They come to Łódź attracted by the opportunity to meet the most famous comic artists, to shop at the comics fair, to take part in workshops, to visit exhibitions or to simply have fun at the festival’s parties. The festival has been held since 1991, organized by the Association of Artists “Contur” and by the Łódź Cultural Center.
Each year, the organizers invite famous comic artists to meet their Polish fans in the city of Łódź. Festival was already visited by artists from the USA, Canada, Russia, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Czech Republic, Portugal, Austria or Great Britain. Among our guests were Moebius, Milo Manara, Stan Sakai, Marvano, Peter Milligan, Tanino Liberatore, Jean-Louis Mourier, Yves Sente, Dany, Andre-Paul Duchateau, Pat Mills, Nick Abadzis, Ivan Brun, Clint Langley, Max Andersson, Sylvain Savoia i Marzena Sowa, Giuseppe Barbati, Marco Soldi, Maurizio di Vincenzo, Karel Saudek, Mawil, Gianluca Panniello or Elisabetta Melaranci. It was also visited by majority of Polish classic comic artists: Grzegorz Rosiński, Zbigniew „Kas” Kasprzak and Grażyna „Graza” Kasprzak, Henryk „Papcio Chmiel” Chmielewski, Tadeusz Baranowski, Bohdan Butenko, Szarlota Pawel, Janusz Christa, Bogusław Polch and Tadeusz Raczkiewicz, as well as the younger generation of comic artists. Our guests not only meet with the audience, but they also conduct workshops where they teach writing or drawing techniques. Frequently, professionals and debutants compete with each other during live comics sessions.
One of the festival’s main events is the competition for a short comic story. Each year, we receive about a hundred works from all over the world. Our constant participants from abroad are the Czechs and Russians. Also Austrians, Germans and the British take part, together with artists from such exotic countries like Japan, Malaysia or Brazil. There is no given theme of the stories submitted to the competition, but they cannot be longer than 8 pages. Comics are later shown in the exhibition and selected ones are printed in a catalogue. The best story chosen by the jury is awarded with a Grand Prix. There are also 3 prizes and 3 special awards to be given out. The Grand Prix winner also gets a trip to Angouleme, the biggest European comics festival, funded by the French Embassy.
October is still the month of majority of comics premieres in Poland, most of which are especially prepared for the festival. At the festival fair, the visitors can buy very old comics, as well as the latest novelties from all over the world, also rare and priceless albums. Furthermore, at the fait there are stands with various equipment for graphic designers.
Each festival features many interesting exhibitions. The most important one is of course the competition expo, where all the submitted works are shown. During the festival there are also exhibitions of comics from other countries (in the Łódź Cultural Center we have had expos of comics from Russia, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland or the UK), as well as the art of Polish comic artists, from the older and the youngest generation. Additionally the Festival sets up exhibitions focused on a specific topic. From a few years, the expos have not only been shown in the festival’s center, but also in the Piotrkowska street, restaurants, pubs, galleries, clubs and shopping malls.
The festival is accompanied by various fringe events and enterprises. The most popular one is probably the Miss Comics pageant. Each year, in one of the festival’s clubs, the drawers compete with each other, by attempting to create the most desirable and intriguing woman. The winner is chosen by the audience by applause. The pageant is followed by concerts – previous editions featured artists and bands like the Cool Kids Of Death, Baaba, N.O.T., Łąki Łan, Żelazna Brama or Elektryczny Węgorz. Festival guests also have the opportunity to attend film screenings and to meet famous people who, for some personal or professional reason, are involved with comic art, like Stanisław Mikulski, Maciej Stuhr, Henry Sawka or Andrzej Sapkowski.
In 2006 a new comic project was born – the City Stories. Its main goal is to create comic stories connected to the city of Łódź, by a team of artists from Poland and another country. They work together during workshops in Łódź, later they continue the cooperation until the stories are ready and published in a bilingual album. First to take part in the project were the Russians, in the following years it was the British, French, Italians and the Portuguese.
The organizers of the festival believe in the educational role of comic art. Each year they organize a competition for school children, with its finale taking place on the 1st day of the festival. Young artists and their teachers take part in the comics workshops, meet the editors in chief of the most popular magazines for kids or meet their favorite comic artists.
The festival also welcomes the comics researchers. During the comicsology symposium, organized since 2001, major comic art experts conduct discussion panels and give lectures. Their articles are published in the anthology of the symposium. The festival also offers various drawing or writing classes for those, who are interested in developing their skills.
However, the festival does not limit itself to those 3 days a year. It is a powerful enterprise, working hard all year long. One of the results are the Polish artists being promoted at numerous exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Such exhibitions has already been organized in Belgium, Russia, Portugal, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, France, Ukraine or Austria.
The festival is co-organized by the City of Łódź Office and cooperates with numerous important institutions, such as the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, National Cultural Center, the Wallonian and Bruxelles Region of Belgium, Embassy of France, British Council, French Institute in Warsaw, the Pro Helvetia Foundation, Polish Institute in Moscow, Polish Institute in Vienna, Polish Embassy in Brussels, the Goethe Institute in Warsaw or the Marshall’s Office of the Łódzkie Voivodeship.
Thanks to the International Festival of Comics an Games and to the great number of comic activists, Łódź has become the “capital of Polish comics” which has enabled the Festival to develop firm and fruitful cooperation with the biggest comic centers in Europe.
Organisers: Association of Artists “Contur”, Łódź Cultural Center
http://komiksfestiwal.com
This event is part of Attention Culture!, the Cultural Programme of the 2011 Polish EU Presidency.