This year, the Crakow Comic Book Festival took place for the 13th time at the Studio Club at Witold Budryk 4 St. in Krakow. At this point, I would like to assure all superstitious people that it was not an unlucky edition. Exhibitions, vernissages, cosplay competition, workshops, and other attractions for the whole family, but above all, meetings with comic book creators! Photos, autographs, laughs, buzz, and of course all this around a countless amount of comics!
The CCBF has been organized continuously since 2011, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, an online edition was held. Without any doubt, each year the festival attracts larger crowds. Last year’s edition took place at the Comic Book Museum in Crakow, but there was one problem. Due to the words of Wojtek Jama, co-founder of the Comic Book Museum Foundation in Crakow, last year there were so many visitors that they had to find a new, more spacious location for the 13th edition. The Student Club Studio caught their eye and it was a hit. Apart from being located in the heart of student life, it also accommodates all comic book lovers.
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Exhibition “Time Traveler. 30 years of Ratman” by T. Niewiadomski
One of the organizers of the Crakow Comic Book Festival is the Comic Book Museum Foundation. This year, the opening of the exhibition “Time Traveler. 30 Years of Ratman” by T. Niewiadomski took place in the museum gallery, which was later available for visitors over the weekend of March 23-24. After entering the building, visitors could have met Wojtek Jama, who has been the co-founder of the Foundation and a huge comic book fan. His passion appeared in his childhood when he was reading magazines for children and teenagers, including Miś and Świat Młodych. He is a person who knows the answer to every question related to comics in any way.
Visiting this exhibition was a wonderful starting point to start your adventure in this wonderful colorful world. Wojtek likes to boast about the “treasures” that we can see on the shelves: collections of old comic book magazines from Poland and around the world, various figurines, but also entire volumes of scientific books and textbooks devoted to the art of comics. They also have a large collection dedicated to Czech comics, which is much richer than you might think. Wojtek admits that, unfortunately, their entire collections cannot be held in the building and they also keep many copies at home. The walls of the room, where you could sit comfortably and look at selected items, were also covered with posters devoted to past exhibitions in Poland and abroad. You could also get a free copy of the first part of the comic book devoted to equality, “Someday It Will Be Beautiful”, commissioned by the USA. Ratman’s comic book drawings presented during the exhibition are originals. As Wojtek says, there have never been any copies in this gallery.
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Krakow Comic Book Festival – anything for anyone
The comic book craze started on Friday evening when the first openings of the retrospective exhibition of M. Arkusiński, “Time Traveler. 30 years of Ratman” by T. Niewiadomski and the collective “This is Fine!” and the unveiling of M. Walentynowicz’s literary bench. All these events took place in various places in the city map of Crakow, including the Comic Book Museum Foundation Gallery, Planty, and the galleries of the UKEN Institute of Art and Design. The next two days of the festival – Saturday and Sunday – were almost entirely taken over by exhibitors. Everyone could be found in the Studio Club. Of course, the main items available for purchase were various books, comics, and manga, but also other interesting and valuable things (t-shirts, posters, stamps, necklaces, etc.). Almost all the time in the Autograph Zone you could approach a well-known and liked author, as well as a less known and liked author, start a conversation, take a photo, or buy their signed work.
The organizers devoted a large part of the attractions exclusively to children and teenagers: various workshops, live readings, and other non-stop attractions. In addition, you could take part in a cosplay competition, which, hopefully for good, has become an inseparable part of CCBF. And bull’s-eye! There were a lot of people willing to demonstrate their creative, artistic, and other skills. The costumes are truly admirable, but above all inspired by opposite worlds of imagination. The best thing about all this is that you can save yourself from giving incendiary glances because there is no chance that two identical dresses will appear. The participants and winners of the cosplay competition, as tradition says, were honored with diplomas and prizes.
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The Crakow Comic Book Festival is an event that is truly worth your time, even if you don’t consider yourself a comic book geek! No wonder it attracts more and more people of all ages every year! We would like to thank the organizers once again for another unforgettable edition and we will see you next year. Although many people nowadays believe that comics are more of a children’s entertainment, let’s not forget that they were once created for adults.
Summer Vibes
Nie tylko muzyczne propozycje na lato. Festiwale, koncerty, imprezy plenerowe.
