About the project and its makers

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 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 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 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, 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).

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. 

David Schmidt lives as a freelance journalist in Berlin. His magazine WEIRD is about science fiction, movies, comics and video games. He was a discourse editor at ZEIT ONLINE for five years and editor of the student magazine fool on the hill for another five years.

Anna Voronkova, based in Moscow, Russia, is a translator and a big fan of comics. She was a curator of different social comics projects and organized comics exhibitions at Moscow comics festival KomMissia. 

Uttaran Das Gupta is a New Delhi-based writer and journalist. He has published a book of poems, Visceral Metropolis (2019), and a novel, Ritual (2020). He writes frequently on poetry and films. Uttaran also teaches at O P Jindal Global University.
 

Sergey Korneev - Russian journalist, traveler and horror writer - is known for his scientific popularization projects. And also a big fan of comic culture. He does a lot of interviews with comic artists, offers exhibitions and public lectures. He tries to transfer his passion for the European and "author comics" to his son. But his son prefers mangas.