Seriejournalen’s reporter, Anna Maria Gentili, visited the italian comics festival Fumetterni 2009 in mid-March. Anna is an artist herself, born in Italy but lives in Norway.
Spring talking clouds.
A warm and sunny weekend did welcome all the people who came to Terni, a little town in the centre of Italy. Some hundreds summoned here, to find some gadgets, to bring their children and do something different. Many others came here just for curiosity.
Especially in the afternoon of Sunday, a lot of people came in those industrial structures, taking a look to the stands, enjoying the first spring sun, listening to some easy-listening music, just like it happens to be in any other village fair.
Comics expos like this usually are visited by those who are particularly fond in this unique expression way, even if the tradition is long enough. The comics art has been considered like a less important kind of artistic expression by the classic intellectuals. Comics are actually a mass product, and they guarantee a good income, if they have been advertized in the right way.
A strange place to be.
A big part of the expo was about games, going from the classic Warhammer to some kind of live role games, and there was even some pc to play online and some traditional board games, that the guests could try, gently asked by the hosts.
The conference room was nearly almost empty, even if some famous person from the comics jet set was invited, like Cavazzano, an Italian artist who has been creating Disney characters and stories since more than forty years, or O’Neill and Mills, the couple behind Marshall Law and The League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen, who were supposed to have many more followers. This probably happened because big parts of the audience were not interested in knowing more about the birth and making of comics, but just in buying some cool items or toys.
The word of the translator.
The conferences in the program were actually not so many, and they were gathered during the first day of the expo, introducing new comics, and bringing the experience of people who live and who are the comics market.
First agenda of the day was Massimiliano Brighel, a very nice and professional man, who explain the plan for the Marvel editor in Italy, new series of just four issues and the selling of comics combined with the sport newspaper. He talks about the problems of the translation of a comic, how difficult it is to find the same quick way to express a idea. He remembers how different it was to make a comic some years ago, and underline that the artists has to speed themselves because the writers take too long, even if the artists have become much more professional.
He started to talk about some details, because he understands that in the audience there is some who is very interested in the Marvel comics, and he talked about some little things which happened in the stories, something which seemed to be irreparable. He was wondering if, they hadn’t read what had happened before, and events which happened later were going in a strange direction. But the logic behind the comic is that everything must come back to the beginning. And so it did happen, after some time. Everything must go back to its natural order.
The hand behind the mouse.
The second meeting of the day is with Cavazzano, who started to work for Disney 1967. He was the only one who was introduced by the director of the exhibition. This was something that seemed to interest the audience, because all of the sudden, the conference room was almost full.
The latest book PG (an association born to gather people who love comics, and to work as a talent scout for young Italian artists, and besides to cooperate with the press agency of Lucca comics expo) just published, is the history of Carl Barks, written by Thomas Andrae. Il Signore di Paperopoli, (the lord of Duckburg) is interested in following the evolution of the art of Barks, together with the changing happening in the society, the war of the genders and the disappearing of the logic of the self-made man.
Cavazzano talked about his life as a artist, from the young works to his present projects. He has always had a strong respect for the screenplays, as he draw exactly the same according to the story. He has a good relationship with the audience too, especially his fellow countrymen, the Italians. He liked to talk about some of his own favorite works, like the venetian adventures of Spider Man or the Mickey Mouse version of Casablanca, but he was very interested in some kind of experimentations too, with young writers.
He answers kindly to the questions from the audience, and he repeat once again that have a strong support from the family and the will to learn is very important, together with having talent.
Italy on paper.
Next man on the stage is Leonardo Valenti, writer of the screenplay for the history of the gang of Magliana, Romanzo Criminale, and the TV series by the same name. Valenti uses to write for TV, but writing for a comic had been a good experience, which helped him to understand how different it is to write for TV compared to write for comics.
He had to read a lot of newspapers, court sentences, and some books about the event, to have a complete image of the period. He had to build up a good relationship with the artist too, and this does not happen working with a film director.
He had a lot of problems publishing another comic about another blood fact that happened in Italy in the eighties, because the image on the cover was far too explicit, and it could have been interpretated like an invitation to repeat those kind of violence. Writing a comics screenplay about facts that had actually happened in Italy is very difficult, because if some of the people involved has something to say about it, they have the right to stop the publishing of the book. In Italy this kind of expression freedom is not complete, and this is very limitating.
Balance destroyers.
