Bulgarian Comic Books

In this post I would like to talk about comic books, which are drawn by Bulgarians and have been published lately in my home country. I recommend all of these if you are interested in contemporary Bulgarian artwork and comics. There is a lot to be seen and learned from these five books.

 Aniventure 2013: Manga, Art, Fanfic - Winning Entries

This is the annual Aniventure book, in which you can find all the winners from the contests, mentioned above. There are three short mangas for the three winning places:

First place - "Kaena" ("Каена") by Boyan Ganev

Second Place - "Legend of Sunny Moon" by Cindy Nayn (Alexandra Stryaskova)

Third Place - "Two worlds" ("Два свята") by Kalin Popov Kalin Popov's Gallery

And the winning fanfic is "Think of the future" ("Мисли за бъдещето"), a "Naruto" fanfic by Cindy Nayn (Alexandra Stryaskova).

There are also photos of winning cosplayers from Aniventure 2012:

Dara Karaboeva as Hizaki from Versailles

Jivko Kabaivanov as Loki from the Marvel Universe

Kiril Popchev as Pyramid Head from Silent Hill

Kiril Lambrev as Vash the Stampede from Trigun

And finally in this book you can find artwork by the artists Denitsa Stancheva,  Fotis Ntalianis, Silviya Ivanova and Bistra Sandjakyan. 

This book is only 90 pages long, but it's a really good compilation of works. I personally really liked Boyan Ganev's and Kiril Popov's works, although I think that Kiril Popov's work look kind of unfinished artwork wise. I don't think that you can find this book in the bookstores, but you will probably be able to get it at the events organized by club Nakama. 

"Co-mixer" - vol 3 and vol 4

"Co-mixer" is a compilation of short, 2 to 5 pages long, black and white comics that are gathered under the same theme. The theme of volume 3 is Weaknesses and the theme of volume four is Noises. I really like "Co-mixer", because it gathers so many different artists in one place. You can see manga styled artwork and caricature artwork and so much more in less then 100 pages.
For more information on "Co-mixer" itself

For more information on "Co-mixer" vol 3 

For more information on "Co-mixer" vol 4 

Places, where you can find "Co-mixer" 

 "Pocket comic book" ("Джобен Комикс")

"Pocket comic book" collection of short stories by 9 Bulgarian artists like Ivan and Sybilla Koritarevi, Satanasov, Nikolai Popov and more. Inside you can also find interviews of famous Bulgarian artists, working in the film industry like Antoni Hristov, Evgeni Tomov and Vladimir Todorov. 
This book is an amazing project and I really hope they continue to publish such compilations. 
For more information on "Джобен Комикс"

"Stephen King's N."

"Stephen King's N." is a graphic novel, based on Stephen King's short story "N.", written by the American writer and producer Marc Guggenheim and drawn by the Bulgarian artist Alex Maleev. This graphic novel was published by Bard in 2012 and can be found in almost every bookstore.

The artwork and the story are amazing and I definitely recommend this to anyone, who likes suspense horror stories.

Click here for more information on Stephen King's N

Aniventure 2012 - artwork and books

There was a lot of artwork and many artists on Aniventure 2012 and here are the ones who were most interesting for me:

The Artist's alley

At the Artist's alley I saw four of my favourite artists on deviantArt. Here are links to their galleries:

http://tenzeru-chan.deviantart.com/

http://moon-valkyrie.deviantart.com/ 

http://xbunnylace.deviantart.com/

http://vegigi.deviantart.com/

I bought a lot of stickers and bookmarks from them. They are ally awesome. Be sure to check them out.

 This is the book, where the winners of the Manga contest and the winner of the Fanfic contest were published.

First place of the Manga contest was taken by Kalin Popov and his story Endless Darkness (Безкрайна тъмнина). It was interesting to read, although there were some things that weren't very well explained. The artwork is not bad, but this guy definitely has some trouble shading and every panels looks kind of unfinished and reminded me more of a sketch. 

Second place was taken by Yana Lyapova and her story Graveyard Stories (Гробищни истории). Actually, this was the one I liked the most from the contest this year. The story is interesting and well told and her artwork is really cute. There are some panels that look kind of unfinished, but as a whole it's really well made. 

Third place was taken by Alexandra Stryaskova and her story Little London Witch. The artworks is pretty average and the story is cliche and I think that she might have had some trouble with the scanning, because the pages of the manga look weird. To see more of her artwork you can visit her gallery - http://friendlyassasin.deviantart.com/

The award of the Fanfic contest was given to Nadejda Ivanova Georgieva and her story Dreams and Reality (Мечти и реалност), which is based on Naruto. I am not a Naruto fan, but I really loved this fanfic, because it's so different and well written. 

In this book you can also find artwork by the following artists:

http://the-dolphins-cry.deviantart.com/

http://eyesofsuffering.deviantart.com/

The white haired female mascot on the cover of the book was drawn by http://engells.deviantart.com/

 Co-Mixer is a very interesting project, that features Bulgarian comics, which i really liked. It has only two issues for now and every issue consists of a number of comics on a certain theme, for example the theme for number two is second hand.

