110,000 attend 41st edition of Comic Barcelona
International artists return as organizers meet target of attracting more young people and families
The 41st edition of Comic Barcelona concluded on Sunday after welcoming around 110,000 vistors, a similar number to last year.
The number of young people and families attending was up, with organizers thus meeting one of their main objectives for this year.
The CEO of Ficomic, Meritxell Puig, told the Catalan News Agency (ACN) that the 2023 edition kicked off with school visits and that a very young audience continued to attend throughout the fair.
"We take a very positive assessment of it," she said, celebrating the "return to normality" with the presence of international writers.
This year's fair was the second post-pandemic edition. "The second year of real normality, of effervescence", Puig said.
It was clear that people were "very excited" to visit Comic Barcelona, she said, citing queues at the venue from 7am. "We are back to normal," Puig concluded.
Exhibitions and talks at full capacity
The fair's exhibitions and talks were at full capacity with "about 100 people per talk on average." More than 300 attended the screening on Sunday of the 1,000th chapter of the anime series Case Closed, also known as Detective Conan.
Other activities included musical performances, drawing competitions and animation workshops.
Highlights for Puig included "children enjoying the comics," Mario in the Nintendo area, international artists and the tributes paid to illustrator and penciller Carlos Pacheco.
"We wanted to pay tribute to Pacheco and we did it with his professional colleagues, who did some illustrations that we put up for auction to raise money for motor neuron disease, which is what the great writer died of," Puig said.
Awards
Lleida-based illustrator Trini Tinturé was awarded the Comic Barcelona Grand Prize. The artist, born in 1935, collected the award on Friday along with her daughter and grandson.
Tinturé was "a self-taught woman in a difficult time" and "a pioneer," her daughter said.
Transitorios from illustrator Nadar (Pep Domingo) was awarded best work by a Spanish writer while the Miguel Gallardo award for the best emerging writer went to Manuel Romero.
The award for the best work by a foreign artist went to Listen, Beautiful Márcia by Brazilian comic book artist Marcello Quintanhila.