At the eastern edge of the world, there lives a dog-headed giant of indescribable power, more animal than man. And because he’s so powerful, he starts to wonder: Is there no one who is more powerful than me? Reprobus goes on a journey that will change him forever and will take him to an emperor, the devil and a hermit, and will make him a traveler among worlds.
Reprobus means “the rejected” and his story is an ancient legend that is still alive today. His search for the most powerful ruler of the world first appeared in Eastern stories and exerted a lasting fascination on the Western world of thought, which was reflected over centuries in numerous stories and the visual arts, and in a Christian variant that founded the legend of Saint Christopher. In his debut comic, Markus Färber tells his version of this story through powerful images.

(This extract shows a selection of pages of the book.)

In her collection of cartoons and comics Nadine Redlich plucks apart a bouquet of emotions. Anyone who can relate to phobia, lethargy, stress, panic or resignation will take great pleasure when viewing the results of Redlich‘s intense examination. That much I, as a phobic patient, can promise.

Today starts off badly for little bat Pascaline: it’s her first day of kindergarten and she has to go, just like everyone else, but she refuses. “Never, not ever!” she declares. She’s NOT going. And nothing—not even her parents pulling her by her feet—will change her mind. She shrieks so loudly that, well, her parents shrink to the size of peanuts. Ha! Now Pascaline can hide them under her wings and take them to kindergarten. This could be fun! But what will happen at the end of the day when all the parents come to pick up their little bat children?

In „Niemals Nie Nicht!” award-winning picture book creator Beatrice Alemagna reminds us that small children need their parents to be close by … but not too close.

Translated from French by Irène Bluche.

Ready for a trip into the wilderness? With her new book, Julia Kluge invites you to wondrous adventures in nature. In a tongue-in-cheek style, she presents all sorts of impressions from the lives of brave scouts – from hiking at sunrise and picking delicious berries to camping under the stars. The dreamy and expressive illustrations make familiar flora and fauna seem excitingly alien. No wonder, because after all, a practiced look at nature brings all kinds of amazing things to light. And should life in the wilderness ever get dicey, you can always rely on your fellows.

In “To Be a Brave Scout” the seriousness of the Scout movement, founded at the beginning of the last century, gives way to a timeless fascination for the forms of animals and plants, for a life in and with nature. The atmospheric colors of the book exude a longing for freedom and tempt you to lose yourself while reading.

Es ist Winter und in einem namenlosen Wald hoch im Norden kreuzen sich die Wege einer Katze und eines Habichts. Das kurze Zusammentreffen wird verhängnisvoll für beide sein. Denn auch der Tod, der leise durch die kalte Nacht streift, gesellt sich zu ihnen. „Im Winter” erinnert an eine klassische Tierfabel, doch anstelle einer moralischen Vermittlung tritt eine atmosphärische Verdichtung, die weder erklären noch belehren möchte, sondern den Blick auf das Innenleben der Figuren und ihre Beziehungen untereinander richtet.

It is winter and in a nameless forest in the north, the paths of a cat and a hawk cross. This brief encounter will be fateful for both, as death, who roams silently through the cold night, joins them. “Im Winter“ is reminiscent of a classic animal fable, but instead of a moral mediation, the atmospheric tale focuses on the inner lives of the characters and their inevitable relationship.

Ten days before the beginning of the Second World War in Russia, a five-member family is awakened at night and sent away from home without any explanation. We follow them on their way to the strange place where they will live from now on. “Vasja, Dein Opa” is a story like millions of other stories in the Soviet Union, where almost every second family has personally experienced what gulag and exile mean.

This impressive documentary graphic novel tells the story of Vasja, the grandfather of the author Anna Rakhmanko. It is based on an interview with his little sister Lyubov, with whom he travelled as a child from former Romania (Bukovina) to the distant Arctic Circle region of the Soviet Union, where both had to live with the label “enemy” for many years. For the interview, journalist Anna Rakhmanko traveled to the far north of Russia to talk to Lyubov, the only remaining member of her exiled family, about why her family ended up living so remotely in the middle of nowhere in Siberia. Her words are accompanied by the light and, at the same time, atmospherically dense drawings of her husband, the Danish comic artist Mikkel Sommer.

A part of the proceeds from the book sale will go to support “The Last Address” organization in Russia, which works to raise awareness about those oppressed during the Soviet era (for more information: www.poslednyadres.ru).

Nika, Lotte and Mangold have grown and at the same time are still the same. When they are together, the world always becomes bigger than their small town. Mangold struggles with her chaotic parents, Lotte counts bugs, and for Nika, everything revolves around her music. The new drummer Max causes maximum emotional confusion, not only because of his name, and the three girls and their friends courageously slide from one adventure to the next.

Thomas Wellmann reminds us again how great it is to have companions who are there to dive into life together. There’s always something going on, and if not, these three friends come up with something new and fun. Only standing still makes no sense – except when dreaming.

Do witches exist? Of course, maybe they even have their studio next door.

In her book debut for Rotopol, Malwine Stauss investigates the borderlands between art and alchemy, between the abstract and concrete. Inspired by the spiritual art of the 19th and 20th centuries, the author plays with radiant colors and shapes to outline decisive questions: how does one draw the invisible? Does magic exist? What is inspiration? The gaze into the past becomes a door to the future: the falsely neglected female artists of today have a lot in common with the witches of the past. Both cross borders to find their personal freedom, both are highly in tune with their environment and have a sensibility for the openings in the seemingly consistent order of society.