12.1.18

Catalog of the 27th International Cartoon Festival in Saitama 2017, Japan

Received yesterday the great collection book of the 27th International Cartoon Festival in Saitama, Japan. Having been invited to the festival the first time in 2017, I did participate in the event with two cartoons of mine, one on the theme Odoroki which means "Surprise" and the second one of free theme. Works by 50 Japanese and 50 foreign artists are included in the catalog of the exhibition which took place at Plaza North in November 2017.
Saitama City is the place where Rakuten Kitazawa - who is called the father of modern cartoon in Japan - spent his later years. The Saitama Municipal Cartoon Art Musem in the home to Kitazawa in his later years hold the Saitama-City Kitazawa-Rakuten Manga Awards competition each year. In 2017 they held the 32nd edition and the winning cartoons are included in this collection book of "The Best Cartoons of Nippon" which are also displayed on the museum website here.
The standard A4-sized (21x29.7 cm) catalog of "The Best Cartoons of Nippon 2017" has over 100 pages, about 75 of them covering the color and the black&white cartoons participated in the festival and selected for the catalog. The remaining pages are the lists of the Japanese and the Foreign artists with their personal histories in both English and Japanese. This perfectly designed book of art is a best chance to compare the style and wit of the native and overseas manga/cartoon artists and enjoy the great humour in their works.
From Turkey we are nine cartoonists whose cartoons are published in the catalog; namely, Aşkın Ayrancıoğlu, Behiç Yalçın Ayrancıoğlu, Erdoğan Başol, Hüsnü Berkalp Üstün, Kamil Yavuz, Kemal Özyurt, Musa Gümüş, Niyazi Yoltaş, and Seyit Saatçi.
Many thanks to the festival organizers and the staff of Plaza North who sent me this excellent collection book of manga/cartoon art.

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