For more information on the artists and Co-Mixer itself, please visit their blog - http://co-mixer.blogspot.com/

Bulgaria Cosplay Book was created by Lyubena Fox and Georgi Teofilov. It features five Bulgarian cosplayers:

Lybena Fox as Megurine Luka  from Vocaloid and Inori Yuzuriha from Guilty Crown

Irina Tsapreva as Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid

Alexander Hawkins as Akira from Togainu no Chi and Zero Kiryu from Vampire Knight

Ayame Midori as Ling Xiaoyu from Tekken

Kalina Marinova as Tira from Soul Calibur

I hope they make more like this with more pages and more cosplayers in the future, because even though this one is well made, its too short.

You can find some of the pictures, which were in the book in Lubena Fox's gallery - http://lyubenafox.deviantart.com/

For more information about Aniventure you can visit the following web pages:

http://www.aniventure.net/

http://nakama-bg.com/

Bulgarian Manga Artists

Since there are many Bulgarian manga artists I will be talking only about those, who have their stories published in books one way or the other.

The first one is known as Satanasov or Boreworm, but his actual name is Daniel. In the picture on the side you can see a page from his gag manga Bonzai, published in Daga (rainbow) magazine in 2004.

 Next is one of my personal favourite manga of his - Bion. It also was published in Daga magazine in 2004 and I think that this is the only black an white manga of his, that I have seen so far. He prefers to draw in full colour.

You can read Bion here - Bion

 This is a picture from the manga Dragon Last, published in the second book of the anthology The Mammoth Book of Best New Manga in 2007.

You can read Dragon Last here - Dragon Last

This is a picture from Satanasov's manga Shaman, published in Comics magazine in 2006. 

He also works on the Chisuji project, which you can check out here ---> Chisuji

Check out his gallery to see more of his amazing artwork ---> Satanasov's Gallery

 Next is an artist, named Ivan Koritarev, but known as Drazen or Drazebot. On the side you can see pages from his manga Steam, published in Comics magazine in 2006. 

Don't forget to visit his amazing gallery ---> Drazebot's Gallery

 Next artist is a very talented girl, named Anna Tsocheva and know as Rikae. On the side you can see her book Sketchbook of the Soul, in which you can find almost all her manga stories. It contains the manga Between the Sky and the Earth, Exit, Chibi High, A Story about Loneliness and Sketchbook of the Soul. A Story About Loneliness was published in issue 10 of Shogun magazine in 2010. She has made two more stories, which I haven't seen or read, though and they are Pyronan (2002) and Utop!a (2003).

Rikae's amazing artwork can be seen in her gallery---> Rikae's Gallery

Now I will be talking about the winners of the Aniventure Manga Contest from 2010 an 2011. 

My personal favourite is Vasilena Harizanova, known as Watapoku. She won 1st place in 2010 with her story Visit to the Black Doctor and 2nd place in 2011 with her story Grey Bird (she actually deserved 1st place again, but... yeah..). Visit to the Black Doctor was also published in issue 16 of Shogun magazine. I really love her artwork. Don't forget to have a look at her gallery ---> Watapoku's Gallery

You can also read Visit to the Black Doctor here - Visit to the Black Doctor

Second place in 2010 was won buy two boys, who worked as a team - Zakero Tubayashi (Dimitar), who wrote the story and Darkstalker (Boyan), who drew the artwork. Their story Junk Boy has a really interesting story and nice artwork. You can visit their galleries by clicking the following links - Zakero's Gallery  and Darkstalker's Gallery

Third place in 2010 was won by Alera Milkova. Her manga is called Cliche and the story is really cliche. Her artwork is average, but she really has improved since then and you can clearly see that in her gallery - Alera's Gallery

Ok, here comes the hard part. I honestly don't like 1st and 3rd place from 2011 and I can't even call them manga. First place was taken by Milena Simeonova, known as Oruba, and her manga Lucky. Her drawing looks like the scribble of a 12-year old child and the story is very simple. You can see her manga here - Lucky and her gallery here - Oruba's Gallery and judge for yourself.

Third place was taken by Irena Mitkova, known as Keri and her manga Forelock, Elastic, Tails. Ah, what can I say about this... It's pencil work with almost no shades and bad or no background at all. I think that if she had put just a little more effort into it, the manga would have turned really great, but she hasn't done that and everything just looks like scribbles, done during lessons. Unfortunately, I couldn't find her gallery to show you her artwork.

I don't think that these manga books can be found on the market. You might find some of the issues of Shogun or Comics in the second hand bookshops and you can find the Manga Contest Winners at Aniventure (the biggest anime/manga convention in Bulgaria). 

I think I covered everyone in this feature. Feel free to tell me if I have missed someone and feel free to comment and share opinions :)