Alan Ford Runs a Lap of Honour

Only a small amount of comic books and in general “non-native cultural products” were able to get under the skin of formerly unified Southern Slavs and stay there to this day despite numerous political changes. One of them is definitely Alan Ford. It has captivated the readers with dark comedy, social satire, the irony and its surrealism. This comic book is not politically correct – nobody is on its safe side. The most interesting thing about it must be the discussed political and social events that make it almost a prophet. In fact, we now exist in a comic-like world, which we used to make fun of.

Its creators are the Italians Luciano Secchi – Bunker and Roberto Raviola – Magnus who worked together from 1969 to 1975. This exhibition hence comprises the comic book pages from their joint creative era. A Yugoslavian translation of the comic by Nenad Brixy came to life already in 1970 and Branko Gradišnik translated it to Slovene only in 1993. Alan Ford is not just a comic book, it is an institution. Its influence in former common country of Yugoslavia is immense.

162 original comic book pages are thus on view. Up until now, the biggest exhibition with 30 original pages took place in 2017 in Rome. With this currently “world’s biggest exhibition” we wish to attest the deep-rootedness of Alan Ford in our cultural region and to properly honour, with an accompanying catalogue (texts in Slovenian, Italian and Croatian), the 50th anniversary of our faithful companion.

Author of the exhibition and project leader
Rok Glavan

Professional associates
Andrej Smrekar, Samo Pureber

Graphic design
Ranko Novak

Texts by
Lazar Džamić, Rok Glavan

Translation
Katarina Korenak, Lazar Džamić

Coordination of the exhibition
Nataša Braunsberger, Andrej Smrekar

Complementary programming
Nataša Braunsberger

Photography
© Copyright 2019 by Max Bunker. Used by permission.