Flitsinterview Boban Savic
Who are your main influences as an artist?
In the past, there were a lot of artists whose works I enjoyed and that influenced my work. Some of them belong to the world history of art (like the Baroque era), some belong to the contemporary time and some of them have become my personal friends. I will not give specific names here because it would be pointless to list them without explaining why and in what way but in this short interview, it is not possible
What is your opinion on the Serbian cultural climate?
Serbia as a state has a lot of problems. This also relates to institutional cultural climate. But paradoxically, for me as a creative person it is very inspiring to live in such an environment.
What can you tell about Serbian comics?
In Serbia, the readers of comic books belong to the younger and middle generations. There are few domestic comics publishers, butthey are mainly oriented to high quality editions in every sense. At this time there are a lot of Serbian authors who create comics on a professional level, but it is difficult to talk about the Serbian comic scene because most of them work for foreign publishers. It is specific irony that the domestic authors in Serbia can be read mostly through licensing of foreign editions.
When you read a book, do you always think about how you would illustrate it?
Not necessarily. Sometimes Uncertainty is the important aspect of storytelling and visualization of such things can destroy universality. Sometimes even in my head I like to keep things indefinite ... I read the book in a different way when I take the role of the illustrator. You have illustrated Farmer Giles of Ham. What is your opinion on Tolkien?
Tolkien's world is one of the most inspiring literary universes. Farmer Giles is not overburdened by too earlier visualizations as is the case with some more famous novels of Tolkien. In such a situation, illustrators vision is much less constrained. I've truly enjoyed illustrating this book and have the desire to do some more artwork on the same topic.
