29/05/2026

First photo dump of the Graphic Novel Reading Room 2026!

I first visited Hay Festival in 2018, and was inspired by the scenes of people sitting in deckchairs, reading books in each others’ company.

Three years later, the Graphic Novel Reading Room was born, and my time in Hay was one of the building blocks of how I want to run these events, and why: providing a sociable but calm space for people to congregate, and read books.

In the process - kind of by accident - I’ve become an advocate for the comics medium, and my goal was always to take comics to places where they otherwise wouldn’t be, especially literary festivals like Hay.

I pitched my event to Hay in 2025, and visited the festival again that year to meet the organisers, and have a good look around with eyes for where GNRR could be at the festival. I proposed a Comics Day to them (like there was a Sports Day that year), and that’s exactly what happened in 2026. (NB and probably some others were also lobbying for comics in the background with Hay so I can’t take full credit for it happening, but I definitely had a role in it!)

A year later, on the 27th May 2026 we had a proper Graphic Novel Day at the Hay festival, with GNRR doing its thing all day, offering comics to read for old and young, for free. Many amazing comic artists were also invited, and we had a proper blast!

Thank you for the organisers who made it happen, and I’m hoping that we managed to make the solid case for comics to be included in future festivals.

More photos to come…

Two days to go until Graphic Novel Day! I’ll be stationed in the Bookshop Garden (next to the ice cream) to offer hundr...
25/05/2026

Two days to go until Graphic Novel Day!

I’ll be stationed in the Bookshop Garden (next to the ice cream) to offer hundreds and comics and zines for visitors to read.

Come along to sample the works of comic artists speaking at the festival: - all these are creators for adult audiences in genres of graphic medicine, humour, memoir and non-fiction!

An excellent GNRR in Borth , third year in a row! Thank you so much for inviting me and hosting me ! It’s lovely seein...
25/05/2026

An excellent GNRR in Borth , third year in a row! Thank you so much for inviting me and hosting me ! It’s lovely seeing familiar faces year after year 😊

We also had a conversation with and about comics and protest and Myf’s new book Noisy Valley - but there is no photographic evidence so it might have never happened 😂

And now onto the next stop, Hay Festival!

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