good evening my name is Flair spaghetti
and I’m a comic artist so now I think
many of you are thinking oh what a
lovely job you must have fun all of the
time
and some other of you are thinking
uh-huh and which is exactly your real
job well it is a real job really it is
and therefore no it’s not fun all of the
time but it’s my passion so for me of
course is a great job because comics are
great they are a great form of
communication a great form of art
expression and a great form of
entertainment so it’s a lot of work to
do comics and it’s a lot of learning to
become a comic artist you can imagine
that sometimes it’s a little bit
frustrating to still have the feeling
that comics are treated like the
Cinderella of the Arts many years ago I
had burglars coming at my apartment so I
called the police and two officers show
that my door they asked for my
formalities and when I talked about my
work field they were kind of surprised
and puzzled and they asked me what did I
meant by being a comic artist well I
could just answer that I write and draw
comics this Hansard didn’t seem to help
either
so the first officer said how do you
mean you draw comics I thought that they
were just printed took me a moment and I
realized well of course I didn’t mean I
draw every single ER copy you can find
in the stores but what do you print if
you don’t have something to print in the
first place then the second officer
really honestly told me what I never
thought about it I always gave for
granted that comics are maybe made with
computers or maybe in the past with many
many different kinds of stamps well
imagine my surprise in realizing how
many more people out there probably
never stop and give a thought of the
acted behind comics there are real
people real professionals making them so
today I am here to talk about comics and
their creators and hopefully instill in
you the wish of reading more of them or
to start to read them in the very first
place why should you well because comics
are a great form of communication a
great form of art expression and a great
form of entertainment I grew up reading
a lot of comics and I’ve always been
interested in visual art but to be
honest who doesn’t
the first nonverbal way of transmitting
knowledge was true graffiti and what
about your ugly fix and let’s take a
look at this fantastical example of
visual storytelling which is the Tryon
column in Rome and of course with time
we had the writing putting words under
the pictures and then the invention of
print but took quite a long time mostly
around the end of the 19th century
before someone had the brilliant idea of
heading a speech bubble next to the
characters to make them talk and that’s
the birth of comics so let’s see what
can be done adding some bubbles to this
picture I will read the text with a
slightly Roman accent since I’m from
Rome tryin tryin tryin try a typical way
of Roman to cut short a name
TRAI you are the best oh I know it I am
the Emperor so slowly the comic language
developed introducing panels different
kind of shots
sound effects speed lines so let’s move
forward and see what can I do with that
join the Flavian fleet of militia she
says you’re gonna see Emperor try and
she says
oh I only see a lot of heavy bags and a
lot of stinky men so as you see comics
are very direct a powerful tool of
communication which makes them very
useful in educational purposes well not
a silly as I’ve just done but you can
get my point especially for people that
have maybe problems in concentrating on
learning
imagine how much stronger easier and
memorable would be to learn any kind of
subject in form of comics a good example
for instance are a growing number of
historical biography made in the form of
graphic novel here you can see an
example from my work about Richard
Wagner written by andreas Foellinger and
some example of my next work about the
life of Marlena Dietrich written by
alessandra Ferrari but out there there
are a number of other historical figures
from politician philosophers scientists
artists you name it but not only that
comics can be used also to transmit
knowledge about political and social
issues and on the web I’ve seen more and
more web comics treating about
loneliness depression and emotional
distress and I must say that I am much
more keen to stop and read about this
kind of subject if they are treated in a
form of comics and judging from how they
go viral on the social media I am not
the only one right so let’s move to my
second point comics are a great form of
art expression putting together pictures
and words , can reach high level of
literature and visual art at the same
time until the end of the 70s in the USA
the country that gave birth to comics
the media was still used mostly for
young generations and for easygoing kind
of entertainment what
question was quite different in other
big comic countries as Japan France
Belgium and Italy but I will come back
to this later so what changed toward the
ends of the 70s in America well will
Eisner one of the greatest comic artists
of our times was profoundly convinced
that the comic media could do much more
it could be used for a much deeper and
complex storytelling so in 1978 he
managed to get published its very first
graphic novel a contract with God is a
collection of short stories revolving
around a group of poor Jewish living in
attainment in New York until that moment
the term graphic novel was used here and
there but from this moment on is really
started to be connected to more adult
comics non periodical comic books but
it’s in 1986 where the term graphic
novel really reached the audience the
big audience and this is thanks to the
