BilBolbul International comic festival

Thu, Jan 31, 2008

Art and animation, Comics and cartoons, Conventions and events

Italy will be host to the second BilBolbul International comic festival from the 5th to the 9th of March in the city of Bologna, organised by the Hamelin Associazione Culturale. Among the events scheduled is a tribute to the influential Italian comics creator Gianni de Luca, which will run from the 6th of March to the 11th of May at Museo Civico Archeologico, with some 250 works taking the visitors through Gianni’s career in a roughly chronological order, with illustrations from his first published works in “Il Vittorioso” through to major works like “Il commissario Spada”; on the 6th of March the Fine Arts Academy of Bologna will host a symposium on Gianni’s work and influence.

(the BilBolbul International comic festival’s official logo, which pays tribute to BilBOlbul – according to the official release the first proper Italian comics character, created by Attilio Mussino a century ago; the rather lovely art is by Gabriella Giandelli)

As you would expect there will be plenty of discussions and exhibitions centred around Italian writers and artists (rather nicely the events spill out of the convention areas to take in the whole town, with readings and events all over the place, in cafes, shops and elsewhere so the whole community is involved), so artists like Gabriella Giandelli and Stefano Ricci (who has also been seen in Reprodukt’s Orang anthology) will be prominent. But there is a distinctive international flavour to proceedings too, with a special focus on American and Chinese creators (very interesting considering the recent Angouleme festival apparently attracted a strong Chinese contingent), with Anders Nilsen, Kevin Huizenga, Paul Hornschemeier, Hok Tak Yeung and Chihoi Lee all having some of their work exhibited, as will Olivier Schrauwen (Wim wrote enthusiastically about Olivier’s work last year on the blog) and Marijpol. There’s a huge amount more on – including a screening of the fascinating Peur(s) du Noir animation we mentioned last week, which includes art from Charles Burns and Lorenzo Mattotti among others, events specially for kids and a look at the relationship between comics and jazz music. For more details check the official site.