Graphik: Dominik Wendland © Goethe-Institut New Delhi

About the project and its makers

Around the world with a pencil

The theme of travel plays a significant role in several art forms – be it in literature, as in Goethe’s Italian Journey; in film, as in Wim Wenders road movie Paris, Texas; or in music, as in Richard Strauss’s An Alpine Symphony, to mention a few examples. However, the comic book and the graphic novel as an art form have not yet been given the attention they deserve in the field of travel.

This is something we want to change.

Our website Graphic Travelogues highlights the travel experiences of comic-book artists, identifies recurring themes and creates a platform for their works.

The Goethe-Institut across the world works regularly with comic-book artists and therefore here itself we have a huge stock of sketches, books, graphic novels, graphic diaries, graphic travelogues and travel drawings. Prepared, discovered, safe and ready to be made accessible to all, because some of the many treasures are tucked away, in private archives, on servers, in drawers. This now comes to an end. Since 2019 we have been collecting and sifting through all the Graphic Travelogues. We came up with our first, of course very subjective selection, and then took a decision on the spot: the site must and will grow. By adding new comic books and graphic artists from all parts of the world.

We are eager to see where else this journey will take us.

Concept and implementation:
Erdmuthe Hacken, Nikos Itsines, Annika Knöpfle, Thomas Meyer in collaboration with the agency 3pc
Idea:
Heiko Sievers
Translation:
Ritu Khanna, Faith Ann Gibson
Social Media Marketing:
Aarushi Khanna, Safurat Balogun in collaboration with the agency WeBeeSocial

Our Experts

Barbara Buchholz

Barbara Buchholz writes on graphic novels for the German daily, Tagesspiegel (www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/comics) and for the magazines Comixene (www.comixene.com) and Strapazin (www.strapazin.de). She is a member of the jury for the Comicbuchpreis awarded by the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung for graphic novels (www.leibinger-stiftung.de/de/comicbuchpreis).

Stefan Mesch

Stefan Mesch is a book, TV and graphic novel critic, lives in Berlin and outside Heidelberg, and writes for the German news magazine Spiegel Online and for the daily paper taz. He studied creative writing and cultural journalism in Hildesheim, is working on a novel “Zimmer voller Freunde” (Room Full of Friends) and, every year since 2016, has been appearing on Deutschlandfunk Kultur, a radio station for cultural programmes, to recommend 20 graphic novels and mangas.

Marie Schröer

Marie Schröer graduated in literary and cultural studies. She is co-organizer of the Berliner Comic-Kolloquium (www.comic-kolloquium.de), a freelance cultural journalist and a member of several juries for graphic novels and literature. In summer 2020, she will be joining the University of Potsdam as junior professor for cultural semiotics.

Thomas Hummitzsch

Thomas Hummitzsch is a freelance writer who particularly enjoys writing about literature, film, photography and graphic novels. His pieces are published in Rolling Stone, the German daily Tagesspiegel, as well as tip Berlin, Galore and Kulturaustausch, and other magazines. He maintains a culture blog: www.intellectures.de

Jens Wiesner

Jens Wiesner, a journalist from Berlin, helps Boris, brother of Bibi Blocksberg (a German audio drama series for children) who has been thrown out, to take his revenge (borisrächtsich.de), maintains an interview-based blog about the German comic-book scene (siebenaufeinenstrich.de), and believes that a generational change would be good for German politics (traukeinemueber30.de).

Tanisha Malekar

Jonas Engelmann wrote his PhD thesis on images of society in the graphic novel. He works as an editor and in political education. Engelmann’s research and publications focus on the relationship between pop culture and Jewish identity, feminist theory and practice, pop music and social origins and other themes situated between politics and culture.