great success of Mouse from Art
Spiegelman here the author is telling
about his relationship with his father a
survival of Auschwitz camp and he
decided to do so utilizing
anthropomorphic animal instead of the
human for the characters the result is
astonishing and it’s punching you in
your guts so often giving you perfectly
the feeling of the humanizing aspect of
a concentration camp pretty powerful
right it’s not a coincidence that is
1992 mouse has been the first graphic
novel to win a Pulitzer Prize so thanks
to the graphic novels comics has reached
the book stars and them and their
creators have gained more respect and
credibility but this is what I would say
this is in America but actually the
first comic market in the world is Japan
there the mangas from the beginning have
always been directed to any
kind of target group and have treated
any kind of subject the same can be said
for the France and Belgium market which
is the third market in the world and
also here same thing various target
group any kind of topics so is
understandable how in this country’s
comics are part of people all day life
and they are definitely not considered
to be a minor media in Italy we also
have a strong tradition of foaming tea
and a great amount of gay a great author
we are the fourth market in the world
and in the past few years I’ve seen also
in Italy growing and more interesting
more attention to comics thanks to the
graphic novels in fact in 2014 and 2015
the works of GP and iruka’s Kari have
been the first two Italian graphic novel
to be nominated to the very prestigious
literature award
premise Liga this has been a great step
forward but now I think that we should
move a little before again because
internationally I think that should be
given the right attention to the real
comics Awards
like for instance the Eisner Award do
you remember Will Eisner the father of
graphic novels so in this case the
juries are formed by expert of this
media and they have all the instrument
to judge all the qualities of these
creations that are both literature and
visual art so moving to my next point
comics are a great form of entertainment
and not to mention they are quite cheap
to be produced
Torretta CLE with a blank surface a tool
to leave a mark and a person who does
know how to do so you can illustrate any
kind of story from the most personal and
intimate to the more psychological and
bizarre to the very beautifully
astonishing and compelling visually
let me repeat myself to do a comic takes
a lot of work and to become a comic
artist takes a lot of Education and
learning personally I don’t remember two
years of my life these are the first two
years I started to work as a comic
artist I was so keen to get better to
get into the business to get contact to
get work to get paid from the works that
I was spending all of my time at the
table leaving very little time for
anything else what I do remember is my
friends coming over at my place at any
time of day and night because they knew
that I would be up I have to sleep more
and they would just hang out there and
have fun behind my back while I was
still working on the table which
eventually caused me a lot of back
problems so here comes a word of advice
for all the aspiring comic artists out
there do sports you will thank me later
so storytelling writing composition
drawing inking coloring researching
costume design prop design graphical
design these are all tools that a
professional comic artist needs to have
in his bag to make a good comic and a
certain amount of culture is definitely
welcome I must say that I don’t know any
very successful comic artists that is
not also a person of great culture and
the crazy collector of toys
well no I’m joking we comic artists we
collect any kind of stuff but so going
back to the entertainment part if you
compare a comic to a book a comic can
give you a very strong vision of the
characters and the words they are moving
in plus can tickle your aesthetical
sense if you compare a comic with a
movie as I said you could create any
kind of things from historical recruits
construction to fantasy world without
the need of spending millions of coins
in doing so it’s not a surprise that the
movie and TV industry are fishing more
and more often into the successful comic
titles let’s take a look at this
familiar one for instance and of course
nowaday with the new technology is
getting easier to reproduce those
fantastic words in live-action or at
least they can try to do so in my
opinion the comics are still better
so in conclusion for the future I would
like to see a larger use of comics for
educational purposes and a larger amount
of them in schools universities and
libraries I wish to see an International
and knowledge mint of comics and their
creators from the critics the media and
institutions lastly I wish to see a
growing number of readers that will have
a better freshen and distribution of
comic in this matter I strongly believe
in the potential of a digital comic
portal not so different from what
Netflix has been for TV and movies a
nice good example a good start is
comixology which I hope is going to grow
and be present in more and more country
with more languages available and a
bigger vaster international portfolio of
titles and especially with the fixed
amount of feed monthly fee which i think
would make the difference to attract new
reader eventually the portal itself
could create new content so what do you
say did I manage to give you the wish to
go out and read a good comic I surely
hope so I will continue to make them
well I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to
thank you for listening you
