Crosscomix in Rotterdam | 12-13 September

The Cross Comix Festival 2025 takes place on Friday, September 12, and Saturday, September 13, at De Doelen in Rotterdam.

The venue will host two days filled with talks, exhibitions, workshops, residencies, book presentations, performances, a makers’ market, a kiosk, and more. This year’s focus is on the impact of women in comics over the past fifty years. The starting point is Claire Bretécher’s milestone in 1975, when she became the first woman to receive a major comics award at Angoulême. Since then, many voices have reshaped and redefined the medium. An exhibition will highlight work by more than twenty European creators from 1975 to 2025, showing the range of styles and stories that have emerged.

Drawing the Times is actively supporting and contributing to crosscomix!

Please check out the “morning talk” by our editor Merel Barends. She will talk about her own work, and her inspirations. Our regular contributor Tânia Alexandra Cardoso will present her book, which is based on her artistic-scholarly research on the public space in urban environments. The Russian graphic journalist Victoria Lomasko, who also contributed to Drawing the Times, will give a talk about visual reportages.

Aimee de Jongh, another close friend of Drawing the Times, will attend crosscomix to give (a.o) an afternoon talk.  Our Slovenian colleagues from pioneering underground comics heroes Stripburger are there to advise early-career comics writers on their portfolio.