Rio Comicon

It was a very special moment, when the guy from the hotel opened the curtains in the room.

There was the atlantic ocean, and when I bent my head down, I saw beautiful people jogging on Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro. Yeah, Rio has a Comic festival since last year, this year was the second issue. I am pretty sure, only few artists will reject their invitation.

Rafael Coutinho and me; before I met him in person, I already was enthusiastic about his comics. Discovered them in a great comic shop called Itiban in Curitiba, a town in the south of Brazil, where I had been for an exhibiton at the local Goethe Institut before coming to Rio.

Curitiba has the oldest comic library of South america, - the oldest and perhaps most beautiful.

The Rio Comicon took place in an abandoned trainstation, an environment which looked more familiar to me, than the 5 star hotel on Praja Ipanema (but no complaints about that).

With Peter Kuper

Exhibition of Guido Crepax

His daughter Caterina Crepax, is an artist as well, for the exhibition she designed a paper dress.

Rahel, who sells marvelous contempory alternative comics.

Henrique, one of the organizers

Dan Goldman, Maria, Beth Fleischer and her husband Chris Claremont, Jo Oliveira

With Dan Goldman in a panel about digital publishing.

Exhibition of Will Eisner, curated by Denis Kitchen

Denis Kitchen, his wife Stacy, me, Junko Mizuno joining a tourist trip on the sugar loaf

We did, what tourists do ...

On top of the sugar loaf

Two days before I have done another trip with a cable car, but this one was not for tourists. It was build by the gouverment for the dwellers of twenty favelas in Rio.

View from the final station of this cable car.

Our group today: Otávio junior, who is organising a mobile library in the favelas, Almerinda Stenzel, the charming lady from the Goetheinstitut in Rio, and next two are working in another library in a favela, it's a beautiful new one, as you can see on the photo below.

Rodrigo Marinho is not only a big fan of the comic reports of Guy Delisle, but also of Günther Grass and Friedrich Nietzsche.

I can highly recommend the comic report "Inside the Favelas" by the brazilian author Augusto Paim and the artist Mau Mau. You can read it online on the website www.cartoonmovement.com.