and I’m a comic artist so now I think
many of you are thinking oh what a
lovely job you must have fun all of the
time
and some other of you are thinking
uh-huh and which is exactly your real
job well it is a real job really it is
and therefore no it’s not fun all of the
time but it’s my passion so for me of
course is a great job because comics are
great they are a great form of
communication a great form of art
expression and a great form of
entertainment so it’s a lot of work to
do comics and it’s a lot of learning to
become a comic artist you can imagine
that sometimes it’s a little bit
frustrating to still have the feeling
that comics are treated like the
Cinderella of the Arts many years ago I
had burglars coming at my apartment so I
called the police and two officers show
that my door they asked for my
formalities and when I talked about my
work field they were kind of surprised
and puzzled and they asked me what did I
meant by being a comic artist well I
could just answer that I write and draw
comics this Hansard didn’t seem to help
either
so the first officer said how do you
mean you draw comics I thought that they
were just printed took me a moment and I
realized well of course I didn’t mean I
draw every single ER copy you can find
in the stores but what do you print if
you don’t have something to print in the
first place then the second officer
really honestly told me what I never
thought about it I always gave for
granted that comics are maybe made with
computers or maybe in the past with many
many different kinds of stamps well
imagine my surprise in realizing how
many more people out there probably
never stop and give a thought of the
acted behind comics there are real
people real professionals making them so
today I am here to talk about comics and
their creators and hopefully instill in
you the wish of reading more of them or
to start to read them in the very first
place why should you well because comics
are a great form of communication a
great form of art expression and a great
form of entertainment I grew up reading
a lot of comics and I’ve always been
interested in visual art but to be
honest who doesn’t
the first nonverbal way of transmitting
knowledge was true graffiti and what
about your ugly fix and let’s take a
look at this fantastical example of
visual storytelling which is the Tryon
column in Rome and of course with time
we had the writing putting words under
the pictures and then the invention of
print but took quite a long time mostly
around the end of the 19th century
before someone had the brilliant idea of
heading a speech bubble next to the
characters to make them talk and that’s
the birth of comics so let’s see what
can be done adding some bubbles to this
picture I will read the text with a
slightly Roman accent since I’m from
Rome tryin tryin tryin try a typical way
of Roman to cut short a name
TRAI you are the best oh I know it I am
the Emperor so slowly the comic language
developed introducing panels different
kind of shots
sound effects speed lines so let’s move
forward and see what can I do with that
join the Flavian fleet of militia she
says you’re gonna see Emperor try and
she says
oh I only see a lot of heavy bags and a
lot of stinky men so as you see comics
are very direct a powerful tool of
communication which makes them very
useful in educational purposes well not
a silly as I’ve just done but you can
get my point especially for people that
have maybe problems in concentrating on
learning
imagine how much stronger easier and
memorable would be to learn any kind of
subject in form of comics a good example
for instance are a growing number of
historical biography made in the form of
graphic novel here you can see an
example from my work about Richard
Wagner written by andreas Foellinger and
some example of my next work about the
life of Marlena Dietrich written by
alessandra Ferrari but out there there
are a number of other historical figures
from politician philosophers scientists
artists you name it but not only that
comics can be used also to transmit
knowledge about political and social
issues and on the web I’ve seen more and
more web comics treating about
loneliness depression and emotional
distress and I must say that I am much
more keen to stop and read about this
kind of subject if they are treated in a
form of comics and judging from how they
go viral on the social media I am not
the only one right so let’s move to my
second point comics are a great form of
art expression putting together pictures
and words , can reach high level of
literature and visual art at the same
time until the end of the 70s in the USA
the country that gave birth to comics
the media was still used mostly for
young generations and for easygoing kind
of entertainment what
question was quite different in other
big comic countries as Japan France
Belgium and Italy but I will come back
to this later so what changed toward the
ends of the 70s in America well will
Eisner one of the greatest comic artists
of our times was profoundly convinced
that the comic media could do much more
it could be used for a much deeper and
complex storytelling so in 1978 he
managed to get published its very first
graphic novel a contract with God is a
collection of short stories revolving
around a group of poor Jewish living in
attainment in New York until that moment
the term graphic novel was used here and
there but from this moment on is really
started to be connected to more adult
comics non periodical comic books but
it’s in 1986 where the term graphic
novel really reached the audience the
big audience and this is thanks to the
great success of Mouse from Art
