Sina Arlt: "I wonder what the neighbors are doing today"

The title of Sina Arlt's "Was die Nachbarn heute wohl machen" suggests a view of the world. Above all, however, the comic is a sensitive portrait of a young girl whose own world is changing radically. During her mother's stay at a health resort, her father has to look after her daughter, the household and the cat, and the man is not used to such duties. A village routine of the 1980s is thus thrown out of kilter, and Sina Arlt is a master at capturing a child's astonished view of the changed circumstances: through numerous details inside and outside the family home, which are brought to life by this view, and through unforgettable secondary characters. Although the graphic influence of Anke Feuchtenberger is unmistakable, the story is told with a calmness that corresponds to the everyday nature of the events. And yet, it becomes clear that more than just a new phase of life is beginning here. It is also the beginning of a career as an illustrator.

- Andreas Platthaus

Matthias Gnehm: "Salt hunger"

Against the backdrop of the global battle for increasingly scarce raw materials, "Salzhunger" tells the fictional but meticulously researched story of three environmental activists between Zurich and Lagos who want to uncover the criminal machinations of a global corporation. But their plan is uncovered. The search for the traitor, who apparently comes from within their own ranks, turns out to be more complicated than initially thought. As the reader gradually learns, many of the characters are playing a double game. With opulently painted, semi-realistic images, Matthias Gnehm has created an environmental thriller that can also be read as a political commentary on the dark side of globalization. Its colorful visuals stand in stark contrast to the gloomy, serene world view conveyed by the story.

- Lars von Törne

Kathrin Klinger: "Work"

A handful of employees who check internet comments for a media company are at the center of the small, comedically wonderfully reduced stories of work and smoke breaks, company parties and leisure time and rather quiet longings that contrast with the loud, often crass comments that are part of these office workers' job. "Arbeit" by Kathrin Klingner is designed as an episodic comic: Nothing is resolved, much is left in limbo. This artist knows what she is drawing and doing, and that is a pleasure.

- Brigitte Helbling

Matthias Lehmann: "Parallel"

"Parallel" tells the life story of the homosexual Karl with a fine line, in vivid dialog and a contrasting interplay of light and shadow, showing and hiding. Karl's attempt to fit into the traditional gender order at a young age failed. Now retired, set in the 1980s, he looks back on a life between conformity and rebellion, a life with experiences of psychological and physical violence; according to § 175, sexual acts between men were still punishable until 1994. In numerous flashbacks and with an intense close-up view, we learn about his failed marriages, broken family relationships - and his love for men.

- Stefanie Stegmann

Max Julian Otto: "The shining night"

This very special undertaking is still a long way from completion and yet promises great things: Interspersed with dreams, rich imagery and leaps in time, the story of a young man who has feared death since childhood tells of a courageous and often bizarre fight against existential fears. It's better to fight in pairs! Because yes, there is also a love story hidden in here; one of the most charming to be found in comics in recent years.

- Brigitte Helbling

René Rogge: "Letter to a writer"

Osamu Dazai is one of the most important Japanese writers, comparable to Wolfgang Borchert for Germany in terms of his significance for the immediate post-war period (and also in terms of the personal fate of both authors). René Rogge has used the story "Kling Klang, Kling Klang", published in 1947, about the experiences of an ordinary soldier during the Second World War, as the basis for a fascinating adaptation with the new title "Letter to a Writer": drawn in a manga style that incorporates elements of European auteur comics. The rhythmization of the story through constant changes in image formats, including double-page arrangements, sets striking accents, and the blank space becomes an important stylistic device in keeping with the Japanese graphic tradition: this is precisely how the desperation of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances becomes visible in the comic.

- Andreas Platthaus

Franz Suess: "Paul Two"

Self-doubt, sexual obsession and suicidal thoughts - these are heavy themes that Franz Suess deals with in "Paul zwei". His images, which are permeated by a veil of gray, bring the protagonist's unfulfilled desires and various disappointments closer to us visually than many readers would like. The main character is a young man called Paul, who moves from the provinces to a shared flat in Vienna. Instead of the happiness he had hoped for, life there mainly brings him disappointment - partly because his self-image has little to do with reality. Suess tells most of the story from Paul's perspective and, in short passages, also allows his readers to immerse themselves in the lives of the people Paul meets, whose everyday lives, characterized by difficult relationships, are often no less sad. The filigree pencil drawings, which appear to have been scratched into the paper, reinforce the dark atmosphere of the story, as do the disproportionately large heads and the sometimes grotesquely exaggerated faces, in which the disappointments of life have left visible traces.

- Lars von Törne

Greta von Richthofen: "We first humans"

"Wir ersten Menschen,..." follows the student Anka in the commune of the Viennese action artist Otto Mühl in the early seventies, right up to the dissolution of the group and Mühl's conviction in the early nineties. Greta von Richthofen finds a cautious form of drawing and a subtle pink color for the inner view that oscillates between fascination and alienation, both of which contradict the extroverted aesthetics of the group.

- Florian Höllerer

Jochen Voit (text) and Hamed Eshrat (illustration): "Down with Hitler! or why Karl didn't want to be a cyclist"

In "Down with Hitler! or why Karl didn't want to be a cyclist", Jochen Voit and Hamed Eshrat trace the biography of a 90-year-old man in Erfurt: Karl, who was subjected to persecution both in his youth in the anti-Nazi resistance and later in the GDR as a member of the independent peace movement. A visual language that is as accessible as it is moving allows us to come close to the distant past - and in the midst of it, the possibility of a life on the upright.

- Florian Höllerer