[dropcap]O[/dropcap] AltCom 2018 foi a edição deste ano do festival internacional de banda desenhada alternativa e underground, realizado em Malmö, na Suécia, no passado mês de agosto. Este ano, o Alt Com realizou-se em conjunto com o festival de noise Trauma. Tiveram lugar exposições, mercado de livros, paineis, convidados internacionais, duas noites de música e uma antologia do festival. O tema de 2018 foi “Como sobreviver a uma ditadura”.
A antologia do festival é, como habitualmente, grátis, começando inclusivamente a ser distribuída em locais selecionados cerca de 1 mês antes do início do festival.
Desta feita, a antologia de banda desenhada conta com um trabalho do autor português António José Lopes, que já tinha anteriormente sido publicado em antologias portuguesas, como Uma Revolução Desenhada: o 25 de Abril e a BD (Afrontamento, 1999) e Mutate and Survive (Chili Com Carne, 2001).
A lista completa de autores da antologia é:
Manuel Rodriguez
Mattias Elftorp
Katarzyna Dworaczyk
Seif
Radovan Popovicć
Bojan Milojevic / Asterian
Amalia Alvarez
Ivana Armanini
Aiden Kvarnström
Tom Mortimer
Ole Comoll Christensen
Valtteri Tavast
Henna Räsänen
Line Høstrup
Dahmumu
António José Lopes
Samar Elgyar
Ivana Filipovich
Nicolas Krizan
Štěpánka Jislová
Sharad Sharma
Jose Alaniz
Patrick McEvoy & Randy Valiente
Vladimir Trajanovski
Henrik Rogowski
Predrag Duric & Vlado Nikolovski
Johann Ek Carbayu
Jon Cowen
Olivia Skoglund
Sara El-Masry & Saadany
Wojciech Garncarz
Takwa Saleh Zakaria
Jonas Bengt Svensson
Eis a sinopse:
Sweden is normally seen as a true democracy, but we’ve only had universal suffrage for about 100 years and the right to vote can’t be taken for granted in the long run. Even now, there are sections of society not covered by democracy, and there are parts of our lives that we have no direct influence over when we vote every four years. For example, corporations are not democratically structured, even though work takes up so much of our lifetimes. If you are undocumented or homeless, it’s easy to see how you’re not really included in the democratic process. Furthermore, the decisions are made by people who can earn more in a month than many of us get in a whole year.
Sometimes, people are even coming here from other countries to escape dictatorships, but we close the door in their faces as if they were contagious. Loud voices are talking about the dangers of foreigners, especially refugees. As if being born outside Sweden automatically turned you into a scary psycho rapist or terrorist.
This is of course bullshit, perpetuated by the kind of politicians whose goals are to make our democracy even less inclusive and less democratic. It’s important to judge both people and politicians by their actions rather than their rhetoric and nice words. When they claim to love their nation, it’s usually code for something much darker.
Several of the guests at AltCom were born outside Sweden, yet they are hardly scary at all. Rather, they may have valuable experiences to share.
What would happen if, after the election, these loud voices would have enough power to actually abolish democracy for all or parts of the population? How would we handle such a situation? What are our strategies for surviving a dictatorship?
AltCom is not only a comics festival but also a forum for discussing these and similar issues.
Fundador e administrador do site, com formação em banda desenhada. Consultor editorial freelance e autor de livros e artigos em diferentes publicações.
