Now in its third edition, the Coconino Fest acquires an increasingly international dimension and showcases at the MAR – Art Museum of the City of Ravenna an overview of the multiple languages and infinite possibilities of contemporary comics, with the presence of great authors who public will be able to meet on various occasions. The event, organized by the publishing house Coconino Press in partnership with the Culture Department of the Municipality of Ravenna and with MAR itself.
In Ravenna from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd June the third edition of the comics festival is in the name of freedom, with women as protagonists: Valentine Cuny-Le Callet from France, Anke Feuchtenberger from Germany. A rich program of eight exhibitions, from the corrosive art of Scòzzari to new Italian talents, accompanied by meetings, shows and performances and the participation of musicians and writers, from Vasco Brondi to Guido Catalano. At the MAR Museum of Art of the city, and for the first time also at the Classense Library, in collaboration with the Goethe Institut and ACIT Italian-German Association Ravenna and thanks to the contribution of the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna and Ravenna.
Gipi is exhibiting the panels of his latest graphic novel Stacy for the first time. From Japan comes a master of contemporary manga, Usamaru Furuya. The female comics by two great authors, the French Valentine Cuny-Le Callet and the German Anke Feuchtenberger, question society and our recent history. And again: the spotlight is on the mocking genius of Filippo Scòzzari, on already established talents such as Antonio Pronostico and Pietro Scarnera and on emerging young people such as Enrico Pinto, Michele Peroncini, Spam the Psychic Mandarin, Isabella Tiveron.
Freedom is the key word that unites the events proposed this year. Creative freedom of comics artists, but also freedom of speech, of expression, to break down cages and barriers that hinder the recognition of fundamental human rights, still too often threatened and denied. A message that runs through the entire festival. Starting from the poster, entrusted this year to an exceptional author: Bianca Bagnarelli, a young and already very successful Italian illustrator who works for the main newspapers around the world and has created, among other things, the first cover of 2024 of the prestigious American weekly The New Yorker. An image, Deadline, immediately went viral. For Coconino Fest Bagnarelli reinterpreted Krazy Kat and Ignatz, the cat and mouse protagonists of the classic, poetic strip by George Herriman which inspired the name of the publishing house, divided this time by a fence.
The exhibitions at MAR
Freedom – Inauguration: Friday 21 June 2024, 6.00 pm. Opening to the public: from 22 June to 28 July 2024. Hours: from Tuesday to Saturday 9.00 – 18.00; Sundays and holidays: 10.00am – 7.00pm; closed on Mondays.
Gipi: among Stacy’s pages – At MAR you can admire for the first time the original drawings of Stacy, Gipi’s most recent comic book. A work which, as the author himself said, “is born from anger and then becomes, perhaps, almost delicate”. It is the story of Gianni, a screenwriter of a successful TV series who falls into disgrace and ends up pilloried on social media for three “inappropriate” words uttered in an interview. Starting from an autobiographical starting point, Gipi tells much more, and makes us reflect on freedom of expression, on the role of the artist in society and on the mechanisms of social networks, alternating narrative registers in a book full of pain, comedy and sweetness. Likewise, in the scratchy black and white of Stacy’s drawings, very dense tables of signs alternate with other more airy and wide-ranging pages: the exhibition at MAR is a unique opportunity to appreciate the direction, composition and sense of rhythm of one of the greatest authors of Italian and international comics.
Usamaru Furuya: the dark side of Japan – Japanese manga continues to dominate the charts, and to the delight of fans, one of the most appreciated masters in Italy arrives in Ravenna: Usamaru Furuya, author of several masterpieces that expertly balance irony, eroticism, fantasy and horror concerns such as Palepoli, La musica by Marie and the Amane Gymnasium series. Two new volumes by Furuya will be released on the occasion of the festival: Plastic Girl and the anthology of short stories Sodoma 1985. The master of manga is present at the exhibition at MAR with around fifty plates of Litchi Hikari Club, one of his most “dark”, to be published in a new edition by Coconino Press.
Valentine Cuny-Le Callet: Perpendicular to the sun – Valentine Cuny-Le Callet is a young French illustrator who began a correspondence with Renaldo McGirth, who has been on death row in a Florida prison for several years. They have in common a passion for drawing and the obstinacy in wanting to search for traces of humanity and beauty even in the five square meters of a maximum security cell. This is where Perpendicular to the Sun was born, an extraordinary story in images that combines confessions and intimate reflections with the firm denunciation of the prison regime, capital punishment and racism. On display are the panels of the graphic novel, the first work of the author who already won the 2023 Grand Prix Artémisia in France for female comics and in Italy the 2024 Romics Award for Best Foreign Comics.
