Subscribe to our newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter
What is Comics Beyond
“Comics beyond” is an European project with the objective of strengthening the employability of European comics artists, who suffer from a precarious situation; very few of them manage to develop their careers and make a living from their artistic activity. They lack networking spaces, continuous training and development of new skills that would allow them to expand their professional and creative activity, at different scales.
Comics Beyond aims to explore different paths for European comic artists to develop their activity at an international level, to fight against their precarious situation and help them make a living from their artistic activity. The project experiments a European comics incubator.
Comics Beyond has two main objectives:
To develop new skills for European comic artists on a European scale, in particular by organizing a week of training for twelve artists to develop new skills, such as: entrepreneurship, creation of comic and music shows, videogames or collaborating with museums, etc.
To foster the creation and circulation of European comics works and artists by overcoming the language barrier associated with books, in particular by launching a call to support the creation, production and international distribution of four transnational and transmedial comic shows, which can be seen and understood without translation – and the circulation and networking of the four artistic groups behind these works.
Comics Beyond is infact a Creative Europe cooperation project between four comics structures: the Brussels Comic Art Museum (Belgium), Amadora BD (Portugal), Rendez-vous BD Amiens (France) and Napoli ComiCon (Italy), in partnership with Escola Joso (Spain), Art Bubble Festival (Denmark) and the Lakes International Comic Arts Festival (United-Kingdom). It takes place between November 2023 and July 2026.
Also, throughout the project, attention will be paid to comics workshops and their implementation: guidelines, lectures and webinars will be set up in order to provide training for comics artists, as well as for schools and other interested organizations. Forty comics workshops will be set up in Europe by the partners.
Gradually Comics Beyond will start to create a database of transdisciplinary comics projects that will enable the networking of artists and their “comic shows”, so as to promote and structure the transdisciplinarity of comics on a European scale, helping comics to reach new audiences.
How does
the project work?
The project is divided into six actions:
COORDINATION, ADMINISTRATION, MANAGEMENT
Create and test the first incubator for European comics artists.
COMMUNICATION
Communicate on and promote the project and connect European transdisciplinary comics projects and artists.
TRAINING
Organize the first training camp on entrepreneurial author posture and opportunities within museums, games, and music for European comics artists.
TRANSDISCIPLINARY SHOWS
Foster and disseminate transdisciplinary comics shows on stage at an international scale.
COMICS WORKSHOPS
Teach how to do comics workshops to a large range of actors, including comic artists.
EXPORT, NETWORKING
Promote the project and its results to a larger extent: within Europe and across. Reach new audiences.
