BilBOlbul
22 – 25 November 2018

In 2018, BilBOlbul has grown into its new form. The Festival is not just an annual event anymore, but an ongoing project, whose aim is to create and cultivate new comic books readers. That is why its activities are not only directed to comics fans, but also to schools, libraries, bookstores and cultural associations.

Thus, the annual appointment becomes an occasion to celebrate a whole year of activities: from November 22 to November 25 2018 the 12^th edition of BilBOlbul International Comics Festival comes back to Bologna.

As always, there will be exhibitions, talks, workshops, performances, movie screenings, a conference dedicated to Italian comics master Guido Buzzelli and various activities for children, schools and libraries.

This world, other worlds

For some artists the desire to build fantastic worlds  goes beyond the need to define the space of a story. It becomes a kind of imperative: the means and the end of their work. It is not (just) a form of escapism, but a way to question reality itself.

Every imaginary world – even the craziest one – has its history, its geography, its rules. And it asks us to redefine our responsibility as we accept to enter and experience it.

In the same way, the drive to write stories about monsters (as well as the desire to read those stories) reflects our need to retrieve wild and deep forces, impossible to reach with the help of realism alone.

Fantastic worlds are the thread binding together all the exhibitions of this year’s BilBOlbul. From Jack Kirby’s cosmic visions to Francesco Cattani’s stoned suburbs, from Amandine Meyer’s pop Eden to Emelie Östergren’s unsettling creatures, passing through Guido Buzzelli’s apocalyptic reflections and Mat Brinkman’s spiraling wormholes, BilBOlbul 2018 is ecstatic and frightening, full of monsters and wonders. And it proves, once again, how many and how different are the shapes comics can take.