Comics Brew
by KimGurney
'Comics Brew', the festival previously known as 'Comics Galore', returned in May for its second appearance with solo shows by two of South Africa's leading comic artists, Anton Kannemeyer and Conrad Botes. The festival, now in full swing, will continue through the year to boost this growing visual arts genre.
The idea behind Comics Brew is to showcase, develop and establish comic strip drawing in South Africa. Kannemeyer, the festival co-ordinator, expects a trickle-down effect from invited overseas professionals to aspiring comic artists. He told ArtThrob: "We want to show people what the standard is like at international level to make them understand how to become more competitive in the international market."
As a senior lecturer at Stellenbosch University, Kannemeyer says a lot of exciting new talent is coming through. Most recently, he has organised an exchange with the University of Michigan, which owns one of the best comic collections in the world, to boost the university's comic collection.
However, Kannemeyer said South Africans were creating comics quite derivative of international styles and needed to find their own voice. He said: "They tend to work in genres like superheroes, sci-fi or detectives and a lot of the material has a manga (Japanese animation) feel to it. The artwork is quite slick but the content and writing side needs to improve a lot".
'Comics Brew' coincides with a recent resurgence of interest in comic art. In Cape Town alone, the SA National Library recently hosted an exhibition of comic art and picture-stories while Southfields Library exhibited fantasy comics. The Argus and SL magazine have also both launched comic strips by new artists. A group of female South African comic artists has also recently launched a new magazine, Stripshow.
Kannemeyer says comics is an internationally growing field that is getting more sophisticated. In Japan, more paper is used for comics than toilet paper. Kannemeyer added: "In 2003, for the first time in French history, sales of comics topped literature sales".
Those statistics might frighten traditionalists worried about the dumbing-down of culture. Kannemeyer, however, says increased popularity of comics does not sound the death knell for books, as comic culture encourages reading across the board.
The festival continues until March 2005, with most of the activity planned for October. At this time, Stellenbosch University will host a conference including up to 15 international artists along with a number of exhibitions and workshops.
The highlight, however, is a touring exhibition that started in Johannesburg. It is now in Maputo and comes to Cape Town in October. Thereafter, it travels to Angola and ends its run in Windhoek, Namibia. The exhibition includes the work of South Africant, Joe Daly.
Opens: May 2004
Closes: March 2005
Visit www.comicsbrew.com
