WB

Please contact Steve at info@weirdlybay.co.uk for details about any aspect of his work.

Weirdly Bay is a location for the art, cartoons, poems and boardgames produced by Steve Lancaster, and by others in collaboration with him. It comprises an online presence and shop, a publishing house and several social media accounts.

Weirdly Bay came into its own in 2020, at the start of the UK's first Covid Lockdown. On the day Lockdown was called, Steve Lancaster began drawing a cartoon a day, to document the experience. These cartoons became his first book, Covid's Metamorphoses - A Lockdown Diary, which is available in expanded form in the Weirdly Bay shop. But there was a Weirdly Bay map before 2020, full of geeky references, documenting Whitley Bay at the start of its regeneration. And before that there were poems. And before that, in 2010, there was a boardgame, OSECA, published by Steve Lancaster and Gerry Beldon, under the company name Bay Games. Bay Games folded in 2016, but a fantastic boardgame cafe with the same name now operates in Whitley Bay, totally unconnected to Steve, Gerry and the old company.

Weirdly Bay has a real-world presence in Steve Lancaster's hometown, Whitley Bay, UK. Whitley Bay is a seaside town in the North East of England, to the east of Newcastle Upon Tyne. Once bustling as a kiss-me-quick holiday destination, it is reinventing itself as a centre for culture, food, and happy families. Also, there is a seething underbelly, and a Subway.

Steve Lancaster is the face behind Weirdly Bay. He is an artist, cartoonist, poet and boardgame designer working in Whitley Bay, UK. He has built up a reputation as a performer on the regional poetry circuit, and also draws improvised cartoons to prompts from live audiences. Most days a week, Steve publishes a fresh cartoon on social media. Steve has been a practising artist since 2001, and a poet since 2015. Look out for VaVaVoom, an occasional evening of poems, songs and cartooning delivered by Steve with fellow-poet and musician Renata Connors.

Steve Lancaster chose the name Weirdly Bay to capture the slightly off-beam quality of some of his work, which draws on myth, folklore and science fiction. It also says something about the way he and his wife live a little at a tangent to conventional behaviour, and about the community of artists, makers, geeks and gardeners they have found in their town.