Stripburger at the Cross Comix Festival 2025
12.–13. 9. 2025, Rotterdam, Netherlands
crosscomix.eu
The Dutch festival Cross Comix has been held in Rotterdam since 2016. This year’s edition will also feature a two-person delegation from Stripburger, made up of comics critic and editor Katja Štesl and comics artist and visual artist Klara Kracina.
The two-day festival program includes talks, exhibitions, workshops, presentations, and a small press fair. This year, the festival’s special thematic focus is on female comic artists and how they have co-shaped and transformed the comics scene over the past fifty years, ever since Claire Bretécher became the first woman to receive the Grand Prix at Angoulême in 1975.
The main festival exhibition, titled Women to Women, will feature works by over 20 European female artists, including Klara Kracina. In the esteemed company of authors like Alison Bechdel, Liv Strömquist, and Ulli Lust, Klara will present her comic Silicon BBL. The comic was created last year in Zagreb during a comics residency for the international project Women Power in Comics, and was published in the latest issue of Stripburger #85.
A selection of Stripburger’s latest magazine and book releases will be on display and for sale at the two-day fair. On Saturday, September 13, visitors can also attend a presentation about the magazine, with an emphasis on its international collaborations. Katja Štesl, a member of the Stripburger editorial team, will also take part in the Meet the Editors event, where young comics artists will have the opportunity to consult with editors of different comic magazines and get feedback on their work.
PROGRAM:
Makers market, fair / De Doelen, Rotterdam
Fri, 12. 9. 2025, 12.00–18.00
Sat, 13. 9.2025, 11.00–17.00
Women to Women, exhibition / De Doelen, Rotterdam
Fri–Sat, 12.–13. 9. 2025, 11.00–17.00
Meet the Editor, portfolio review / De Doelen, Rotterdam
Fri, 12. 9. 2025, 13.00–14.00 & 17.00–18.00
Meet Stripburger, presentation / De Doelen, Rotterdam
Sat, 2. 10. 2023, 13.00–13.30
For more information on the program, visit the festival website.
Klara Kracina (1999) graduated in painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 2022 and is currently completing her MA in painting. Her areas of independent work include painting, printmaking, drawing, comics and installation art. In her individual work she deals with personal issues of identity, national consciousness and collective nostalgia, but she also raises socially critical issues, which she addresses in her work through humour and cynicism. So far, she has had six solo exhibitions. She has also participated in several group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad.
Katja Štesl (1991) is a comics critic and a member of the editorial board of Stripburger. She writes comics reviews and articles for various journals and is mainly interested in contemporary alternative comics. She engages with the comics scene by giving lectures about comics for schoolchildren and adults, hosting talks with authors, and promoting local comics creativity at international festivals and fairs abroad.
International activities of the Stripburger magazine are co-funded by the Slovenian Book Agency.
