For years BilBOlbul has been dedicating particular attention to promote national and international self-handling of comics, and this purpose is now at the base of a real festival in the festival.
Since 2014, with the projects called BBBzine and BBBlab, BilBOlbul has been including the environments of self-handling and micro-publishing, that in the last years have been constituting one of the most dynamic and interesting creative hotbeds in the Italian and international comics situation. This year’s edition envisages URCA Festival, which was born from the collaboration between Delebile and BlBOlbul, aimed to a continuation of this promotion activity.

A festival in the festival which could become a moment of exchange of views between the Italian comics situation and the foreign one. In this way, it will be possible to create a large communication network focused on self-handled realities, that could be aware as much as possible of their dynamism and mutability. Workshops and round table discussions about these matters will be organised, so to focus on the different stylistic, technical and productive approaches which characterise the lively and changeable self-handling world.

Thanks to the invitation made by Delebile, during URCA Festival there will be six different self-handling projects coming from UK, Sweden, Germany, Poland, and USA. These precious guests will be the cornerstones not only of a series of meetings and round table discussions, but also of a residence project at Bologna’s Hostel and of a space dedicated to them in Biblioteca Salaborsa, where it will be possible to find their publications.

The self-productions which have been invited for 2017 edition are:

Otto press (UK)
Disa Wallander (Sweden)
Liam Cobb (UK)
Colorama (Germany)
Klub Zine (Poland)

Wednesday, November 22^nd h 6pm | Rise and Reprint | Modo Infoshop
With Liam Cobb. Valerio Stivè intervenes

Thursday, November 23^rd h 6pm | Doner Club – discount attitude | Urca Studio
with Dario Sostegni, Maria Melotti, Davide Minciaroni, Roberta Scomparin. Paolo Cattaneo intervenes
to follow: inauguration of the exhibition Sempre Insieme curated by Dario Sostegni
edited by Urca Studio, in collaboration with Canicola

Thursday, November 23^rd h 9pm | Otto alle nove | Ostello We Bologna
with Peter Cline

Saturday, November 25^th h 6.30pm | Klub Zin – Avventure Autoprodotte | Urca Studio
with Anna Sranna. Bianca Bagnarelli intervenes

Saturday, November 25^th h 9pm | Tonetto and Cattaneo in conversation | Urca Studio
with Paolo Cattaneo, Fabio Tonetto. Elena Orlandi intervenes

Sunday, November 26^th h 10am – 1pm | Tavola Rotonda (Round Table) – Autoproduzione (Self-handling) | Accademia di Belle Arti of Bologna
with Liam Cobb, Disa Wallander, Conor Stechschulte, Berliac, Anna Sranna (Klub Zin), Peter Cline (Otto Press), Johanna Maierski (Colorama), Maria Melotti (Doner Club), Sarah Mazzetti, Valerio Stivè, Bianca Bagnarelli (Delebile)

Sunday, November 26th,  4.30pm | Il senso della vita e altre cose a colori | Urca Studio
with Disa Wallander, Sarah Mazzetti

In Biblioteca Salaborsa there will be a bookshop organised by Delebile, in which it will be possible to find a good selection of self-handled Italian and foreign comic books. One of the main peculiarities of self-handling is to be completely out from traditional distribution systems. Therefore, this will be a great moment for discovering initiatives, tastes and poetics usually unknown.