site.btaExhibition in Varna City Gallery Presents 23 Iconic Names of Bulgarian Comics

The third national exhibition of Bulgarian comics will be on display with selected panels by 23 artists at the Boris Georgiev City Art Gallery in Varna until April 15. It arrives in the city at the invitation of the Literary Spotlight Festival, organized by the Pencho Slaveykov Regional Library. 

“We are very happy that the City Art Gallery is hosting the third part of this exhibition, which is also the largest,” said director Radka Kalcheva, adding that the other two parts are arranged in the Library and the Amorpha Foundation.

The history of comics is not at all short and this art has already established itself on the world stage, Anna-Maria Popova from the Library said at the opening. The initial boom of the genre in Bulgaria was in the period after World War II with representatives such as Stoyan Venev, Lyuben Zidarov, Vadim Lazarkevich, Ilia Beshkov, Alexander Zhendov and Rayko Aleksiev. The Third National Exhibition shown is the work of the Union of Bulgarian Artists and dates from 2022. 

“Back then we noticed it and wanted it to come to Varna, but the volume of 220 panels by 43 artists requires larger spaces, so we decided to do it in partnership and show it divided into three places, Popova said.

One of the halls is dedicated to artists working abroad or for the foreign market. Among them are Ivaylo Ivanchev, Daniel Atanasov-Satanasov, Ivan Koritarev, Todor Iliev, Todor Hristov, Aihan Khairula and Viktor Kalvachev, who has been working for D.C. and Marvel for years. Petrov drew attention to the comic "Bandit" by Anani Borisov, which he considers the best in Bulgaria in recent years, demonstrating best the power of the combination of script and drawing.