May 9, 2020 - Sedat Oezgen from Germany and Artyom Trakhanov from Russia are the new special guests of this year's 14th edition of the Herceg Novi Comic Festival (HSF), which will take place from September 4 to 9 at several locations in Herceg Novi.
Sedat Oezgen was born in the Turkish city of Batman, which is an exceptional curiosity for someone who has become a great comic book artist. Already in his first year of life, with his parents of Kurdish origin, he moved to Germany, where Sedat grew up and fell in love with the world of comics. After studying design and illustration in Münster, he began his professional career by publishing the titles "Lai Van," "Phantom," and "Airboy and Heavenly Fighters" for the American publishing house Moonstone. Since 2014, his dizzying rise in the American market has begun, where he is simultaneously working on a large number of titles from publishing houses such as IDW, Valiant, and Zenescope. He is currently working on the second part of the "Fix" saga for the publisher PKMM Entertainment.
Artyom Trakhanov, born in Siberia, currently lives and works in St. Petersburg. She is one of the leading stars of the prestigious American publishing house Image, which gathers only the world's most exceptional talent and allows authors to have complete creative and financial control over their comics. He gained fame with the titles "Seven Deadly Sins" for the publisher TKO, then "Traitor" for BOOM !, and "Underwater Current" for the already mentioned Image. He is currently working on a new extraordinarily successful and critically accepted series by the publishing house Image - "Protector" with the writer Simon Roy.
The two new special guests of this year's HSF are from countries that have their representatives at the premiere at the most attractive regional festival dedicated to the ninth art. However, unfortunately, due to various circumstances, the list of confirmed guests so far remains at number four, because along with Sedat and Artiom, their arrival was additionally confirmed by PJ Holden from Northern Ireland and Izar Lunacek from Slovenia.
The first announced guest of this year's Herceg Novi Strip Festival, Lola Airagi, who lives and works in Monza, has decided not to travel to any event in 2020 due to coming from one of the most severely affected regions by the coronavirus.
"She asked us to convey to the Herceg Novi audience that we will see each other in 2021. That would be a kind of announcement of the first confirmed guest of the fifteenth edition of HSF," said the organizers of the comic event most influential in this part of Europe.
Also, the sad news arrived last month that the great maestro of Italian comics, Sergio Tiseli, who had previously confirmed his arrival in Herceg Novi as a special guest of the HSF, passed away suddenly at the age of 64.
Uncertainty related to the pandemic caused by the COVID 19 virus greatly complicated the work of the organizers because, in addition to usual preparations, it was necessary to prepare alternative program scenarios depending on the severity of restrictions in international travel and border policy.
"The HSF Comics Fans Association has worked hard in the past two months to prepare for the fourteenth edition of the festival. It is necessary to maintain constant contact with confirmed special guests, music performers, sponsors, and patrons. They all form significant links in the organizational scheme we have established in the last six years. At this moment, it can be said that we are delighted with the attitude of all partners towards HSF and that we will closely monitor the development of the situation in the next 120 days, i.e., until the opening night, September 4. We are optimistic that by then things will be much more precise and that we will have the festival we want and what Herceg Novi deserves ", they say from HSF.
