Komikaze

Komikaze is a non-profit association/network for independent comics activists from Croatia, elsewhere in the Balkans and other regions of Europe. Their activities are focused on the online production and promotion of comics culture as well as online and print distribution of mainly younger authors to provide them a network for the exchange of information and original works. The exhibitions and workshops not only serve to present and popularise the independent comics scene but also to provide a ‘source’ for new talents.

Komikaze was founded in 2002 as an e-project with the online address komikaze.hr. Today, joining 240 authors from 45 countries, they have released 38 online issues, 13 printed albums and a series of special editions, 4,300 pages of comics, and organised 177 exhibitions and 40 workshops. Komikaze’s priority remains the collaboration with non-profit autonomous cultural zones; thus far the number of such collaborations amounts to 90. In their 13 years of activity they have created an extensive virtual museum and a dynamic social structure. Because the online community is of major importance for their activity, they can be followed on the Komikaze info portal and Facebook. The network is open and continues to expand. A webzine is released every four months while the annual printed selection of comics comes out every November.

In the context of a group campaign for the organization of (unarmed) resistance against progressive globalization of taste and the growth of institutionalized art production, Komikaze exercise independent and altruistic activity of artists from different geostrategic areas which share an autonomous and uncompromising stance as an alternative to the existing dominant art practice.