City Stories

City Stories is an international comic project, carried out annually since 2006. The idea came from Adam Radoń, director of the International Festival of Comics and Games, however the project is conducted by the Association of Artists CONTUR, together with the City of Łódź Office, Łódź Cultural Center, Łódź Special Economic Zone and Art Zone with cooperation of foreign embassies and other diplomatic institutions and cultural institutions within the partner country.

The main purpose of City Stories is to create short comics about Łódź or, in some way or another, connected to the city. The artists from Poland and another country – writers and drawers – cooperate with each other in international teams, getting to know each other during a week of workshops in Łódź, when they also get to know the city – its history, traditions and culture. The result of their work are stories showing Łódź from many different angles. They are later presented at the International Festival of Comics and Games (and also at many other expos, in Poland and abroad) and published in bilingual albums.

In 2006, during the first edition of City Stories, Polish-Russian teams of comic artists created the album ‘First Stories’. The artists involved in it were Hihus, Askold Akishin, Alim Vielitov and Konstantin Komardin from Russia together with Grzegorz Janusz, Krzysztof Ostrowski, Przemysław Truściński and Jacek Frąś from Poland.

In 2007 the second album was created – ‘Legends of Łódź. A Tribute to Księży Młyn’. It was a result of cooperation between Polish and British artists, who told the legends about the most historic part of the city – the Księży Młyn in a new ways. The artists were: Tomasz Tomaszewski, Marek Skotarski, Robert Olesiński, Paweł Marszałek, Michał Będkowski and Paweł Kwiatkowski together with Jenika Ioffreda, Humayun Mirza, Tom Humberstone and Warren Hutchison.

In 2008, the result of the third edition was the album ‘Recontruction’ created by a Polish-French team. The stories are built around the reconstruction of the city, both physical, as well as mental. The comics were done by: Berenika Kołomycka, Kamila Pawluś, Krzysztof Gawronkiewicz, Ireneusz Konior and Marek Skotarski together with Gregory Demange, Florian Bovagnet, Pierre-Marie Grille-Liou and Jerome Dupre La Tour.

The 2009 saw the cooperation between Polish and Italian artists. They were: Carolina Cutolo, Susanna Raule, Armando Rossi, Michele Petrucci and Daniel Gembus, Daniel Baum, Gabriel Kołat, Michał Janusik, Jakub Matys, Wojciech Prokop. The project’s theme was ‘Łódź in thirty years’ and the album was full of visions of the city from the near future.

In 2010 a special edition of the project was released – a tribute to the Grunwald battle from 1410. As usual, the album was bilingual and this time it was published in Polish and Lithuanian. The artists involved in this project were: Marek Szyszko, Henryk Jerzy Chmielewski, Grzegorz Janusz, Przemysław Truściński, Tomasz Piorunowski, Paweł Timofiejuk, Wojciech Birek, Marek Skotarski and Bartłomiej Kuczyński together with Igor Baranko (Ukraine), Gintars Jacius (Lithuania), Vital Voranau (Belarus), Włodzimierz Bludnik (Belarus) i Oleksij „Shakll” Chebykin (Ukraine). The anthology, entitled ‘Grunwald 1410 – 2010’, had its premiere on July 15, 2010 on the battlefield.

In October, 2010, the International Festival of Comics and Games will feature the premiere of the 6^th City Stories edition. This time the stories about Łódź were created by Polish and Portuguese artists. They are: Michał Śledziński, Bartosz Sztybor, Balbina Bruszewska, Filipe Andrade, Rui Lacas, Filipe Pina and Ricardo Cabral.

In 2008 the City Stories project won the 1^st prize in the ‘best publication’ category of the ‘Złote Formaty’ competition, during the Festival of Promotion of Cities and Regions, organized by Ströer. The festival awards the best advertising projects for cities and regions.

All of the City Stories projects are available on www.citystories.eu.

The Big Boat of Humour

The Big Boat of Humour is an international cartoon contest. The idea came from Jakub Wiejacki from the Association of Artists ‘Contur’. The first edition of the Big Boat was held in 2006. The main idea of the project is to illustrate a famous paradox of the city of Lodz – the word ‘lodz’ in Polish means ‘a boat’ and the city has a yellow boat in its crest. However, Lodz lies nowhere near the sea, a lake or any big river. Every edition has a different slogan though (2006: ‘Lodz’, 2007: ‘To go over the horizon’, 2008: ‘Go fishing in a boat’, 2009: ‘City in Reconstruction’).

Every year the organizers receive a few hundred works from all over the world. Beside Polish artists, drawers from Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, Ukraine, Cyprus or Germany fight for the Grand Prix award (10 000 PLN). Some artists are from such exotic countries as China, Nigeria, Thailand, India, Iran, USA, Uzbekistan, Canada, Australia or Brazil. The submitted works are rated by a jury led by a famous Polish cartoonist – in 2006 it was Edward Lutczyn, in 2007 – Janusz Stanny, in 2008 – Jacek Fedorowicz, in 2009 – Grzegorz Szumowski.

The works are published in a catalogue and exhibited in Piotrkowska, the representational city street, where every Lodz citizen can see them. The chosen illustrations are published as postcards and distributed in Lodz pubs, clubs, hotels and institutions where they are given out to the guests.

The competition is announced at the beginning of the year and the deadline is April 31. In May, during the annual city of Lodz celebrations, the Grand Prix is awarded at the special ceremony (the exception is 2010 when the competition took place between May and October). The gala is hosted by famous Polish comedians (in 2006 and 2008: Andrzej Poniedzielski, in 2007 and 2009: Artur Andrus). The previous winners of the Big Boat of Humour contest are Paweł Kuczyński (2006), Jacek Frąckiewicz (2007), Zygmunt Zaradkiewicz (2008) and Jerzy Głuszek (2009).

The Big Boat of Humour is organized by the Association of Artists ‘Contur’, the City of Lodz and the Lodz Cultural Center. The project’s website: www.bigboatofhumour.com

Comics exhibitions abroad

Since 2006, the Association of Artists ‘Contur’, individually or cooperating with various institutions, has organized Polish comics exhibitions abroad. We cooperated with e.g. the Polish Institute in Vienna, Polish Consulate in Lyon, Polish Institute in Moscow or the City of Łódź Office in Brussels. So far, our comics artists presented their works in Brussels, Vilnius, Budapest, Stuttgart and Lyon. Together with the Łódź Cultural Center and the City of Łódź office (co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage) we prepared a series of exhibitions of the festival’s Grand Prix winners in Vienna, Moscow and Amsterdam. In 2008, ‘Contur’ organized a retrospective exhibition of Polish comics combined with a big exhibition of Grzegorz Rosiński at Lucca Comics and Games in Italy. In 2009 Polish comic art was presented at the Portuguese festival of comics in Amadora (the project was co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage), in 2010 – in Naples and Moscow (the latter also co-financed by the Ministry).