» American Consulate General in Kraków
» American Embassy
» Fulbright Commission
» U.S. Department of State
» International Information Programs (IIP)
» Library of Congress
» For Kids and Teenagers

American Corner Wrocław
Dolnoslaska Public Library
Rynek 58
50-116 Wrocław
Tel/Fax: 0-71/33-52-215
E-mail

OPENING HOURS
Weekdays: 10.30-18.30
Saturday - 10.00-15.00
Wednesday - closed

On November 17, 2006 the beginning of the festival cartoon stories ALIASCON 2006 took place in American Information and Cultural Center "American Corner". The comic books event is dedicated to exploring different views of cartoon forms, giving an opportunity to meet with comic authors, publishers and special guests. Making a contribution to this project, we wanted to promote American comic books/graphic novels, which are an important part of today's popular culture in the U.S.

The event started with a short introduction to headlights of the evening at American Corner, conducted by Andrzej Jarczewski. Then, there was the right time for the first lecture "Graphic Novels: Something for Everyone" by Laura Kaspari Hohmann. Ms. Hohmann briefly described the story of graphic novels from the beginning to the present. Besides, she recommended several titles considering the recent topics for highlighting the main idea of her presentation. The second lecture "The Death and Re-Birth of Comic Books: An Examination of the Last 20 Years of Comic Books" delivered by Christian Dumais, was an amazing journey for the last 20 years of this medium, beginning from Alan Moore's Watchmen, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Art Spiegelman's Maus, finally stopping at a reflection of today's condition of comic books. The question of shaping superhero/ heroine in comic books stories played basically an important role in this reconstruction of "death and rebirth comic books". The last presentation "From the First Sketch to Print: How a Comic Books is Made" by Marek Rudowski was related to the process of creating comic books, moreover, on display there has been an opportunity to see final products of Mr. Rudowski's work. The second exhibition shows a variety of Superman's covers (produced by Andrzej Jarczewski). Both exhibitions are available at American Corner until 25 November. The audience found the comic books event very interesting, taking part actively in discussion at the end of presentations. Let me thank all participants for an unforgettable evening.
Special thanks for Jerzy Rogulski from Embassy of the United States, who helped us to produce the exhibition "From the First Sketch to Print".