site.btaSofia Hosts Exhibition of Bulgarian, Serbian and Romanian Historical Comics in May

The fourth national comics exhibition will open in the halls of Shipka 6 in Sofia on May 8. It will be dedicated to the historical publications in the genre, BTA learned from the secretary of the Comics section of the Union of Bulgarian Artists (UBA) Peter Stanimirov and the deputy secretary of the organization Ivan Berov. In parallel with the works of Bulgarian artists, historical comics from Romania and Serbia will be shown. 

Organizations from neighbouring countries are partners of UBA’s Comics section and last year contemporary Bulgarian artists were presented with 140 panels in an exhibition in Brasov, Romania, Stanimirov said. Currently, the Comics section consists of 34 people from all over the country.

The exhibition will include historical comics from the first ones created in the country in the 1920s to the present day, Stanimirov explained. Materials are currently being searched in archives and libraries, and works representing sixty authors have already been collected. 

A national exhibition of comics is held every two years, as this is the principle for presenting the work of the sections in UBA, Stanimirov explained. The first national exhibition was in 2013 and presented over a hundred authors, Ivan Berov said. The second one was in 2017, and then because of the COVID pandemic, the third one was organized only in 2022. It includes over 220 panels by 43 artists. It has been presented in Sofia, Stara Zagora, Dobrich and Burgas, and is currently visiting Varna.

The national exhibitions contain everything topical created in recent years; authors apply with their works and the section management selects the participants. Since 2010, there has been a stirring in the field and more interest in the genre. New artists are emerging who are actively working and want to participate in the national exhibition. For most of them, making comics is not their main job; they are involved in computer games, making storyboards for the cinema or teaching, Stanimirov and Berov said.