Translations, Art, Comics, etc.

Some fifteen to twenty SF, fantasy and horror novels, almost exclusively by American and British authors, are being translated annually into the Croatian language. Despite the 1991 – 1995 war, books published in Serbia were also available through various channels. Naturally, the choice of imported books (exclusively in English) is much larger.

The SF art, being tied to book and magazine covers, is not particularly developed in Croatia. Several artists created quite an enviable amount of artwork on the Sirius covers, the best being Miroslav Sinovčić, Vjekoslav Ivezić and Igor Kordej. Among the artists producing in some quantity in the 1990s were Igor Kordej, Esad T. Ribić and the author of this text. Karlo Galeta and Robert Drozd monopolised the Futura covers for several years with their 3D computer-art. A much better computer artist is Goran Šarlija, while Miljenko Zvonar produced a large body of SF art, illustrating the already-mentioned Jutarnji list’s Sunday-supplement stories. Željko Pahek also returned to the Croatian art scene, working mostly in Serbia before the war. He is famous for his SF-art, but also for his hilarious comics, spoofing almost every SF-cliché known to mankind.

We have already seen that the tradition of SF comics in Croatia dates back to the mid-1930s. During the 1950s and 1960s, the best SF-comics authors were brothers Norbert and Walter Neugebauer, who also started their career before the Second World War. Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, the best new authors were Radovan Devlić, Igor Kordej, Goran Delić and Krešimir Zimonić. During 1990s, the situation with comics in Croatia was poor indeed. No comic magazine succeeded in running regularly and for any period of time, so the scene was mostly oriented towards fanzines and school-magazines. Foreign comics translated into Croatian were also quite sparse. Things have recently improved considerably, however, with new SF comics being translated into Croatian in ever-increasing numbers and magazines gaining some hold. More important, the Croatian comic artists have a relatively long tradition of working for foreign publishers. This continued in the 1990s with the breakthrough on the American market, mostly in the franchise-universe and super-hero series by Dark Horse, Marvel, Antarctic Press and DC. The best-known writer in this field is Darko Macan, while the art was produced by late Edvin Biuković, Igor Kordej, Goran Parlov, Esad T. Ribić, Goran Sudžuka, Milan Trenc and Danijel Žeželj.

The SF-theory work was until very recently sporadic at best, but we must mention Darko Suvin here. One of the world foremost SF theoreticians, he was born in 1930 in Zagreb, but, after editing the anthology Od Lukijana do Lunjika (From Lukian To Lunik) in 1965, he continued his career in the USA and Canada from the late 1960s.

F Is For Fandom

The organised fandom in Croatia dates back to 1976 (the year of Sirius!), when the SF-club SFera was founded in Zagreb. It was followed by more clubs, including the StarWars and the Star Trek club. As is usual, these clubs have been involved in convention-organising and fanzines-publishing, the oldest fanzine being SFera’s own Parsek, started in 1977. Parsek reached issue #106 in April 2009, thus being by far the longest-running fanzine in Croatia. Considering the current absence of a monthly magazine, the importance of Parsek exceeds that of a regular fanzine.

Perhaps the true phenomenon of the Croatian fandom are conventions. At this moment, Croatia has annual conventions in Zagreb, Kutina, Pazin, Opatija, Rijeka and Osijek. To these, one must add gaming conventions and LARP events, as well as the Jules Verne’s Days and The Festival Of Fantastic Literature, both held annually in Pazin.

SFeraKon in Zagreb is the oldest convention in Croatia, running from 1977. It is organised by the SFera club and is now held on the last full weekend of April at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences in Zagreb. SFeraKon attracts up to 1000 visitors (other conventions are smaller), offering the usual convention programme, lectures, movies, costumes and gaming, as well as being an opportunity for fans and professionals to meet and exchange ideas. SFERA Awards are also given for the best SF stories of various lengths, plays, novels, art and life-achievements. These are the traditional annual awards, first given in 1981.

In recent years, SFeraKon invited quite an enviable number of foreign GOHs, including Martin Easterbrook, Gay Gavriel Kay, Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber, Walter Jon Williams, Lois McMaster Bujold, George R. R. Martin, Ken MacLeod, Michael Iwoleit (German writer, editor and translator), Michael Swanwick, Bruce Sterling, Richard Morgan and R. Scott Bakker. This is a continuation of good international relationships maintained during the 1970s and 1980s, when names such as Frederik Pohl, Jack Williamson, Brian W. Aldiss, James Gunn, Bob Shaw, Richard D. Nolan, Sam J. Lundwall, Joe Haldeman, Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Gianfranco Viviani and Gerald Webb visited Zagreb and/or Croatia, either as SFeraKon or Eurocon 86 guests, or on some other official occasion.

Istrakon in Pazin is now firmly established as the second-largest Croatian SF convention. Held in March, it is now running for seven consecutive years, and is attracting some 500 visitors looking for a lot of fun and good times in the beautiful surroundings of central Istria. Istrakon begun inviting foreign GOHs in 2006, the first being Brian W. Aldiss. Essekon in Osijek is also a convention with some tradition, while Liburnikon in Opatija and Rikon in Rijeka are rapidly establishing themselves as popular events. Unfortunately, Kutikon in Kutina seems defunct, but there are news of new conventions and events being planned all over Croatia.

The spread of Internet provided a further impetus to the growth of the Croatian fandom. There is a number of web-sites and forums dedicated to all aspects of speculative fiction in the broadest sense, and there is also a marked rise of the blog scene. Besides the usual fandom communication, the Internet scene in general supports new aspiring writers, through on-line magazines (most notably, NOSF – www.nosf.net), on-line literary workshops and blog-stories, thus alleviating the present lack of a regular (semi-)professional magazine.

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