Report from FumettoPolis

This report is long overdue, but here we go!

The 14-18th of September this year, I returned to Italy and my newfound and old manga friends there, as I was invited to the comic festival FumettoPolis in Novara. Big thanks to the amazing Daniele Rudoni, organizer of FumettoPolis and one of the heads behind IndieVersus, an online platform for artists an fans to meet.

He also invited a bunch of amazing manga artists from all over Europe:

Marika Herzog from Germany, the creator of CHASM and Demon Lord Camio.

Maaria Laurinen from Finland, the creator of Phantomland.

Fillis and Rafael from Mangatellers from Greece, the creators of RUN and Wi Fi Wars.

Maaria, Marika, me, Fillis and Rafael

Let's start the photo report!

Novara is a beautiful city situated close to Milan in the north of Italy.
The town is historic and the houses so inspiring and pretty!

All through town, you could see these advertisements for the festival.

The festival took place in the castle in the middle of the city!

Inside the castle, the comic market was held in this long hallway.
So cool to be standing in this historical building and selling
modern comic art, like a fantastic mix of old and new~

They also held a special area open for live painting!
So the artists, both invited and exhibitors, could sit down and show
the visitors how they work. This photo is of Maaria drawing one
of her main characters from Phantomland.

This is me while live painting. Wacom supported this event
with great hardware with all our favourite programs avaliable,
so we could paint just like at home!

Together with the other invited manga artists, I also participated
in this panel on stage, where we talked about the working conditions of
European manga artists, the view on manga in our countries and much more.
It was also livestreamed for the IndieVersus viesers, I think.

 Now let me introduce you to some of the exhibitors!

I met these lovely artists, Elena (Ofride) and  Giulia Adragna
back in October 2016 at Lucca Comics&Games. They are so kind and talented!

Even though a lot of the artists where clearly had inspirations from manga
and/or online comics, there where also other kinds of comics represented,
like this horror comic project The NOISE by Pietro Gandolfi.

Kyōdai Manga is a manga artist collective just like
Nosebleed Studio (my group here in Sweden)!
So cool to see others also forming these kinds of collectives
to help each other out, it is a great way to get things done and
keep up the work.

NuPress is another such collective, but with many more members and they also produce
a magazine/anthology called NuName regularly with their members works.

This jawdropping comic, La Calaca de Azucar, by Cristina Guidetti
and Eleonora Gatta is a fairly new work, which will be online and in print I think.

TataiLab is an awesome gang of artists and creators that make
impressive comic projects and print them in luxurious hardcovers.
I am always amazed by what new things they put out!

The festival also included an exhibition of the works of us invited International guests. Both high-quality prints of our manga pages, as well as a life size cut out stand of our characters.

To be able to take a photo next to your own character like this is almost surreal... It feels like something real International famous comic artists do... haha!

What was also super cool was the fact I got to hold this baby in my hands:

It is so fun reading my manga Sword Princess Amaltea in Italian ("reading"... I don't know enought to understand it all, but since I wrote the story, I actually learn some Italian, haha). If you are Italian manga fans, I would love to hear what you think of my manga! #mangastyle #mangabook #kasaobakemanga #mangaitaliano #italiano @kasaobake_edizioni

Ett inlägg delat av Natalia Batista, mangaka (@nataliasmanga) 14 Nov 2017 kl. 6:32 PST

I am greateful to Kasaobake's chief editor and publisher Elena Toma who decided to take a chance on Sword Princess Amaltea and print it! First book is out and second soon to come~

The Kasaobake team, I feel blessed to be part of it now!

All in all, the festival was not as huge as i.e. Lucca Comics&Games, but even better; the focus was on the artists and the networking, and this seemed to be why so many artists attended. Not the stress and pressure of a huge event with high costs for the exhibitors, more of a friendly, cozy environment where new friendships can be made.

So I highly recommend this event to other artists who wants to go to an Italian comic event!

Thank you for reading!