Comic books are returning to the city on Neretva River. The first Mostar Comic Book Weekend organized by the Association “Mostrip” will be organized on the 16th and 17th of December and will gather famous local authors like Enis Cicic and Renato Vladimir Bosanac, who cooperate with the famous Marvel Comics, Drazen Kovacevic, who published one of his first works, critics on the regime of Slobodan Milosevic expressed through cartoons and comics, in Belgrade’s opposition magazine “Danga” and Milorad Vicanovic who currently works for the series Wunderwaffe, Jour J and USA uber alles.
“We hope that the festival will remove comic books a little bit from the margins where it is today, and present it as a colorful, expressive, interesting medium and branch of art. We would be happy if we reach out to the younger generation that is not particularly interested in comics. Majority of comic book readers belong to the older generation,” said Djani Zovko Gianni Zovko, one of the organizers, who is surprised by the support that the idea got in public.
Mostar comic lovers and enthusiasts are aware that the comic book audience is slightly older and that it is a serious problem to get young people to get interested in this art. They are aware that the interest of the post-war generations for comics is weak, which is understandable given the fact that they live in a world of new digital technologies that enable much more interactive forms of entertainment in comparison to comic books.
Plans of associations are ambitious, they are hoping that this event will become traditional and will be expanded in order to include workshops and comic book school.
“We will try to animate younger people and try to get them interested in comics through workshops and exhibitions of their work. Also, the idea is to organize workshops and several meetings, in the form of panel discussions with authors from the world of comics, whether cartoonists or writers. It could be said that the next year, just like this festival, will be a kind of experiment, test of public reaction,” said Djani Zovko, the organizer of the First Mostar Comic Book Weekend.
(Source: klix.ba)
