tonto Comic Festival 2004:
Facts & Figures

[ deutsche version ]

We understand the festival as a multi-leveled project, calling it a magazine.

Level 1:
The webpage in the run-up
In the run-up of the festival week the webpage functions as a place for gathering material. Discursive processes shall serve to find themes and subjects and ways of their realisation. The communication with the artists as well as our reflections will be presented here. It also will provide a preview on what's going to happen at the festival.

Level 2:
The festival: focusation and production
This year's focusing concerning exhibition contributions and workshops is on the topics Topographies of the beyond; concerning symposium and talks it's on the DIY culture as an often practised strategy in comics production.

Exhibition and practise:
At the beginning of the festival several so-called impulse images* will be shown at the venues. We will not exhibit original drawings but printed posters in adequate sizes (see photos from last year). This makes it possible for us to present interesting works on the subject also from artists who could not come personally to Graz.
These works function as impulse generators for the comics and drawings which will be produced during the festival at the open drawing tables and in the workshops. By continually affixing drawings produced during the festival the space becomes the festival exhibition which will be accessible for further two weeks after the end of the festival. There will be also the possibility to produce comics and fanzines in small editions.

*ad impulse images: only black/white; the drawings have to be suitable for large blow ups; the drawings should be without frame, that is, they should be surrounded by white background.
Concerning content: the drawings should provide stimulations for associations.

Level 3:
Webpage and publication
After the festival the products - from the symposium as well as from the workshops and open drawing tables - will be editorially compiled and published, at first on the webpage = the magazine.
If we collect enough money an additional printed publication is planned that will also bring up the themes of the next comic festival.

Festival program
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Exhibition, shop and comics library will be accessible to the public for further two weeks after the end of the festival.

Invited guests:

Impulse Images:
Aleksandar Zograf (Serbia)
Gary Panter (USA)
Michael Jordan (Germany)
Reumann/Robel (Switzerland)
Conrad Botes und Anton Kannemeyer (South Africa)
Thomas Ott (Switzerland)
a.o.

Workshops:
Storyboard: Thomas Ott
Animation: Philipp Pontzen
Basics: Thomas Kühberger, Michaela Konrad
Basics: Zograf and the Kitchen-Group

Symposium:
Stripburger
Thomas Ott
Mahler/Wolf
Michael Jordan
Strapazin
Thomas Ballhausen
Elisabeth Nikbas
Florian Satzinger

Guests from Austria:
Just as last year we are inviting Austrian artists to present their works and to work on the spot...
We are looking forward to the coming of:
elffriede, Lisa Max, Verena Weissenböck, Michaela Konrad, Gottfried Gusenbauer, Heinz Wolf, Niklas Mahler, Dieter Puntigam, Bert Königshofer, Mixer, Murmel, Prequel, Tonto, and many more.