13.1.21

Catalog of The Best Cartoons of Nippon 2020, Japan

Received yesterday
 the color catalog of the International Cartoon Festival in Saitama 2020, Japan. It was the 30th year of the festival in 2020. I participated in the event with two cartoons of mine, one on the theme KAIKAKU which means "innovation" and the second one of FREE THEME. Works on both themes by 43 Japanese and 54 foreign artists are included in the catalog of the exhibition that took place at Plaza North in November 2020. 
Saitama City is the place where Rakuten Kitazawa - 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 Rakuten-Kitazawa Manga Awards competition each year. In 2020 they held the 35th 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 2020" has 108 pages, about 70 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. With the help of this perfectly designed book of art, it is possible to compare the style and wit of the native and overseas manga/cartoon artists and enjoy the great humour in their works.
From Turkey are nine cartoonists whose cartoons published in the catalog; namely, Aşkın Ayrancıoğlu, Behiç Yalçın Ayrancıoğlu, Erdoğan Başol, Hüsnü Berkalp Üstün, Kaan Saatçi, Kamil Yavuz, Kemal Özyurt, Muammer Kotbaş, and Musa Gümüş.
Thank you to the festival organizers and the staff of Plaza North who sent me this great collection of manga/cartoon art.
(back cover).

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