El universo del cómic y la cultura pop en Polonia tiene una rica historia y una vibrante escena actual, con eventos que atraen a miles de aficionados. Desde exposiciones que celebran el arte del cómic polaco hasta grandes convenciones como la Warsaw Comic Con, el país se consolida como un punto de encuentro para creadores y seguidores.
Exposiciones de Cómic Polaco en España
Del 24 de enero al 16 de marzo, el Palacio Quintanar de Segovia acoge la exposición “El cómic polaco aterriza en España”. Esta muestra es una selección del trabajo de 50 artistas polacos, organizada por el Instituto Polaco de Cultura en colaboración con el Palacio Quintanar y la Junta de Castilla y León. La exposición está cofinanciada por el Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio Nacional con el Fondo de Promoción de la Cultura y de la ciudad de Jelenia Góra (Polonia). Esta actividad forma parte de la programación cultural de la presidencia de Polonia del Consejo de la Unión Europea (enero-junio 2025).
La exposición presenta las obras de cincuenta dibujantes polacos. Si tuviéramos que señalar una tendencia que une a los autores polacos y los distingue del cómic europeo, sería la tendencia hacia el cómic artístico. Comisariada por Piotr Machłajewski, la exposición presenta sobre todo obra de creadores contemporáneos, pero también los precursores del cómic del siglo XIX y los artistas que trabajaron antes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y durante la época el comunismo. Los cómics polacos contemporáneos se desarrollan principalmente como una forma de arte, no como entretenimiento comercial.
Historia del Cómic en Polonia
Aunque los orígenes de historias ilustradas en Polonia se remontan a la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, la aparición de una prensa libre tras la recuperación de la independencia de Polonia en 1918 puede considerarse el punto de inflexión para el desarrollo del cómic en Polonia. Las historias publicadas entonces eran una combinación de dibujos y texto por debajo de las imágenes. Algunas de esas historietas eran copias de publicaciones extranjeras.
Tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial, las autoridades comunistas se mostraron al principio reacias, al considerar el cómic como un género propio de la cultura popular estadounidense. Sin embargo, a finales de la década de 1950, el cómic volvió a cobrar fuerza. En la década de 1980, aparecieron nuevos cómics al calor del creciente interés por las tendencias de ciencia ficción y fantasía, entre ellos el primero destinado a un público adulto, «Funky Koval». El año 1989 supuso un cambio, al traer a Polonia docenas de títulos y series extranjeras hasta entonces inasequibles, que dominaron el mercado del cómic.
Warsaw Comic Con: El Gran Evento de Cultura Pop
The Warsaw Comic Con is an annual pop culture fan convention held in Warsaw, Poland. First established in 2017, it is the second largest festival of this kind in Poland, after Pyrkon, and is organized in Ptak Warsaw Expo. The Warsaw Comic Con is dedicated to comic books, computer games, TV series, science-fiction, fantasy, anime, manga, horror and cosplay fans and enthusiasts. It takes place twice a year and is divided into the Spring and the Autumn Editions.
El evento cuenta con actores y celebridades populares del mundo del cine, series de televisión, videojuegos y cómics, y ofrece a los visitantes la oportunidad de conocer actores, escritores, profesionales del cómic, jugadores de e-sport y personalidades de YouTube. Se pueden asistir a mesas redondas y participar en entrevistas, así como adquirir gadgets relacionados con el género, videojuegos, cómics, artículos de cosplay, vídeos y varios coleccionables.
We are aware that we have been holding back for a long time with the announcement of the new Warsaw Comic Con date, but firstly, we wanted to choose a safe date, and secondly - we had to make sure that all the stars who had confirmed their participation earlier would appear during the next edition of the festival. Now we can assure you that despite the new date, agreed with the global organizers of Comic Con, we managed to maintain cooperation with the already announced stars and we are very happy to announce that the 6th edition of the Greatest Pop Culture Festival in Poland will start in the spring of 2022! But it is not everything! Full of gratitude for your patience, we do everything to make the next edition of the festival a RECORD-BREAKING! Currently, to guarantee you the power of impressions during the next edition of Warsaw Comic Con, we are in the process of talking to other actors that you may know from such series as: Stranger Things, The Witcher, Money Heist, Lucifer, Locke & Key, Sex Education, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina or Tiny Pretty Things! In addition, due to the invitation of a huge number of stars - the next edition of Warsaw Comic Con will be extended by an additional day, which means that 4 days full of attractions await you! We believe that the new date will allow us to run the festival in a completely safe way. Be with us during this special edition! As every year, the program of events will include cosplayers presenting their creations and competing on stage, board game zones, as well as a comic book zone - rich in comic competitions and works made by the most popular artists from Poland and around the world. During the event, you will be able to get a lot of atmospheric gadgets, T-shirts and trinkets that will embellish your rooms, fill your collections and make your hard days at school or at work. We would like to assure you that all previously purchased tickets and vouchers will remain valid on the new date of the event. We will make every effort to ensure that the 6th edition of the Warsaw Comic Con festival provides a lot of impressions to all its participants. We can’t wait to get together again to celebrate the biggest pop culture event in this part of Europe! Join us at Warsaw Comic Con!
