20 years of graphic novel in Italy it’s an opportunity of comparison and reflection on the graphic novel impact on our comics scene. There are many branches of this impact: from the economic ones, link to the editorial market transformations, to the “mutation” of the reading public, or even to the different ways in which comics have found their place in the contemporary imagination. ‘Ieri, oggi, domani’ chooses to concentrate on the analysis of certain narrative and aesthetic directions within which the graphic novel has developed, trying to highlight the questions, consciously posed, that these twenty years of graphic novels have generated.

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What are the concrete needs of those who create comics in Italy? A group of professionals, together with the association MeFu – Mestieri del Fumetto, discusses, starting from its own experience, about very practical matters but not less heartfelt by authors: contracts, editorial markets, taxation, legal protection, public recognition and representation. The meeting is also an opportunity to present the first membership campaign of MeFu and talking about association’s plans and goals for the future.

Frederik Peeters tackled many genres, from autobiography to science fiction, from the novel to the serial story, each time opening unexpected doors, new possibilities to read (and draw) the world. Together with the writer and poetess Laura Pugno, he retraces the worlds that he built in more than twenty years of career.

A mysterious extrasensory experience which makes mankind leap forward, waking up with no memories in a planet that hides a funny substance, a crepuscular enclave surrounded by waters, a daring escape to the edges of the universe as we know it… With different sensibilities and styles, Manuele Fior and Frederik Peeters have both explored a future that looks ever closer, redefining the genre fiction of comics and bringing sci-fi back in the spotlight.

 

The work of Antoine Cossé is elusive: between pirate mutinies and long car rides in the company of mysterious magicians, his visual approach is ever-changing and modern. Thanks to his mastering of black and white, his use of silence as a narrative device and the existential ambiguity that pervades his stories, Cossé manages to convey a palpable tension, so that even in the most pervasive calm it feels like the explosion is just around the corner.

The comics of Anders Nilsen face unarmed the most awkward questions that lie at the roots of human life: what is time? What happens when you die? What is the point of existence? They do it with a clear and direct stroke and a narration that stays in perfect and utterly fragile balance between silence and word, empty and full, development and stalling of the plot. To celebrate the Italian publication of Big Questions (Eris Edizioni), one of the most important comics of recent years, Nilsen reflects upon his career and his work.

Gabriella Giandelli’s artwork has enlightened the Italian comics scene; the artist speaks about her work, which is at the same time in the middle and on the margins of the contemporary scene due to the finesse of research and the poetics focused on the dimension of absence, loneliness and time that pass by. 

What does it mean to live in a place? What kind of borders should we cross every day inside the cities we live in? Manuele Fior, one of the most skillful comics artists in comprehending and telling the essence of a place, discusses the matter with the guys of Invisible Lines, the project which made travelling and exploration its keystones.