Berlin continues to promote comics

Berlin’s culture is suffering from the current austerity measures. Numerous established institutions and programs will be drastically scaled back in the coming state budget, and theaters and other institutions fear for their existence.

But at least in one small but nationally valued area there is continuity even in times of need: The Berlin comic funding will continue as planned prior to the recent austerity announcements. This has now been confirmed to the Tagesspiegel by the cultural administration.

The work grants for the art form of comics can therefore be awarded for the current year as planned in the amount of 48,000 euros, as can the cultural exchange grant for comic creators for a stay in the Paris artist apartment of the state of Berlin in the amount of 15,000 euros.

Compared to the budgets in many other cultural sectors, these are only small amounts. But in view of the Senate’s savings announcements totaling three billion euros towards the end of the year, of which at least a three-digit million amount would be lost to culture, there was also great fear in the comics scene that the Berlin grants for the sequential art form could be frozen.

This is not the case now. The cultural administration of Senator Joe Chialo (CDU) is currently in the process of informing the winners of the current funding round. There will soon be a press release with the names of those supported.

The Berlin comic scholarships were introduced in 2017, meaning the capital took on a pioneering role among the federal states. There are now similar funding programs in Hamburg, Bavaria and Lower Saxony, among others.

The scholarships can last four or eight months and are endowed with 2,000 euros per month. In addition, there is the aforementioned foreign scholarship, which finances the stay in the Berlin artist’s apartment in Paris.

More details about this year’s recipients will follow on the Tagesspiegel comic pages as soon as the cultural administration announces them.