Reading with Ileana Surducan and Roma Gavrilă

The Romanian comics scene has been booming since the 1990s. Unfortunately, while many pieces from Romanian artists have appeared in English and French translations, they are very hard to find on the German market.

To find out more about Romanian comics, we invited Ileana Surducan and Roma Gavrilă to Modern Graphics Kastanienallee on the 11th of September 2019. They presented their own work and provided insight into the comics scene in Cluj-Napoca (northern Romania). The two artists talked about the founding of the Comics Club Cluj, as well as the club’s workshops and publications that they take part in and contribute to.

The event took place in cooperation with the Centre for East Central and South-East Europe at the Museum of European Cultures – Berlin State Museums.

Ileana Surducan works as a freelance comics artist and illustrator. Her first book, Edouardo le renardeau (Makaka Éditions, scriptwriter Shuky) was published in 2009 in France, followed by Le Cirque – journal d’un dompteur de chaises (Makaka Éditions 2012) and Dolky-n trei straie/Nycko v Banatu (Jumătatea plină 2014, scriptwriter Petra Dobruska). Her most recent publications include Hôtel Pennington (Makaka Éditions 2017, scriptwriter Ced Asna) and Vacanța lui Nor (Minigrafic 2018, in cooperation with Maria Surducan). She also illustrates children’s books and books of poetry, and regularly publishes work in Romanian and international comic anthologies.

Roma Gavrilă works in Cluj-Napoca as a freelance illustrator and comics artist. In the past few years, she has specialised in magazine illustrations, but continues to use the medium of comics in order to examine important social issues, such as domestic violence. Her illustrations have appeared in multiple Romanian online magazines, including Scena 9. In 2015, Gavrilă was a guest at “Graphic Novel Day” at the International Literature Festival in Berlin. She contributed several pieces to the touring exhibition comiXconnection, which has travelled throughout east-central Europe and south-eastern Europe since 2013.