Tel Aviv-Berlin cartoon guide to be launched in 2010
Joint tourist guide for Israeli and German cities, based on cartoons, slated to be launched in 2010. German artists participating in project visit Israel this week
The Israeli Actus group returned from Berlin last month after holding an introductory workshop in the German capital and meeting with the German team participating in the project.
The two groups are working on publishing a creative tourist guide for both cities, inspired by cartoons. The guide will be released as two booklets, in addition to a cartoon film and an audio guidebook for tourists.
Project participants will also try to give a fresh perspective on their own city in addition to their work on the foreign one.
"This won't be a typical tourist guide, nor will it be a comic book," said Itzik Rennert, one of the artists taking part in the project. "It will be a personal observation by each of us on Berlin, a city with great baggage and significance on all levels."
The Actus group, which is showing its works in the Holon Cartoon Museum, includes Jeremy Pincus, Ruth Modan, Mira Freidman, Batya Kolton and Itzik Rennert.
"The tour of Berlin was fascinating to me," Friedman said. "I have never visited it and have good reasons not to like it, and therefore this constitutes a great challenge for me."
The German group includes leading artists and professors from the cartoon, illustration and graphics fields. The guests will give lectures at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and the Shenkar College of Engineering and Design in Ramat Gan.
The guidebooks are slated to be released in March 2010. The launch campaign will include a "comics bus" which will function as a portable library showcasing the guides.
