Comics in Chile

In Santiago, I visited another contact that Cristian gave me. Carlos Reyes met me at the subway station and accompanied me to his house. Carlos is part of Ergocomics. Winning a contest for a government grant, Ergocomics has published yearly non-fiction collections about Chilean comics, among other things.

Carlos shared info from his vast wealth of knowledge on Chilean comics, including self-publishing. Often times, he explained, the money creators make from sales barely serve to publish future works and there is little money to dedicate to PR and business relations. As a result, distribution is the among the largest challenges.

Carlos, who is a writer, and his collegues do not limit their art to comics. They also produce works in graphic design, photography, prose, poetry and other artforms. Pictured above is Carlos with one of a series of pamphlets that serve as an example of how they mix various media. This particular pamphlet illustrates a trip to a comic convention in Bolivia.











After meeting with Carlos, I went to an exhibition of Belgian and Chilean works. Guests of mixed age and gender attended. Some works (see photos) took advantage of the museum setting to experiment with novel formats.