Spiegelman here the author is telling
about his relationship with his father a
survival of Auschwitz camp and he
decided to do so utilizing
anthropomorphic animal instead of the
human for the characters the result is
astonishing and it’s punching you in
your guts so often giving you perfectly
the feeling of the humanizing aspect of
a concentration camp pretty powerful
right it’s not a coincidence that is
1992 mouse has been the first graphic
novel to win a Pulitzer Prize so thanks
to the graphic novels comics has reached
the book stars and them and their
creators have gained more respect and
credibility but this is what I would say
this is in America but actually the
first comic market in the world is Japan
there the mangas from the beginning have
always been directed to any
kind of target group and have treated
any kind of subject the same can be said
for the France and Belgium market which
is the third market in the world and
also here same thing various target
group any kind of topics so is
understandable how in this country’s
comics are part of people all day life
and they are definitely not considered
to be a minor media in Italy we also
have a strong tradition of foaming tea
and a great amount of gay a great author
we are the fourth market in the world
and in the past few years I’ve seen also
in Italy growing and more interesting
more attention to comics thanks to the
graphic novels in fact in 2014 and 2015
the works of GP and iruka’s Kari have
been the first two Italian graphic novel
to be nominated to the very prestigious
literature award
premise Liga this has been a great step
forward but now I think that we should
move a little before again because
internationally I think that should be
given the right attention to the real
comics Awards
like for instance the Eisner Award do
you remember Will Eisner the father of
graphic novels so in this case the
juries are formed by expert of this
media and they have all the instrument
to judge all the qualities of these
creations that are both literature and
visual art so moving to my next point
comics are a great form of entertainment
and not to mention they are quite cheap
to be produced
Torretta CLE with a blank surface a tool
to leave a mark and a person who does
know how to do so you can illustrate any
kind of story from the most personal and
intimate to the more psychological and
bizarre to the very beautifully
astonishing and compelling visually
let me repeat myself to do a comic takes
a lot of work and to become a comic
artist takes a lot of Education and
learning personally I don’t remember two
years of my life these are the first two
years I started to work as a comic
artist I was so keen to get better to
get into the business to get contact to
get work to get paid from the works that
I was spending all of my time at the
table leaving very little time for
anything else what I do remember is my
friends coming over at my place at any
time of day and night because they knew
that I would be up I have to sleep more
and they would just hang out there and
have fun behind my back while I was
still working on the table which
eventually caused me a lot of back
problems so here comes a word of advice
for all the aspiring comic artists out
there do sports you will thank me later
so storytelling writing composition
drawing inking coloring researching
costume design prop design graphical
design these are all tools that a
professional comic artist needs to have
in his bag to make a good comic and a
certain amount of culture is definitely
welcome I must say that I don’t know any
very successful comic artists that is
not also a person of great culture and
the crazy collector of toys
well no I’m joking we comic artists we
collect any kind of stuff but so going
back to the entertainment part if you
compare a comic to a book a comic can
give you a very strong vision of the
characters and the words they are moving
in plus can tickle your aesthetical
sense if you compare a comic with a
movie as I said you could create any
kind of things from historical recruits
construction to fantasy world without
the need of spending millions of coins
in doing so it’s not a surprise that the
movie and TV industry are fishing more
and more often into the successful comic
titles let’s take a look at this
familiar one for instance and of course
nowaday with the new technology is
getting easier to reproduce those
fantastic words in live-action or at
least they can try to do so in my
opinion the comics are still better
so in conclusion for the future I would
like to see a larger use of comics for
educational purposes and a larger amount
of them in schools universities and
libraries I wish to see an International
and knowledge mint of comics and their
creators from the critics the media and
institutions lastly I wish to see a
growing number of readers that will have
a better freshen and distribution of
comic in this matter I strongly believe
in the potential of a digital comic
portal not so different from what
Netflix has been for TV and movies a
nice good example a good start is
comixology which I hope is going to grow
and be present in more and more country
with more languages available and a
bigger vaster international portfolio of
titles and especially with the fixed
amount of feed monthly fee which i think
would make the difference to attract new
reader eventually the portal itself
could create new content so what do you
say did I manage to give you the wish to
go out and read a good comic I surely
hope so I will continue to make them
well I couldn’t stop even if I wanted to
thank you for listening you
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