Max Bunker in Zagreb

Last night my girlfriend took me to a comic convention, “crtani romani show” in ZKM in Zagreb, where their guest, Max Bunker, author of the Italian cult comic “Alan Ford”, was answering questions about this serial.

Alan Ford as Bunker said owe it’s Popularity in the countries of Ex- Yugoslavia to Nenad Brixi, the man who didn’t literally translate, but actually invented the expressions in this comic. But what really was especially interesting for me was not the fact that the comic never really had any popularity in other countries except Italy and Yugoslavia, but bunker’s arrogance and the way he tried to ignore every question about Magnus (who was the other part of Magnus & Bunker tandem) and his significance to the serial.

One could get an impression of that famous relationship between coauthors of the comic, where the artist always takes all the fame and the writer ends up with no credits at all. In this case I guess that artist did get all the fame but writer got the riches. I couldn’t stop thinking of Magnus’s later works, Very serious in fact, such as Alias Unknow. And the contrapuntal Alan ford in it’s later years. Maybe Americans can not understand the need to stop the serial when all is drawn from the story and the situation. But we here feel that there is no need to tell the same story again. This situation exists in the Balkan because we never had any comic industry. All was done individually. Because very few authors could actually live from their work there was no need of making things less then fun. And I believe that’s what the comic should be- pure fun. I don’t think someone should reed a comic because of it’s addiction.

One of the attendants noticed that tone equipment was as if it was provided by Grunf (crazy inventor- ex- third reich pilot). Audience in the back, couldn’t hear anything so they started to be sarcastic, and it was strange that max bunker, the legend, wasn’t finding it fun. He actually used all the answers to commercialize his product. It is funny that something you read since you were a little kid and was so incredibly funny and ingenious, could be done by someone so interested in it’s material value. But the strangest thing was that, Bunker was so determent to dement something so obvious, something we all knew, that, same as Magnus drew him self as Bob Rock (one of the characters), he also drew Bunker few times in the comic. Usually Bunker appeared as a suicidal man who is not able to kill him self. And I remember that once he drew him self in the flat of the old building as a poor cartoon artist throwing darts in Bunkers picture on the door. I just feel that I cannot read a comic when I know the author didn’t enjoy making it.