Kings and Jokes: what was the first pop culture festival in six years?

The creator of the cult "Kuzhlevka", the Croatian comic book author with world fame and the star ensemble of the feature film "The King and the Fool. Forever" told Izvestia exclusive details of their new projects at the Comic Con Igromir 2025 festival. It was held in Moscow from December 12 to December 14. What turned out to be a federal-scale geek event, and why people stood in queues for hours in the cold — in the Izvestia report.

What is Comic Con Igromir?

The Comic Con Igromir Mass Culture Festival ended its work on December 14 at the Timiryazev Center in Moscow. For three days, the venue gathered fans of movies, TV series, comics and video games, offering a rich program with the participation of Russian and foreign guests.

As in the distant 2019, when the festival was held the previous time, already on the morning of the first day there was a long queue — for one and a half to two hours - at the pavilion, there were no free hangers in the wardrobe, and at the ticket office: both regular and VIP tickets were sold out. The audience obviously missed the event, because in the pandemic year 2020, the festival was forced to switch to an online format, and then took a break for five years.

One of the central events this time was a meeting with Marvel artist Esad Ribich, known for his work on the series "Thor" and "Silver Surfer". The author talked with the visitors of the festival, answered questions about his career and approach to creating comics. In a conversation with Izvestia, he said that he was pleasantly surprised by Moscow and its hospitality.

In addition, the guests of Comic Con Igromir were the first to see the finale of the second season of the Cyber Village series.

The musical part of the opening was presented by the Symphonic Imperial Orchestra. He performed compositions from the popular film franchises "Star Wars", "The Lord of the Rings", "Harry Potter", as well as music from animated films by Hayao Miyazaki. The performance of the artist Lida was the end of the first day.

One of the most striking announcements of the festival was the presentation of the film "The King and the Fool. Forever", which will be released in Russia and the CIS countries on February 19, 2026. The audience was shown a spectacular trailer, and the stars of the film took part in an autograph session, which caused a serious stir.

Daria Melnikova, the performer of the main female role, believes that the film turned out to be more "meaty" than the series released two years earlier.

— We have already decided on the genre, realized which way we are going, and have become bolder, especially in terms of fantasy. It wasn't as much of a test story as the series," she said. — Our director Rustam Mosafir does just that — he experiments on the go. Your task as an artist is to catch his ideas and immediately implement them. It was a very fun ride, but without sleep or food. I saw how the whole group worked fantastically to implement his ideas.

The heroine is different from the serial version, Melnikova believes. She is more of a Widow than a living person, the wife of a Pot. There was more of a living woman in the series—a Potty's wife—and less of a Widow. There are much more Widows in the film. It's almost not a wife at all, but some kind of third character, she believes.

"I'm always worried, but when I go out on set, I just focus on what's happening around me," Melnikova explained. — There's such an atmosphere that you immediately understand how to exist. Gradually, everything comes into a common state — a kind of mantra arises, and you get into this rhythm. It's a punk rock mantra.

The Hatters band took part in recording songs for the film, whose leader Yuri Muzychenko honestly admitted that he had never been a big fan of The King and the Fool, but at the same time approached the soundtrack with his usual professionalism.

— In the song "The Witch and the Donkey", the musicians of "The King and the Fool" themselves make a characteristic sound — "I-a, I-a, I-a". We couldn't repeat it, so we used a neural network to cut this voice from the original. And in our cover, these "I-a, I-a" are actually the original recording. We'll also add a little disco there," Muzychenko told Izvestia.

What happened on Igromir

The organizers divided the festival into two parts — one for fans of pop culture, the second for gamers. There was no clear division in the exhibition halls themselves. At the same time, there were no problems with navigation, there were diagrams, pointers and explanations everywhere.

One of the largest booths belonged to the creators of the game Arknight: Enfield by Hypergryph studio. According to the company's representative, they were glad to take part in Igromir and were pleasantly surprised by the attention they received from Russian players.

—The Arknights: Enfield team received positive feedback from two thousand visitors to the exhibition who played the new game at the stand, which will be released on January 22," he explained to Izvestia.

Visitors were invited to try out new game items at the stands of Russian and foreign developers. Among them is the alpha version of the adventure RPG "Cyberslav: Eclipse".

— At the end of last year, the first episode of the series "Cyberslav" was released, and we saw a huge demand from audiences of different ages for this content and the world it shows. The style of the series itself has gone very far — beautiful and unusual animation, there were very positive reviews," said Vladimir Tolmachev, head of the Plus Gaming service.

According to him, the trend towards a reinterpreted, modern "Russianness" is noticeable not only in games, but also in various industries.

— "Cyberslav" is an interesting reworking of the Old Slavic context into a technological, modern form. Such games, based on national flavor and culture, exist outside of any agenda, trends or time. It is always relevant. These are full-fledged games with an original world that may be of interest to an international audience. The Slavic bias here does not make the project heavier, but adds something new, cool and interesting to it," Vladimir Tolmachev explained the decision to create the game Cyberslav: Eclipse.

Visitors could also try out such novelties as the action adventure "War of the Worlds: Siberia", positioned as the world's first ballet action slasher project "Tsarevna", as well as the game "Epic", based on Slavic fairy tales and legends. Special attention was drawn to "Dogistan", a project based on the popular comic book of the same name.

One of the large booths was an indie zone with 15 different projects. According to Vlad Korobov, CEO of Weloveplayers, who brought together different projects in one place, Igromir provided an opportunity to show the best projects from independent authors and receive extensive feedback. Most of the presented projects also carried social tasks, among such games: "Birch Children", "Cage", "Kanun 1919".

— This is our second project in a row that finds a large-scale response from the audience. If the first hit was "Kuzhlevka", now it's a "Cage" game. For its foreign version, we practically did not change the name — we used the word "cage," said Asker Unaev, narrative director of the Callback studio.

The authors of the Multitales game about the adventures of Little Red Riding Hood with a shotgun, Mikhail and Polina Kudryavtsev, told that last time at Igromir 2019 they made a wish — to get to the exhibition next time with their stand. The couple now have their own studio, Norllina, and they are impressed by the revived format.

Game director of the game "Children of the Birch" Stepan Kuznetsov said that students from various universities were involved in the development of the project, most of all from the Russian State University of MIREA and Baumanka.

After a seven-year hiatus, the issue of Igromania magazine resumed. The premiere of the new number, which took place on December 12 on the main stage, was a highlight of the first day of the festival. After that, the entire print run was sold out.

— When we rushed to Igromir with a printed batch of magazines, we expected success. And it broke apart in the first four hours. More arrived by lunchtime. Fortunately, we had time. We did not expect such an extravaganza and excitement. And what is important is that it continued on the second and the third day. We will not disclose the exact figures, but now we can say with confidence that printed "Gambling addiction" is needed. And, judging by the reaction, many people need it," explained Viktany Volkov, editor—in-chief of the magazine.

The next Igromir Comic Con will be held from October 30 to November 1, 2026. Moreover, tickets for it will be on sale starting from this December 15, 2025.