Stefano Ricci resembles an explorer when he works on his sketches with a wide variety of materials such as oil pastels, adhesive tape and pencils, tracing paper and spray paint cans to form contours and plays of light or to emphasize blurriness. His works focus on topics such as everyday fears, the relationship between the individual and the environment or the search for identity. The stories are often fragmented, which leaves the recipient a lot of room for interpretation.

Since the mid-1980s, Stefano Ricci’s work has been published in international journals and magazines. His work focuses on comics and animated films, but he also works on theatre, dance and film productions. Since 1995, he has been managing the publishing house Edizioni Grafiche Squadro together with Giovanna Anceschi, which specializes in avant-garde comics and illustrations. Ricci has received several awards for his design and illustration projects and is co-founder of Sigaretten Edizioni. He teaches at the Università degli Studi di Udine, at the University of Applied Arts Hamburg and at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna.

Illustrator & graphic novel author
born 1966, Croatia.

Danijel Žeželj’s pictures thrive on the in-between – the strong contrast between light and shadow. In his works he often deals with existential questions such as social injustice and manages like hardly any other artist to create an intense atmosphere with just a few lines, hatching and very minimal use of color. His drawings are reminiscent of dark film sequences that, when viewed, evoke deep emotions.

Danijel Žeželj studied classical painting, sculpture and printmaking at the Akademija Likovnih Umjetnosti in Zagreb. His comics and illustrations have been published by DC Comics, Marvel, Harper’s Magazine, San Francisco Guardian and others. Since 1997 he has also been creating multimedia performances in which he combines live music and live painting in an emotional way. In 2001 he founded the publishing house and graphic workshop „Petikat“. Most recently Žeželj worked on a series of animated films for the film studio „Zagreb Film“.

Danijel Žeželj

Illustrator, Photographer & Filmmaker
born 1960, USA.

Batman is the main reason George Pratt became an artist. As a child he spent a lot of time in hospital. That was when the Batman series first aired on TV and he became addicted to it. His family then provided him with numerous comics and sparked a passion that never left him. Many of Pratt’s works deal with war, trauma and the psychological consequences of violence. In his first graphic novel, „Enemy ace: War Idyll“, he lets two soldiers from the First World War and the Vietnam War meet. They reflect on similar experiences, even though they fought in wars that were decades apart.

George Pratt studied at the Pratt Institute in New York and is now one of the best contemporary artists in the field of comics and graphic novels. Using special printing techniques such as monotype or acrylic painting with a rubber roller, he finds an individual language for each project. His numerous awards include the Eisner Award and an honor at the New York International Independent Film Festival for the documentary film „See You In Hell, Blind Boy.“

George Pratt

Thierry Van Hasselt is a Belgian artist who has been experimenting with the boundaries between comics, animation, set design, and literature for over twenty years. His works are created in collaboration with choreographer Karine Pontier and writer Mylène Lauzon, among others. Thierry masterfully visualizes emotions using often unconventional design techniques, ensuring that his work leaves no one untouched.

Thierry Van Hasselt studied comics at the Institut Saint-Luc in Brussels. After graduating, he co-founded the alternative comic publisher Fréon with friends in 1994, which merged with the French publisher Amok in 2001 to form FRÉMOK. In addition to his work as an illustrator, Thierry now teaches comic drawing at the school where his career began.

Illustrator & Graphic Novelist
born 1975, Germany

David von Bassewitz is one of the most influential illustrators of his generation. His graphic narratives are influenced by film, both in terms of image composition and editing. The narrative itself, as Bassewitz once described it, does not take place on a canvas or paper, but exclusively in the viewer’s mind.

Von Bassewitz studied film and media studies at the University of Erlangen and illustration at the University of Applied Sciences in Würzburg. In 2010 he was named Best Illustrator by the Art Directors Club Europe. His illustrations appear in Die Zeit, stern and Le Nouvel Observateur and have been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London, among others. He has been a lecturer at the Art Directors Club for Germany (ADC) since 2014. David von Bassewitz published his first graphic novel, “Vasmers Bruder”, in 2014.

Benjamin Flao is known for his socially and culturally profound stories, which are often based on his own observations in countries such as Africa or South America. Sketchy lines, strong hatching, lively textures and an impressionistic play of light and shadow are characteristic of his drawing style. There is a touch of melancholy that lies over many of his pictures and comics, making them haunting contemporary witnesses.

At the age of 14, Benjamin Flao left school and enrolled at the École Supérieure des Arts Saint-Luc in Belgium. Two years later, he went to Lyon to specialize in comics, cartoons and illustrations at the famous École Emile Cohl. Since 1998, Flaó has made several trips by motorbike through Africa, particularly through Burkina Faso and Eritrea, which he documented in drawings. His stays in Kenya inspired him to write the visually stunning graphic novel “ Kililana Song“ – his first own comic book publication.

illustrator
born 1963, Germany

Dieter Jüdt studied illustration and book design at the Trier University of Applied Sciences and has published several illustrated books, artist books and some graphic novels. He illustrates and designs books for international publishers, newspapers and magazines such as „Spex – Magazine for Pop Culture“ and Mare. He is a member of Poste Aérienne, a German-Belgian-Korean artist and graphic designer collective. He is also the editor of the reading book „45 – A Single Cover Album“ about illustration and pop music and the author of a basic book on visual storytelling. Together with Andreas Rauth and Falk Nordmann, he curates Jitter’s Wunderblock, an interdisciplinary series of events on illustration and art.