Basque comic artists return to Brussels

This is the fourth time that Basque comic artists have participated in Fête de la BD – Strip Feest , Europe’s biggest comic strip event. This year’s festival takes place in the Belgian capital from September 14 to 16. Since its inception in 2010, the festival has hosted a varied programme of workshops, presentations, conferences, round tables, and exhibitions, including a forum where publishers from all over Europe present their catalogues and new publications. The event annually attracts 100,000 visitors and 250 authors, among them, Begoña Durruty and Marko Armpach., who will be attending this year’s event.

This is the fourth time that Basque comic artists have participated in Fête de la BD – Strip Feest , Europe’s biggest comic strip event. This year’s festival takes place in the Belgian capital from September 14 to 16. Since its inception in 2010, the festival has hosted a varied programme of workshops, presentations, conferences, round tables, and exhibitions, including a forum where publishers from all over Europe present their catalogues and new publications. The event annually attracts 100,000 visitors and 250 authors, among them, Begoña Durruty and Marko Armpach., who will be attending this year’s event.

Together with the support and close collaboration of the Basque Delegation for the European Union, the European Union National Institutes for Culture, EUNIC, has coordinated the Basque participation in the event. The Etxepare Basque Institute has been an associate member of EUNIC since 2015.

At the EUNIC stand in the international pavilion where publications from Estonia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Luxembourg, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Turkey will also be on display, visitors will be able to see a range of comics created and produced in the Basque Country and published in Basque and Spanish.

This year, illustrators Begoña Durruty and Marko Armpach will be attending the Brussels event. On September 15, while Armpach will be joining authors from Luxembourg, Portugal and Turkey at a round table event to discuss the current situation of the comic genre in their respective countries, Durruty will be hosting a creative workshop for children on September 16. There will also be a collective exhibition of comics by artists from the participating countries. A variety of comic books by different Basque publishing houses will also be on display, providing the general public, industry professionals and publishers with an opportunity to learn more about the production of comics in the Basque Country.

Since it became an associate member of EUNIC Brussels, the Etxepare Basque Institute, together with the Basque Delegation for the European Union, has worked intensively to promote cultural diversity and has participated actively in transnational projects such as the Brussels comic festival and the Transpoesie poetry festival, which starts on September 26 this year and will be attended by the Basque poet Juanjo Olasagarre.