Holiday card

This year my girlfriend Katja Klengel and I made a holiday card together. Katja drew the sketch, I did the final lineart & colors.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Radio Nukular #205

I made a new podcast cover illustration for Radio Nukular episode 205: "LAN-Partys"

Here's just the lineart:

Animated Movie Background Art

One of the backgrounds I painted for an animated movie I really hope we get to make:

It's for Ralph Ruthe's "HNO WG" movie (script by Ralph & Haiko Hörnig). We've been working on it (off and on) for 2+ years and now it seems very likely it will finally get the green light soon. Fingers crossed!

2024, Fuck Yeah!

A few weeks ago, I drew my annual illustration for Schlogger's "Fuck Yeah" calendar, and like last year, it again features some characters from my recent JAZAM! comic “Murki's Big Day”.

Here it is:

The calendar features 59 different artists and a cover by Simone Grünewald

The calendar is out now and can be ordered from Kwimbi. There's also a cheaper, smaller version.

JAZAM! Coming of Age

After 17 years, 15 books, and various specials, we just put out our final volume of German indie comics anthology JAZAM!

We launched a successful Kickstarter campaign last fall and finally got the finished books from the printer's a week ago. I just finished shipping all of the rewards today.

cover by Dozerdraws

I contributed a 25-page queer fantasy adventure/romance story called "Murkis großer Tag". Here's a 2-page spread from the comic:

Some photos of my pages in the book:

The book contains comics & illustrations from 33 other artists and is 240 pages in full color. If you missed the Kickstarter, you can order the book now from Kwimbi

2023, Fuck Yeah!

After taking a year off, I once again participated in Schlogger's annual "Fuck Yeah" calendar last year and created this illustration featuring some characters from my upcoming JAZAM! comic “Murki's Big Day”.

I just gave an interview (in German) to Comicgate about the illustration and my comic. (including a preview page from the comic and some work in progress scribbles for the illu)

The calendar is out now and can be ordered from Kwimbi.

Moga Mobo Musik

The guys who make German indie comic fanzine Moga Mobo have been at it for even longer than we have with JAZAM!, and they never seem to run out of ideas on how to keep their zine fresh. I've previously participated in their "Comic Clash" competition, but last year I was asked for the first time to contribute to one of their regular issues. For this one, they asked 100 artist to draw dialogue-free one-page comic versions of the "Greatest Hits" of rock & pop music. I chose to put pictures to Sia's "Chandelier", both because I love the song and because I wanted to add some newer music to the mix. 

Here's my comic:

And here's the book:

It's available to buy at the Moga Mobo shop or for free at various conventions, etc.

More Ruthe backgrounds

Just yesterday, Ralph Ruthe released a new animated short on YouTube that features a number of backgrounds painted by me. Check out "Die HNO-WG - Folge 12: Die Séance" on YouTube.

Here are some screenshots with my background art:

Podcast cover: DOWNLOW'D

I've been a big fan of Downlow'd: The Rise and Fall of Harry Knowles & Aint-It-Cool News, a very interesting investigative podcast about the complicated history of movie news site Ain’t It Cool News, and was thrilled when I was asked to draw their mid-season cover art last April.

It's based on AICN's "Harry" cartoon character and the ending of King Kong:

Here's my initial sketch:

Character design sketches

Roughly a year ago I was hired to draw some fun character designs for a thing that didn’t end up happening. These were supposed to be turned into a real prosthetic make-up/mask for a live-action tv ad, but it sadly never got that far.

The upside? I get to show them to you:

With these, we tried to go in a more robotic direction:

GermanLetsPlay colors

In 2021, I got to color a large section of a new comic/manga by the popular video game youtuber GermanLetsPlay, writer Haiko Hörnig & artist David Füleki. With flat support by Eve Jay.

Have a look at some of my pages and hit me up if you want to buy a signed copy!

Unveröffentlicht

Continuing with the catching-up, today I'd like to tell you about "Unveröffentlicht", an exhibition of unfinished German comics that I was part of in late 2021. 

At the exhibition, I showed pages from my never-finished, unpublished mystery graphic novel “Die Anstalt”, which I co-wrote with Roman Senkl in 2010. I handed in the first ~25 pages of the book as my bachelor thesis back in the day, but the project was a bit more ambitious than Roman and I were able to handle while also working other jobs, so we eventually abandoned it.

Sadly I could not attend the exhibition, but Moritz Stetter, whose comics were also part of the exhibition, took these very nice photos of my pages at Schloss Oberhausen:

There was also a nice, big catalogue:

Tonk

A few years ago, Haiko Hörnig & I co-wrote the script for Tonk, a highly stylized martial arts/fantasy show. The 16-minute pilot actually got made (directed by Chon-Dat Nguyen & Alex Kleinrensing) and even played at the Cannes film festival, but we haven’t been able to secure funding for a full season yet.

Now it’s finally available for everyone to see on YouTube! Click on the image below to watch:

It's in German, but there are English subtitles.

Ruthe backgrounds

I haven't posted anything here in a while because I just didn't have much time since the birth of my kid. But now that the little one's spending more time at daycare, I'm going to try to catch up and post some of the stuff I've been working on.

First up, over the past 2 years I was fortunate to be asked to paint some background art for various animated videos by Ralph Ruthe.

The Iron Throne for episode 20 of "Pete":

A bunker and some houses for episode 11 of  "Die HNO-WG":

A living room for an animated ad for MagentaTV starring Christian Ulmen & Fahri Yardim:

Backgrounds are mine, all characters are Ralph's.

We're also still working on the theatrical "HNO-WG" feature film!