Anke Feuchtenberger: Comrade cuckoo – Cuckoo Companion is the work of the most important German comics author. Weaving together memory, dream, fairy tale and seductive visual metaphors, Anke Feuchtenberger tells the story of a little girl growing up with her grandmother in a village in East Germany, from the 1960s until the fall of the Berlin Wall. A visionary coming-of-age novel, where the themes of denied affection and the violence of reality are balanced by unbridled imagination, an almost mystical love for nature and a subtle irony. On display are the plates of the book, which will be presented as an absolute preview in Ravenna and will then be released in the Italian edition on 5 July. Anke Feuchtenberger’s participation in Coconino Fest takes place thanks to the collaboration with Goethe Institut and ACIT Italian-German Association Ravenna.
Filippo Scòzzari: The Blue Dahlia – To celebrate fifty years of career, Filippo Scòzzari returns to fight with Raymond Chandler: or rather, in his own words, to “kill him with pencil blows”. The Blue Dalia is a screenplay for the cinema by the famous American hard-boiled crime writer, which Scòzzari adapted into comics in the 1980s on the pages of the legendary Frigidaire magazine. Today the “terrible boy” of Italian comics has revisited the work, whose original sheets were irreparably compromised, and has amended, rewritten and redesigned it. The new and sparkling panels, on display at MAR in an absolute preview, once again perform the magic of combining the classic charm of Chandler’s noir with the unmistakable irreverent touch and caustic irony of Scòzzari’s characters.
Antonio Prediction: The chosen one – After Sniff and Tango, L’eletto is the third graphic novel created by Antonio Pronostico, one of the most talented designers on the new Italian scene, paired with the screenwriter Fulvio Risuleo. A brilliant corporate noir, a subtly disturbing conspiracy novel whose protagonist is a young poet with beautiful handwriting who finds himself working in a mysterious office. Between Kafkaesque events and social satire, the pencils and colors of Pronostico on display at MAR evoke the lessons of great masters of illustration such as Ferenc Pinter.
The debutants of the Coconino house: Enrico Pinto, Michele Peroncini, SPAM The Psychic Mandarin, Isabella Tiveron. Coconino Press, with tools such as the annual “Call” for new proposals, is constantly looking for young authors to grow and enhance in the lively panorama of Italian comics. A collective exhibition at MAR displays the drawings of four artists who have published (or are about to publish) their debut graphic novel over the last year. Enrico Pinto has already received unanimous acclaim from the public and critics with the dystopian The White Screen, as has Michele Peroncini with the poetic and picaresque adventure The Moti Celestial. Roberto Guerinoni, alias SPAM The Psychic Mandarin, won the first call for the Tuono Pettinato Prize with Storia humid, which comes out on the occasion of Coconino Fest. Isabella Tiveron is working on the comic adaptation of Fine, the apocalyptic novel written by Giuseppe Civati and the recently deceased Marco Tiberi, which warns us against our indifference to climate change.
In the Classense Library
Trip to Italy by Pietro Scarnera – Opening to the public: from 15 June to 13 July 2024. Hours: from Tuesday to Friday 3.00pm – 6.30pm; Saturday 9.00 – 13.00 and 15.00 – 18.30; closed Sunday and Monday.
The Classense Library hosts the tables of Viaggio in Italia, the new graphic novel by Pietro Scarnera, an established author and already winner of the prestigious Prix Révélation of the Angoulême International Festival with A Quiet Star. Sentimental portrait of Primo Levi. Starting from a careful study of texts, diaries, letters and historical documents, Scarnera recounts in his latest work the Grand Tours of writers and artists who visited our country, from Goethe to Stendhal, Lord Byron, Percy and Mary Shelley and others , intertwining his personal experiences as a traveler around the Peninsula with their testimonies from the past. To thus give us a multifaceted and compelling portrait of the “character” and nature of Italy, seen with “foreign” eyes that can help us better understand who we have been, who we are, and perhaps even who we will be. In the spaces of the Library, Scarnera’s drawings dialogue with the documents and books of the great writers, with a particular homage to the Ravenna visited and described by Lord Byron.
Meetings with the public, events and shows – In addition to the exhibitions, MAR hosts a full program of events in the afternoons and evenings of the festival. The authors protagonists of the exhibitions will meet the public and hold signing sessions and dedications. Other cartoonists and well-known artists will be added to create a series of special events, shows, readings and live painting performances during which the “ninth art” of the graphic novel will mix with other forms of expression and storytelling such as music , literature and cinema. Among others, the singer-songwriter Vasco Brondi, the writer and poet Guido Catalano and the comic book author Manuele Fior will be in Ravenna. On Sunday 23 June, for the final evening, the festival moves to Hana Bi in Marina di Ravenna with an explosive party full of surprises.
The Masterclasses: comics school – A new section of the festival debuts this year: during the mornings in Ravenna great authors will hold lessons and workshop activities to tell how their stories are born, focusing on techniques, tools and every aspect of the work behind the creation of a comic book. The Masterclasses of Valentine Cuny-Le Callet and Anke Feuchtenberger are free, but open to a limited number of participants by booking 0544 482477 (as per the program below).
