Comic artist Ika Sperling made it onto the shortlist with her work "The Great Reset". Illustrator Maren Amini, winner of the 2023 Comic Book Prize and guest juror, writes: "The story vividly shows what it's like to lose a loved one to conspiracy beliefs. As a reader, you experience the tiptoeing around important issues, the increasingly loud silence, the unspeakable anger and grief for someone who has left society and thus also their loved ones. Ika Sperling tells this difficult story with a light touch and amusing dialog."

Frauke Angel (text) and Stephanie Brittnacher (drawing) convinced the jury with "Haus aus Stein". Barbara Buchholz, jury member and journalist, explains the decision: "Hard fates in soft strokes and bright colors: Children's book author Frauke Angel and illustrator Stephanie Brittnacher depict the escape of the girl Tikva with her mother from her violent partner to a women's shelter. Hidden away in this protected environment, mother and daughter try to make a new start. Based on Frauke Angel's research, author and illustrator jointly develop the comic "House of Stone" and carefully embed facts and figures. Stephanie Brittnacher finds a visual language that is appropriate to the perspective of six-year-old Tikva with its children's book-like lines, but also addresses the threat of violence with expressive lettering and harsh contrasts of black and red, for example. Impressively researched and graphically told, "House of Stone" provides insights into a world that is not accessible to most people for understandable reasons."

Journalist and jury member Brigitte Helbling explains the reasons for two further finalist works:
The work by Isabel Peterhans (drawing) and Simone Schönett (text) "Kein Himmel, kein Traum, Tagesmusik" provides insights into the history of Yenish people in Austria, "from the beginnings of the Nazi dictatorship in Austria to forced sterilization and the removal of children to flight and trauma". The narrative focuses on three women from three generations. Everyday images (market scenes, hospital visits, a family reunion in the forest) mark stages in a world full of threat, resistance and suffering. Clever introductory texts from the granddaughter's point of view in the women's trio are the prelude to trenchant episodes that are staged in a catchy way, placing the private in a wider historical context while never losing sight of the personal: A literary and enlightening comic narrative project that deserves attention in every respect.

Brigitte Helbling was also impressed by Noëlle Kröger 's work. "Rarely, actually never, are werewolves thought of as a pack, less a full moon aberration than a social group in itself. In "Meute", these packs exist, and some scientists have managed to capture one of them. It is being looked after in a cramped institute cage by student Margot. She vacillates between compassion and research ambition. Annoyed by the condescension of her male colleagues, she finally helps the animal-human to escape on one condition: He is to give her access to the pack for her own research.... Kroeger subverts all the dualisms that are prevalent in the werewolf myth - good vs. evil, nature vs. culture, woman vs. man, etc. - with a great, dynamic stroke. The project is (narratively) on the verge of its disturbing conclusion; definitely worthy of support, says the jury."

The jury chairman and editor responsible for literature and literary life at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Andreas Platthaus, wrote about "Schweigen" by Birgit Weyhe:
Nine years ago, Birgit Weyhe received the first Berthold Leibinger Comic Book Prize for her book "Madgermanes". Now, in this anniversary year, she is once again one of the finalists, with a project that (unfortunately) could not be more topical, as the newly elected Argentinian President Milei has announced that all memorials to the dictatorship in his country will be closed. "Silence" about the crimes of the junta would thus literally return, while it is to be broken by Birgit Wehe's comic, which tells of two women's fates in Argentina: the very well-known one of Elisabeth Kässmann and the unknown one of Ellen Marx.

Hannah Brinkmann' s comic project "Time heals no wounds" opens our eyes to German conditions between National Socialism and the beginnings of the Federal Republic - in particular to a post-war justice system that finds its way to continue the former structures in the fight against communism. Ernst Grube, a 'half-breed of the first degree' according to the Nuremberg Laws, spends his youth in a Jewish children's home in Munich. Together with his mother and siblings, he was deported to Theresienstadt in 1945, where he was liberated by the Red Army. He organizes himself in the KPD, shortly before it is banned, and is arrested and sentenced after a leafleting campaign in Munich. One of the judges sitting opposite him is Kurt Weber, whose Nazi career continued without interruption. Florian Höllerer, director of the Literary Colloquium Berlin and jury member, congratulates the comic on its virtuosity in tracing both life lines and contrasting them.

David Basler, founder and former publisher of Edition Modern and jury member, explains the selection of the ninth finalist work. "Zeter und Mordio" is based on a criminal case from the year 1687, which Glikl bas Judah Leib, the first German-Jewish writer, describes in the fifth volume of her memoirs.
Jens Cornils tells this story set in Hamburg with masterful illustrations and excellent storytelling, reminding us that Jewish culture, Jewish history and anti-Semitism existed in Germany long before the Holocaust.