Desafíos y Evolución de las Convenciones en Polonia
The majority of Polish conventions are made by fans for fans and they aren’t run for profit. Still, with fandom being relatively big, it was only a matter of time when commercial cons would appear. Europe Comic Con was announced last year and was supposed to take place in 2016 in Kielce. Unfortunately concom made some mistakes and the convention was cancelled, then moved to 2017, and then cancelled altogether. Quite soon after that, a German company decided to run Comic Con Warszawa in the second week of June 2017, and not a long time afterwards, Ptak Warsaw Expo announced their plans to organize Warsaw Comic Con in the first weekend of June. People were constantly mixing the two Comic Cons - Warsaw Comic Con and Comic Con Warszawa. Both were supposed to take place in June in Warsaw and both were promising a lot.
The Yellow Comic Con did not start too well. News on their fanpage seemed to be translated by Google translate and people were not so eager to attend it. Although content for the Blue one was prepared in Polish, a lot of us were also sceptical. Their fanpage was growing very slowly and at the same time they said they are the best and the biggest convention in Poland. This was definitely quite a bold statement, considering it was the first occurrence of Comic Con and we already have Pyrkon that has over 40 000 members. In the end, less than a month before the Yellow one, it was announced that Yellow and Blue Comic Cons are joining forces and therefore the Yellow one will be cancelled, but the Blue one will accept their tickets. To spice things up, the news was first demented by the fanpage of the Blue Comic Con, but later on the comment was removed and they confirmed the fact that they would accept tickets, but not a word was said about joining forces.
From the very first moment Comic Con in Poland was announced, I knew I would not go there. I am not really interested in TV series nor too strongly in comics. I also love fan-run conventions but am not into for profit events. Still, when I started this blog, I decided it might be good to go, if only to describe what the first such event looked like. As I mentioned before, the organizers wanted to have “hype” around their event. In their ads, they used statements that were rather not true. The convention was supposed to be held together with Good Game Expo - an event that was taking place for the second time and that was criticized by many.
The convention was held in a building of Ptak Warsaw Expo in Nadarzyn - a small village 22 km away from the Warsaw city center. It was possible to get there by public transport but it would take over an hour and the buses were going there only once per hour… Fortunately, the team announced that there will be free buses taking people from three stops in Warsaw directly to the convention. It was scheduled to run once per hour on Thursday and Friday and every 15 minutes on Saturday and Sunday. When I saw the bus coming I was really happy despite it being slightly late. I was definitely unhappy when it didn’t stop as people inside it were already squeezed way over the limit of the bus. I made a quick decision to try with the next bus on its first stop. When I arrived, there was already a large crowd of people waiting. They mentioned that the organizers announced that bus will be running every 30 minutes. Finally the next bus came and I barely got inside. Again, we did not stop on any other stop as the doors to the bus barely closed.
The convention venue was really huge and built to host expo events, so there was plenty of space for dealers. I saw a lot of companies that were well known to me as well as few I didn’t know. The second big hall housed dealers/presenters from the video gaming industry. According to the map I received upon entrance, there should have been three halls, but it seemed that the third one was closed… I spoke to a few of my friends who were dealers and they were not really satisfied when it comes to people buying stuff. There was a space with foodtrucks between the halls, offering a variety of meals, including chocolate kebab. In the halls there were few programme rooms. The main disadvantage was lack of doors. Because of that, the noise from the dealers’ hall (and from other programme rooms) was coming in. It would not be such a big problem if a proper sound system was in place in all the rooms. This was unfortunately not the case. In some of them, the sound carried very well. I was interested in a few items that took place in the Pop culture room and in the science room. I really regret that I did not attend all of them but as my time was limited and I really wanted to spend part of it talking to friends I had to choose something. A part of the programme was held on the stages. The list of invited guests included a few actors known from popular TV series like Carice van Houten playing Melisandre in GoT or RJ Mite who played in Breaking Bad. I also observed the autograph session scheduled for Dawid Kwiatkowski - a Polish pop singer. Charles Dance was one of the best known actors who was to attend the convention. On the third day of the convention it was announced that he would not make it. Unfortunately, I did not feel great during the one day I spent at Warsaw Comic Con. I felt a little bit lost and out of place. I cannot blame the organizers for that - maybe it was just me and my expectations for CC. There were a lot of people who seemed happy. I believe that Warsaw Comic Con was the first convention for many of them and I hope they enjoyed it. I do hope some of them will take to visiting fan-run events. Most probably I will not visit the second Warsaw Comic Con but I hope it will be better organized next time. I think that the first Polish Comic Con wasn’t good, but it wasn’t a total disaster either.
La Fiesta del Libro de Langreo 2026 contará este año con una destacada participación polaca, gracias a la presencia de la investigadora y escritora Monika Glosowitz y de la fotógrafa Karolina Jonderko. ¡Empieza la primavera aprendiendo polaco! La nueva antología de narrativa breve polaca será la protagonista del ciclo “Puentes de papel”, organizado por el Ayuntamiento de Vejer de la Frontera.
