Intrepid Travels: The NZ Comics World Tour!

Above: A promotional poster for the Treviso Comic Book Festival 2012 by Dylan Horrocks.

New Zealand cartoonists are taking our comics abroad in the next few months, starting with an exhibition in Italy at the prestigious Treviso Comic Book Festival. Taking place from the 22-30th of September, the festival will feature an exclusive pavilion dedicated to New Zealand comics, and an exhibition Aotearoa: Clouds from New Zealand, featuring artwork by: Dylan Horrocks, Ant Sang, Chris Slane, Colin Wilson, Roger Langridge, Rufus Dayglo, Greg Broadmore, Toby Morris, Barry Linton, Ben Stenbeck and Becky Dreistadt. Many of the artists will also be attending the exhibition in person, signing books, discussing their work, and generally representing comics from the land of the long white cloud.

Above: A poster created to promote the Aotearoa: Clouds from New Zealand exhibition by Dylan Horrocks, featuring a classic Crash O'Kane comic book by Eric Resetar.

If you happen to be in Europe and want to check this out, the NZ exhibition takes place at the Benetton Foundation pavilion, from the 27th of September-14th of October, with a opening event on Saturday 29th of September at 12am. And if you're in Paris in early October, look for a comic signing featuring Colin Wilson and Ben Stenbeck...(details to come).

Above: Triumph, the latest book from Greg Broardmore, one of the many NZ authors appearing at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Copyright Greg Broadmore 2012.

Once the exhibition in Italy is done, a contingent of our cartoonists will be heading over to Germany to appear at the Frankfurt Book Fair, as part of the New Zealand Guest of Honour showcase. 

Taking place from the 10-14th of October, New Zealand is spotlighting a wide variety of NZ arts and cultural events at the fair, from author talks to film screenings. Included in the list of attending local authors are: Greg Broadmore with his latest Dr. Grobort volume Triumph, Dylan Horrocks promoting the new German edition of Hicksville, Roger Langridge with his first volume of Snarked! soon for release, and Colin Wilson, whose graphic novel Bullet In The Head has been adapted into a major movie due out next year.

To accompany these events, Dylan Horrocks has produced a new 100 page booklet promoting New Zealand Comics and cartoonists. If you'd like a copy of this for yourself, you can potentially look for it at the New Zealand Comics stand at this October's Auckland Armageddon Expo. I'll also have some special announcements for this year's convention; so if your a fan of NZ comics and this blog in particular, hold on to your hats! Because once we've taken New Zealand Comics to the world, we're going to be bringing them back home...in a BIG way.

-AK!