9 YEARS WITH THE 9th ART

It was a little after mid 2001, when in an informal conversation with a group of young (at that time) drawists - manga and anime fans, it came out the idea of getting to know all those characters and stories that filled the chilhood of those who read comics (or "suplementos2 as we say here in Venezuela) during the 70s and 80s.

After refreshing the memory checking out the comic book collection strongly kept in a closet of the house and later on giving me the assigment to design a site with most relevant characters of the Historieta Latinoamericana (Latinamerican comics), following the sole criteriun of a collector, it means the most pure nostalgia, it was the beginning of this work which is already nine years old.
Initially, I calculated that it wouldn't go beyond twenty characters, among them the following would be highlighted: Condorito, Juan sin Miedo, Kaliman, Mafalda, Santo El Enmascarado de Plata, Tamakún El Vengador Errante, El Valiente and a few more. To my own amazement, the result exceed the hundredth and my memoy was refreshed with some of them that I have kept somewhere in my mind, such as Hijitus (although originally it was an animated show, it also had its comic books), and I met characters with a big background but unknown to my remembrances, like El Eternauta, El Cuy, La Familia Burrón, Barrabases, Mampato, El Bulbo and so many others that open my eyes to the big affluence of creators and their respective works in Latin America, without inclunding the brasilian quadrinhos. So the list of characters went to be formed between pieces of nostalgia and the most pure information gotten form other websites and people involved to the world of squares, like my dear friend Sara Harry from Argentina.
A previous web design site experiment, and the consult with people expert in this field and together with the characters that would enter into the site, made the openning of the page take longer that I thought. After four or five months, in January 2002 it was publish on the web by the name of LA HISTORIETA LATINOAMERICANA (Latinamerican Comic Book), not the first one, but perhaps the one with the biggest amount of information about the comic book characters from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela. The acceptance was bigger than I have ever imagined and immediately messages started to arrived from various points of our region; some of them were congratulations and some others were suggesting characters - as a matter of fact I shoudl make a revision because there are a lot of characters missing, such as El Bulbo, Ogu y Mampato, Barrabases, Gaturro, Cybersix and more, many more.
But the idea was not limited to the website, we have to spread the work of more than a hundred years of latinamerican creators in the comic book area; so it was planned, with the support of my dear friend Manuel Cabesa, an audiovisual show of TV and movie productions based on latinamerican comic books characters. At that time, I only had two Santo El Enmascarado de Plata (The Man in the Silver Mask) video tapes, the second film based on Kalimán El Hombre Increíble (The Incredible Man), a few shorts of Mafalda made in 1973 (which Quino, his creator, didn not like at all) and the pilot of a never made TV series based on the radio show "Martín Valiente" (adapted to the comics in 1977) - a gift made by the people of RCTV to fulfill our objectives. Besides this materilal on VHS tapes (DVD disks were not ruling the market yet), part of my comic book collection was taken to the event that was called "Primera Semana Nacional de la Historieta" (First National Week of the Comic Book). Originally this event was scheduled on April 13 of the same, but the events occurred at the time (coup d'etat for some, presidential quitting for others, tall depends on the eye of the beholder), forced the suspension of the activity until May 10th, being this the starting point of a long walk with its ups and downs.
And so the speeches and conferences arrived in several oficial and private organizations (Casa de la Cultura, Agustín Codazzi Library, Ateneo de Maracay, Technological Institutions and more), comics creation workshops, vídeo forums and the writing of a section dedicated to the historieta in El Periodiquito daily, thanks to the receptivity and support of Alberto Hernández.
Today in the ninth anniversary of my involvement in the world of the ninth art, which was at the very beginning a lonely step is now the effort of many young (and not so young) creators, researchers and promoters of this wonderful form of commerical art which gets more and more strength day after day.
There is still plenty of cohesion among those involved to the historieta, but the griound has been paved to be follow by future generations and keep streghten this titanic work we have taken to those woho love and respect this form of expression. I personally glad that Proyecto Historieta has put its two cents in this difficult but wonderful world of the strips.
Thanks to all who has supported this initiative and also to those who did not believe on it. From both parts we took the strength to arrive hereDe ambas partes sacamos la fortaleza necesaria para llegar hasta aquí. There is still a road to walk, but we keep moving.

Thanks, again,
Félix Alexander Romero H.

A REALLY HAPPY 2011

PROYECTO HISTORIETAWISHES YOU A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY 2011

It has been a great year for the comic book in Venezuela, a small revival in some young creators interest, but there is still a road to walk in order to make this artisitc - commercial from of expression from an individual effort to a appreciated and fully respected by people.
But life is made by small steps that later on they will become big strides.

