The bookshop opens to the public: on the occasion of the start of the festival activities at DAS, the offer won’t be limited to comics and curated fanzines, but will also allow to dive into the world of publishing from Just Indie Comics, Titivil and Hamelin, as well as meet some of the indie authors themselves. An appointment to buy a book and get a special signing, and see authors work. 

Signing session with Ohissa Crew. Mayonese G.M., Liza de Nardi. Sottobosco, C.RUDE, Anna Dietzel, Gibin Press, La Raccolta dell'umido, Profondissima and Sputnik Press.

What pictures can encompass the lives of Bianca Bagnarelli and Andrea De Franco? The two artists tell their story through twenty pictures by other authors, pictures that have reshaped their world or changed their way of looking at it and, of course, of drawing it. Be they famous works or secret tidbits, the meetup will explore how shapes emerge from shapes, and how pictures can alter the way we think about art.

Dopo l'incontro "Percorso d'autore in venti immagini", Bianca Bagnarelli e Andrea De Franco sono in dedica insieme a Spam il Mandarino Psichico, Pietro Scarnera, Andrea Settimo e Alessandro Tota.

After the talk “An authorial journey in twenty pictures,” Bianca Bagnarelli and Andrea De Franco attend the signature session together with Spam il Mandarino Psichico, Pietro Scarnera, Andrea Settimo and Alessandro Tota.

A dialogue between two realities with a similar purpose but different perspectives - both geographically and chronologically - in regards to independent comics and publishing, which will delve into their approach to the work and research surrounding comics: on one side Titivil as a more comics-focused association, and on the other Gabriele Di Fazio from Just Indie Comics, who offers a perspective closer to critical theory and dissemination.

The independent artists of Bologna - C.RUDE, Mayonese GM, Sottobosco e Profondissima Press - will challenge each other in a duel to the last ink: they will have the time of a song to draw several subjects to the best of their abilities, and starting from some suggestions. A public jury will decree the winning group.

Come and get your book signed, or admire the work of an independent artist drawing in front of your eyes: with Pietro Aimi, Federica Ferraro, Pietro Macciotta and Silvia Percolla.

A selection of animated shorts developed by the Angoulême School of Animation. Whether they wield a brush, a pastel, or a mouse, the directors of the EMCA never forget the body, both as a tool for storytelling and as a physical approach to their work. Their stories, their pictures and their movements cannot but come from memories deep within themselves, beneath their skins. The selection of shorts here presented aims to reflect upon the main theme of the Festival by showcasing a freedom of expression that stems from the peculiar approach of a school that rebuked any official form of evaluation. Perhaps it’s this “impunity” that gave its students the courage to let themselves go and dance into the void, à corps perdu. 

With the authors present at the festival bookshop: Yi Yang, Silvia Rocchi, Laverve, Marco Quadri, Maurizio Lacavalla, Davide Minciaroni, Vincenzo Bizzarri, Maxem, Kizazu Lele Sorrentino. 

Authors will interpret several comics stories from the anthology Autumn in Berlin, Anti Baby, Elsa and the Haters, La signora dei Bianchini e la sindrome dell’estasi perduta, accompanied by a special soundtrack. The menu includes: daydreams, voyeurism, spiritual search in all the wrong places, interspecies pregnancies, fighting against the forces of order, epic failures, catastrophic dates and unpopular hot takes on non-violent communication. 

In The Gull Yettin by Joe Kessler the loss of a home coincides with the expansion of a boundary and the discovery of a larger world, which was previously hidden to sight and body, made of violent colors and marks. The child that undertakes this journey isn’t just a wanderer in an exploration that is also an experiencing of a continuous dynamic between inward and outward, between domestic and “wild”, he is also the eyes through which the story is given to the reader. Shapes in The Gull Yettin are sometimes ample blots of primary colors, and sometimes violent pen and sharpie marks resembling doodles, symbolizing the deformed landscape of a childhood gaze, through which the unknown invades every panel. 

Maria Nadotti, Journalist, Editorial Consultant, Translator and Editor in Italy for John Berger’s works, will dialogue with Joe Kessler about his artistic endeavor. 

What is a landscape if not a place where nature is reinvented and transposed where we believe it lies? Does it exist outside of a border, of a frame? And what meanings does it undertake in the complex relationship between us and natural space? How does the history of a landscape relate with the history of art and, consequently, with our gaze? 

Ilaria Bussoni, essayist and illustrator for editorial series Habitus (DeriveApprodi Publisher), as well as curator of several exhibits at the Rome Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea and co-manager of SPORE - Scuola di Campagna, an educational project promoted by the La Distesa company, will hold a lectio magistralis (master lesson) about what landscape is and has been throughout history, about our body inside of it and, inevitably, about the many meanings of looking at it.

With Elsa Klee, Lucile Ourvouai, Karla Paloma and Martina Sarritzu.

In presenting their independent editorial projects, these four authors aim to revive the tradition of autobiographic LGBTQIA+ fanzines by revisiting the works of great underground comic artists such as Aline Kominsky-Crumb. A tradition that they will retrace alongside Maria Nadotti, critic, essayist and translator, by holding a thread that connects the past and the present of comics history. 

With Dominique Goblet, Igort, Andrea Bruno, Michelangelo Setola, Stefano Ricci, Gianluca Costantini and Francesca Ghermandi. 

Gwénola Carrère, Dominique Goblet and Joe Kessler, the core trio of international artists at the center of #AOA24, will reflect on the theme of the festival - the frail balance between the environment and us - and on how it takes shape in their works, which all share an experimental approach and the intent to push the boundaries of the comics language towards ever-new directions.

After the talk "Corpo a corpo" Joe Kessler, Dominique Goblet and Gwénola Carrère will attend the signing sessione with Bianca Bagnarelli, Andrea De Franco, Andrea Bruno, Liza de Nardi, Majid Bita, José Muñoz, Pablo Cammello, Rebecca Valente.

María Medem, one of the most original voices in the contemporary Spanish comics scene, often plays with the oneiric dimension in her landscape. Inside her books, characters that seem to have lost the sense of self wander through melancholic lands drawn in acid tints and geometric marks. Medem - via remote streaming - will accompany us in discovering her imaginary world, starting from her last comic, Zenit, published in Italy by Diabolo Edizioni.

Absolutely Nothing is the title of a novel by Giorgio Vasta, depicting his direct experience with the American landscape. Another name for this meetup may have very well been Disorientation (Spaesamento), title of another work by the author. It could have also been The Nothing Broth (Brodo di niente), first long-form graphic novel by Andrea Bruno. All this to say that we felt a kinship between the works of these two authors, so fundamental to understanding the age we live in. And the most evident convergence of the two is in their representation of the relationship with the landscape, which is never peaceful but alienated, feeding off attrition instead of harmony, and that yet remains essential in order to understand who we are, where we are, why we are. 

The artists hosted at the festival, as well as authors, independent publishers and the public are invited to a last moment of collective drawing to conclude this edition of the festival together.