Six weeks ahead of the largest regional event dedicated to comics, the full list of special guests for the 19th Herceg Novi Comic Festival (HSF) has been finalized. This year’s edition will be held from September 5 to 10 at multiple locations across Herceg Novi and the Bay of Kotor. Joining the previously announced global stars of the ninth art are Alejandro Gonzalez, better known as Xermanico from Spain, Yuri Landman from the Netherlands, and Luca Strati from Italy.
Continuing its long-standing cooperation with the Embassy of Spain, HSF will host the brilliant Xermanico this year. After starting his career illustrating comic books about the iconic video game hero and 90s pop culture icon Duke Nukem, Xermanico rose to fame in the American comic book industry, working primarily with publishing giants DC Comics and IDW Publishing. It’s hard to name any major hero from these two publishers that the talented Madrid native hasn’t worked on. His notable projects include Superman, Batman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, Justice League, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Poison Ivy, Infinite Frontier, Injustice, Power Rangers, KISS, Ghostbusters, Deathstroke, The Vampire Diaries, Silent Hill, Halo, and Kull. Known in the comic world as an outstanding artist and an even better person, he is a welcome guest at prestigious comic festivals around the globe.
For the first time, HSF will also collaborate with the Embassy of the Netherlands, bringing us the versatile Yuri Landman. This artist began his career at the end of the last century, publishing two highly successful graphic novels — With Me, You Can Do Anything (1997) and Deserved Salary (1998), the latter winning the Breda Award for Best Upcoming Artist that same year. He then made a major shift in his career, focusing on music and becoming a world-renowned inventor of experimental musical instruments, collaborating with bands like Sonic Youth and Einstürzende Neubauten. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he returned to comics with the exceptional graphic novel 1991, which has since been translated into six languages and published in Serbia by System Comics.
Completing the lineup is the brilliant Italian artist Luca Strati, whose spectacular work was already showcased in Herceg Novi during an exhibition dedicated to the revival of the world’s most influential comic magazine — Heavy Metal Magazine. Strati graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence and later from the city’s School of Comics. From the start of his career, his rare painterly talent stood out, earning him early jobs designing posters, covers, and promotional art for comics. With fellow Italian creators, he worked on the continuation of the Physical Laws of Evil series, created a wordless Batman episode, and a fanzine for the globally popular band Iron Maiden. Recognized as one of the highest-quality illustrators today, Strati has drawn covers for titles such as Red Sonja, Becky Boo, Vanja the Lost Warrior, Grimm Fairy Tales, Blind Moon, Cthulhu, Wasteland World, and was even honored with illustrating one of the covers of the relaunched first issue of Heavy Metal.
These three amazing artists join the previously announced guests Eduardo Risso, Harry Randolph, Jock, François Boucq, Tristan, Jean-Charles Poupard, Maria Laura Sanapo, Marco Santucci, and Valeria Burzo, rounding out the standard list of twelve special guests. They will be joined by over 130 equally impressive artists from 25 different countries at the 19th HSF. The sheer number of returning and new artists once again confirms the exceptional international reputation of this festival.
In addition, Italy will also be represented by the creators of this year’s official poster illustration — Oscar Scalco and Anna Lazzarini, as well as this year’s storyboarding masterclass instructor, the brilliant Davide De Cubellis, and Cosimo Miorelli and Stefano Bechini, who will present the multimedia spectacle Moby Dick City Blues. This show is part of the Creative Europe project Comics Beyond, organized in partnership with Napoli Comicon, the Belgian Comic Strip Center, and festivals in Amiens, France, and Amadora, Portugal.
The HSF team has announced that the complete list of musical guests and the final program for the 19th edition will be published in the coming days. With this announcement, the Herceg Novi Comic Festival once again lives up to its reputation as a cultural phenomenon, a title given to it by international artists during their visits, and hopes to finally be officially recognized as an event of national significance — a status it has undoubtedly deserved for many years.