From the heart of PROYECTO HISTORIETA take our most sincere wishes to those who are making those small steps in order to take the latinamerican comic to the place it deserves.

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010 AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2011

1st Comic Book Pavillion in the Sixth Venezuelan Book Fair 2010

Inside the FILVEN 2010 Book Fair, which took place from November 12th to the 21st, there was the First Comics Pavillion in which several activities were made including some drawings and the making of workshops and speeches.
Several international guests came to this event (we can only attended one single day) with all the expierence reached in the world of comic books and, likewise, showing all their respective realities of the comic in Latin America. We were visited by Ruben Darío Rodríguez from the Mexican group 656 Comics, Marcella Trujillo from Chile, Nelson Zuluaga (Kemo Sabi) from Colombia, Ricardo Liniers from Argentina and also form the austral country the well known comics playwriter and writer Carlos Trillo - creator of Cybersix, Crazy Chávez and The Little Doors of Mister López, among others.
As we mentioned before, Proyecto Historieta could only be present one day in order to attend the second part of the speech (or clinic as it was called in the event) about comics writing in charge of Carlos Trillo.
After we got lost in the Capital City (they had changed the name of the subway station when we were supposed to get off and we kept going until the end of the line), we could find Parque del Este (now called Generalísimo Francisco de Miranda) and arriving at the gate we asked for the location of the Fair. With little esntusiasm we were told "over there" with the respective pointing hand to the place we were supposed to go. Once there, there were no signs that indicate in which direction the Comcis Pavillion was located, so once again we asked; as in the entrance gate kindness was totally absent when they respond - althought we must remark thet they were not rude, only that the indications were not really friendly (it's understandable when you have been doing the same thing for five or six days). And finally the Comic Pavillion.
At the entrance several life size cardboard figures were expecting us, It especially caught our attention a life size Kalimán surrounded by other characters of the latinamerican comics
and the designs of Bolívar y Miranda. On the Pavillion floor there were a few Venezuelan Comics designs, which we found pretty original. The place was quite small and it was easily covered in less than two minutes. A small selling stand, in which there were some unknown comic books from our region (as we were not in a shopping plan, we couldn't bring some issues for our collection).


And finally, the Workshop and Conference area. We sat to wait the arrival of master Trillo and accidentally we bump into him when he was coming in. A few apoligies and then we proceed to sit during the next two hours to listen to the words of the comics writer.
As it was the continuation of the previous day, he proceeded to remind all the attendants about what he said that day and the he started to talk about several aspects related to writing in general. Althought he considered these 3 or 4 things "bullshits" (quoting what the Argentinan writer said), we thought they were quite interesting; the writer-story conection, that you always have to take into account; how your story would end from the very beginning (althought he said that this could be changed, after all you are the creator of it) and always read a lot in order to increase the knowledge about how and why we write; he also mentioned research, if we are going to write about something unknown for us - so he recommended that we always write about what we know better and the correct usage of the language, without spelling errors and the good employment of our tongue grammar (althought this was refered about Spanish, it is also applied in the English language).
At the end of the speech, we proceed to thank him for his visit and conversation and he thanked us back for being there. We found him a very humble person, very open and who likes to talk, but, apparently, feel very uncomfortable we the celebrity treatment. We went out pretty happy with what was said and with the opportunity to meet one of the most recognized comic book writers of our Latin America.
Then we took a little walk around the rest of the fair and we were attached to a Stand in which we found several comics from different parts of the world. There were the works of Will Eisner, Hugo Pratt, Milo Manara, Guido Crepax, Luis Royom Alex Ross and, which caught our attention deeply in that place, a magnificent (and expensive) issue of Winsor McCay 's masterpiece "Little Nemo in Slumberland". Unfortunately, we were not on a shopping plan, truly we didn't expect to find the material we saw.
A place dedicated to used books and comic books brought us back to our childhood with comics form the dissapeared Mexican printing company Editorial Novaro, some issues of Santo The Man in the Silver Mask, Blue Demon and an issue of El Monje Loco (The Crazy Monk) edited by Novaro which we could not get our hands on it due to the limited budget we had.
Generally the Fair was well organized and completed, althought we could be there only a day. About the Comics Pavillion, besides the little space, we found it a nice place almost family oriented in which we felt very comfortable. It was a great effort for the organizers and we hope this experience would be done again. When that time arrives, we hope to attend much more days.

To see more pictures of the event, click here