After a few minutes used by Bevilacqua to introduce his new work, Homo Homini Lupus, a comic divided by horror and humor, in which some crazy serial killers hunt down monsters, zombies and werewolves, finally Pat Mills and Kevin O’Neill appear on stage. They are the creators of Marshall Law and The League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Their experience sink its roots in the earlier Disney and in the first Marvel superheroes, and develops the anti-hero Marshall Law, a strange kind of hero who was often misunderstood, and for which they have been called fascists.
They went from DC to a minor French editor, and there were many reasons for this to happen, first of all because of the bigger freedom of expression. Marshall Law is considered much more honest than normal superheroes, and this is probably the reason of his contestations, that didn’t happen with the Gentlemen, much more controllable, and so much more safe for the market. To decide to come to a compromise would have been a mistake For Marshall Law, and a contradiction leading to defeat.
Marshall Law has surely created a sort of archetype of antihero, distancing himself from the heroes in an original way. They had to work hard on the character, especially for the problem concerning his own alter ego, a kind person who sees all that is wrong, but have to wait until he got his mask on, to unleash pure violence and rage. With his mask on, he becomes an angry and inhuman beast.
A black and white utopia.
the second day of the expo give us the chance to think about the comics and his relationship with the reality, through the presentation of the comics Il Velo di Luce (The light veil) entirely created and drawn by Cimarelli. He likes to define his work like a trip to the possibilities of choice, between love, not-love and lunacy, going to destroy the powers, in the story represented by a psychiatrist, although it has the chance to wear many masks.
The thin line between reality and fiction depends basically from a point of view., and he tries in the comics to go from one point of view to the other, to have a complete image of reality. Comics, for Cimarelli, is to signify art, with all its deviations. Male and female roles are on the same level, and the role of the church is just whispered, as it’s seen as a new face of the power. He tries to build up a comic in which the image, the language and the structure of the story has a lot in common with each others, do communicate something more than a simple story.
Games Area.
The big space with games was instead full with people for the whole duration of the fair. Children and their parents liked to stop there and being entertained.
GRV Italia for example, reached to have a lot of persons who dressed themselves up in medieval costumes, and reproduce ancient battles, that in session, can last up to seven days. They have many offices in the whole Italy, and they have a cooperation with some places in France. Being there where comics expo are is an important moment to find new participants to the games.
The games association Ludiche Menti, being active in Italy since ten years and officializied three years ago, have as a goal to come to comics expo and entertain the audience, letting people play and try new unknown games. A little part of them, called themselves Custodes Elementorum, and they point their attention on interactive, computer games. They try to let children play online games making them understand that a game is much different than real violence. They do believe that forbidding those kind of games is nearly impossible, so then it is much better just to let the children play, underlining the socialization instead of the violence. The death of a character is sudden, and so it happens in real life too. So they try to make gamers understand the value of life.
The soul of the marketing.
But the most important part of the expo was of course the stands. Many of them has their own shop in town like Roma, Gorizia, Perugia, and they have in the last years developed a good business selling products online. They did agree in liking the place, even if it was a little too dark. And they noticed that the bigger part of clients were not especially interested in the rare items, but the most commercial ones, like gadgets, toys and TV-advertized cartoons
The soul of the non-marketing.
There was even someone who didn’t want to sell, but just to have a place to declare their work, like the Perugia public library, with its new comics section, or some cultural association, who is printing comics realized by local young artists, like Planet Comics Club. There was even an association trying to gather money to build a school structure in Uganda, advertising and financiering their project with low-cost travels in the place where the school is going to be built, an island in the centre of the beautiful lake Bunyonyi.
There was a big table for young artists, with their leader Ilaria Pescetelli, who was drawing for the children who was there.
In the end.
This first edition of the comics expo of Terni was a success in the end (there were circa 5000 visitors, in the two days) and the atmosphere was pleasant, like a good, old days village festival. Folkloristic was the cosplay challenge, which participants has been chosen in the audience; the big number of Death Note characters was again to point out that the audience were young and interested in the products of the TV business. A little better security system was preferable, and a better distribution of the places and the meetings, to avoid to interrupt one artist conference to let the next one talk, or to cancel the meeting of the young artists with the editors, for lack of a suitable place. It will sure be better next year. Compliments to the main organizer, Francesco Settembre, who was rave enough to do it, and have a good luck for the 2010 edition.
Reportage written by: Anna Maria Gentili
Photos: Fernanda Pietrarelli
Thanks for help: Kenneth Theodorsen, Ilaria Pescetelli, Elisabetta Giulivi