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
