9th Budapest International Comics Festival

desen de Artúr Haránt

The most important comics-related event in Hungary will be held on Sunday, May 12th from 10 am to 6 pm, hosted by the Hungarian Comics Association. Admittance: 500 HUF (free for children under the age of 10 accompanied by adults).

The central themes of this year’s edition are Italian fumetti, the classic works of Imre Sebők, the Polish PragaGada project, Iron Man, the Walking Dead series and the adaptations of Géza Gárdonyi’s Egri csillagok (Eclipse of the Crescent Moon).

Guests of the festival include Aleksandar Zograf from Serbia, comics historian Dodo Niţă from Romania and three authors from Poland, Paweł Timofiejuk, Przemyslaw Truściński and Michał Śledziński. Most of the leading Hungarian artists will be equally present, from Attila Fazekas, this year’s recepient of the Korcsmáros Pál award, to members of the Hungarian Comics Academy and 5 Panels groups as well as many independent creators.

Traditionally, the Alfabéta awards for the previous year’s best comics are announced and presented at the festival.Members of this year’s jury include Dávid Cserkuti (illustrator), András Cserna-Szabó (writer), Zsolt Richly (animator), László Szily (journalist) and Eleonóra Takács (president of the HCA).

Moreover, one of the previous recepients of the award, the comic A hívó (English title: The Developer) has been adapted into a 17 short movie by its creator, Róbert Odegnál. This film will be shown for the first time at the festival.

One of the most spectacular highlights of the festival is usually the so-called Comic Battle where groups of Hungarian and foreign comics artists are called upon to improvise extremely quickly on a series of themes. Another opportunity for fast creation of comics is offered by the 24-minute comic challenge in which anyone can take part.

Both professional publishers and authors publishing their own comics at a limited printrun will have new books out at the festival which include volume 6 of the Walking Dead series, the first Iron Man trade paperpback in Hungarian, a classic Spider-Man comic, the latest issue of the Marvel + bimonthlycomic book, as well as new and reedited comics by Zoltán Fritz, Mihály Vass, Dénes Budai, Ádám Pádár and Gábor Molnár, as well as the 5 Panels collective. Recently published titles such as Asterix volumes 10 and 11, and the Darker than Black and Berserk manga series will also be available at the booths with considerable discounts. In addition to almost every comic published in Hungarian in the last five to ten years, retaliers Trillan and Comicsinvest will be offering a large variety of US comics and a selection of French comic albums will be on sale at the Latitudes bookshop’s stall.

The Hungarian Comics Association is organizing a charity collection of used comics to be offered to the Heim Pál children’s hospital.

The official poster of the festival was created by Artúr Haránt. The decoration of the festival will be created live in the Millenáris Park in the frame of a Comic Jamboree by Hungarian artists and guests from abroad.