Several works of Patxi Huarte ‘Equestrian’ will be included in an exhibition.
From September 2nd to October 2nd, the Navarra Comics Fair will be held this year, focusing especially on manga and Japanese culture.
For a month, from September 2nd to October 2nd, the XIII edition of the Navarre Comics Fair will offer the opportunity to get closer to the work of local and distant comic artists. editions One of the pillars of the fair that will be held in Pamplona, Lizarra and Azagra will be manga and Japanese culture, and a large part of the program will be dedicated to them, but creators who are closer will also have a wide space.
Starting with the locals, the comics that Javier Mina and Pedro Oses published about the mountain in the pages of the magazine ‘Habeko Mik’ in the 80s will be revived. They will be published together for the first time in the album ‘Non gogoa…’ which will soon be released by Denonartean. Looking back, on the 30th anniversary of its first publication, a tribute will be paid to the classic comic strip ‘Secuestro en las Bardenas’ by the brothers Ernesto Murillo ‘Simónides’ and Javier Murillo ‘Matxas’.
The works of Patxi Huarte ‘Zaldieroa’ from the last years can also be seen in an exhibition, showing the stories of Arranotxu published in the magazine ‘Xabiroi’ and the strips he makes for the press. Curated by Kike Infame and Mikel Begoña, on the other hand, the AZALAK exhibition will show the most memorable moments of Basque comics in Lizarra, through emblematic covers, with works developed in Navarre and in Basque being a special protagonist.
Looking at Japan
Alberto Rodríguez Andrés and Javier Pérez de Zabalza, the organizers of the fair, admitted that they have not yet come close to the Japanese culture that holds so much weight in the world of comics. “From the organization we always seek to open up to new styles and audiences, and manga and anime are today’s inevitable expressions, and they are very successful, especially among young people. That’s why we want to pay them this tribute, with three exhibitions that examine their past and present.”
One of the exhibitions is a tribute to ‘Akirari’, on the 40th anniversary of the publication of Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga, by the students of Pamplona’s School of Art and Design. There will also be an exhibition of the publications of Odaiba Ediciones. Odaiba, in fact, is a Navarre publishing house specializing in manga and Japanese culture, which has already published ten works by artists from that country in its two-year career.
Finally, there will be an opportunity to discover the work of Mone Sakihara, born in Saitama in 1996 and living in Bizkaia since 2012. The cartoonist who is currently finishing his Fine Arts studies at UPV/EHU is renewing the ‘shunga’ style. It has a long history, the 17th century. century, and its erotic connotations have been banned for years. Today, young artists are reinterpreting the different modalities of ‘shunga’ from their perspective.