On the importance of "a novel in pictures that is more viewed than read"

Someone could come and steal everything we don't have", is the favorite comic catchphrase of Dr Luka Rakojevića, an art theoretician, who tried to bring the ninth art, as comics are usually called, closer to the Nikšić audience as part of the "Imaginarium" forum.

In conversation with Kristina Radović, author of the forum, art historian and editor of the program at JU "Zahumlje", Rakojević spoke not only about Alan Ford, the holy grail in the Yugoslav territories, as he said, when it comes to comics, but also about the history of comics in the world, but also in Montenegro Gori and the region, about the importance of "novels in pictures that are more viewed than read", as announced in "Politica" of the thirties of the last century, about authors who characterized the ninth art.

Comparing Andrija Maurović, the father of Yugoslav comics, as many call him, and Hugo Pratt, to the cosmopolitan who changed the world history of comics, Rakojević said that both of them were adventurers of the imagination in which sailor adventures prevail and for whom the point of connection was Jack London.

"Maurović wanted to be remembered as a painter, although he did not have a fraction of the fame compared to the fame he received as a cartoonist. He was an illustrator, caricaturist, painter, but he left his deepest mark as a cartoonist," Rakojević said.

Talking about Dušan Vukotić, film director, screenwriter, animator, cartoonist and cartoonist, who won an Oscar in 1962 for the animated film "Surrogate" and was the first foreign author to receive the most prestigious award for cartoons, Rakojević pointed out that he was the most interesting personality of our cultural history of the 146th century, to the innovator who "sharpened his pen through caricature and comics and reached his zenith in Surrogate". He received a UNICEF award for the film "The Game", and he is the winner of XNUMX other awards. He reminded that Vukotić refused after the "Oscar". Walt Disney to make a 52-episode TV series in his famous film industry, but that he refused it because he did not want to "divorce the story" considering that he had said everything he had in ten minutes, and that "accepting the offer would be banalizing art".

It was inevitable to mention it Laza Sredanović and his comic "Dikan and Stari Slaveni" which he drew for "Politik Zabavnik" from 1969.

"The screenwriters changed, but the cartoonist remained the same. Dean is the mascot of the Belgrade Marathon, and a postage stamp was also made," Rakojević reminded.

He pointed out that in Montenegro, when it comes to comics, there is potential, that there are about twenty active and successful authors, that this year the Strip Art Bar festival started, as well as that the Herzegovina Comic Festival moves the boundaries from year to year and just when you if it seems that he cannot do "more and better", he proves that he can.

In accordance with the beginning of the text about comics, it's time to end with another catchphrase from Alan Ford.

"Birds have disappeared because they are not there, and they are not there because they have flown away".

The "Imaginarium" project includes a series of sessions whose basic theme is the phenomenon of images treated through various arts, and comics and images were the topic of the fourth session.