Spotlight Indie can’t claim any lofty connections to the official Hay Festival, which is taking place at the beautiful town of Hay-on-Wye in Wales from 21st to 31st May 2026. However, we can claim a connection to one of the businesses in the town, where Hay-on-Wye Comics has become the first physical store to stock Spotlight team member Tim Hardie’s Brotherhood of the Eagle series!
That initial discussion about books got us talking about the need for small independent businesses to support each other where they can. Frankly, an independent comic book shop is right up our street, and we’re pretty sure it will appeal to a lot of our readers as well. That’s why we decided to run this feature and, by extension, Spotlight Indie is enjoying a tenuous association with the Hay Festival as well! Who knows? Maybe you’ll find us at the festival itself in 2027…
Tell us a little bit about yourselves and how you ended up in Hay-on-Wye
Thank you so much for featuring us at Spotlight Indie!
Hay-on-Wye Comics was created and is managed by us, Lauren and Julian Hough. We visited Hay on a holiday and immediately felt that Hay is a place where you can try anything! There are always interesting, creative things going on – not to mention the amazing bookshops.
We moved to Hay and continued working in higher education remotely. Hay-on-Wye Comics started as a market stall trading comics and graphic novels at the Thursday Hay Market, because why not give something new a try? We are incredibly grateful to Hay Markets for giving us a chance! We were able to get an idea of the demand, and a specialist comic book shop seemed to resonate with a lot of people in Hay, so we went for it and started the shop this year.
As the owners of a comic book shop, you must love this creative format. How did you first get into the world of comic books?
Lauren has loved comics since before she can remember and has always had an interest in visual art and drawing. Her first experience with comics was reading comic strips in the newspaper every day. I’m not sure this is a thing in the UK, but in the US there are full pages of comic strips published every day. She still starts her day by reading webcomics first thing in the morning. Julian, more a sci-fi and horror film addict, found a love of comics through Lauren making him read the classics!
Moving into a physical store is a big step. Why did you want to do that?
After trading at the market for some time, we rented a unit at Broad Street Book Centre. It’s a great bookshop with about 20 subsections on all sorts of topics, and you should definitely stop in when you visit Hay! We really enjoyed having a permanent place to diversify stock and build displays. Since more space means that we can bring more comics to more people, then having our own space was a natural next step.
We also wanted a community space we could make available for people to use for events. We currently have a game room with an arcade game and vintage video games, and a projector to show films. If people want to put on a game night, or have a space to draw and read comics, then Hay-on-Wye Comics is here to be used!
Why should people read comics? What do they offer that you can’t get from films, TV shows or books?
Good question! Where to begin? Comics are a medium with a unique mix of elements to interpret. There’s text, images, the drawing style, panel structures and page layouts, etc. And with all this information, a reader has to make a lot of decisions to give the comic meaning! A big decision fundamental to comics, for instance, is timing – the reader controls the pace of the narrative, as in how long you dwell on a panel and when you turn the page. The page layout, panel structures, images and text guide you, but it’s ultimately up to you to progress and how you experience time unfold in the narrative. This is a fun, complex reading process that only comics can provide.
Recent research has shown that comics motivate children in the UK to read more and are therefore useful in promoting literacy. We get a lot of parents that say their kids will read a comic very quickly but then reread them over and over. It seems that the kids are focusing on different elements through every reading, which means they are getting cognitive exercise not only through reading text but are also learning nuances in images and making meaning from image sequences. In sum, people should read comics because not only are they are fun to read, but they are good for your brain!
Having been in the shop myself, it has a lovely, friendly atmosphere as well as being packed with lots of cool stuff! What can people find if they visit you?
Thank you for your kind words! We have a wide range of comics and graphic novels, from the classic to the curious. This includes children’s graphic novels to American, British and international vintage comics, to comic adaptations of classic literature, non-fictional and educational comics, to Manga. New and secondhand graphic novels and Manga are available. We also sell collectable toys!
But what we enjoy the most is supporting local and small-press comics, and any indie art! We have a growing section of small press comics and novels, including Tim’s The Brotherhood of the Eagle novels, and comics by artists Alisha Huskin, Andy J. Clarke, and Eira Richards. We also have lino cut prints by Aidan Saunders, aka the Prints of Hay!
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my questions. I hope you have a terrific time during the festival and lots of people pay a visit to your store. It’s a big step to open an independent business, and we wish you every success!
Thank you so much, it’s been our pleasure! We really love how Spotlight Indie supports writers, and we hope we can be similarly supportive of creatives of all types in our shop.
You can find us at: 23 Castle Street, Hay-on-Wye, HR3 5DF
We are open Wednesday-Sunday from 10:30-5pm, and every day during the festival and holiday periods.
Website: www.hayonwyecomics.com
Email: hayonwyecomics@gmail.com
Instagram: @hayonwyecomics
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