I am honored to be a mentor and advisor in WOMCOM, a groundbreaking 6-country comics initiative that aims at creating a network for women and non-binary creators in the very patriarchal comics cultures and societies of Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
⭐ Hosting event series at Sziget Festival ⭐ – Last week I was working as program host of the amazing THINK FOR TOMORROW venue at one of the largest music festivals in Europe, Sziget. – The venue served as a hub for discussing issues like climate change, migration, AI, post-capitalism, mental health, education. The venue was powered by Milestone Institute.
It Used to Be Easy: Comics about Growth and Change is out now!
The comics were made by MA studentsof MOME ANIM during our Storytellings with Comics course in November 2022. These are personal and cool comics. It was a pleasure to work with the students both as an instructor as an editor: they were eager to learn, listened to advice, and kept very tight deadlines. I absolutely loved teaching this course.
This past year I’ve been part of the History in Comics research project, initiated by Eli Woock at Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic. We have had meetings, presentations, and discussion every second month, and we have had a great time. This research group meant that I could get connected to other comics scholars and I could think about questions that are not part of my usual what the fuck is going on in Hungary? routine. I have learnt a lot from the project participants, who are:
This is the abstract of the paper that I will present next week in Dún Laughaire at the International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference. The theme of the conference is “Comics and Conscience: Ethics, Morality, and Great Responsibility”
„I spotted you on TV, you have 10 minutes to get back home” – Comics of the Lebanese Revolution
A Virtual Roundtable with Hugo Frey, Hillary Chute, Mark McKinney, and Eszter Szep, moderated by Aubrey Gabel
UPDATE: The panel isavailable on youtube. I was the fourth speaker, and I talked about comics as “poetry + graphic design” (said by Seth) and how it enables us to rethink the concept of comics and the practices around it and show this on the example of a fantastic collection of comics made by graphic desing students studying at the American University of Beirut about the 2019 Revolution in Lebanon.
A catalog showcasing contemporary Hungarian comics came out in fall 2021, but I completely forgot to share the news here.
I was working on New Hungarian Comics and Graphic Novels: Speech Bubbles to Leave You Speechless in the spring, it was commissioned by the Petőfi Literary Fund. It was big work: I selected the artists and comics featured in this beautiful catalog, wrote the text about each of them, and selected the images, too. Many of the featured titles has won or has been nominated to the Hungarian comics award.
When I was looking back on 2020 in my January 2021 post, I wrote that the best decision I made was quitting my job at a multinational company in the summer of 2020 (in spite of the pandemic, etc). I was grateful for that decision each and every day of 2021. Though freelancing is hard, it is getting easier and easier to find work. I still could not support myself financially if I lived alone, but I do not live alone, and I can rely on a partner who supports my freelancing projects. All year round, I could work on projects that make sense, which is a wonderful feeling.
In October 2021 I was invited by Lina Ghaibeh to hold a lecture to graphic design students about drawing and comics. I was and am still honored by this opportunity.
Eszter Szép 