Isabel Kreitz (born 1967 in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

) is a German

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

. Her

graphic novels A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics scholars and ...

have been published mainly in German, but also in English and other languages. She has received several notable awards, including the German Comic Prize, the

Wilhelm Busch Prize The Wilhelm Busch Prize is an biennial poetry award for 10,000 €, for humorous and satirical verse, administered by the '' Schaumburger Landschaft'', named after Wilhelm Busch. An additional award by the organization is the Hans Huckebein Prize, ...

and the prestigious German

Max und Moritz Award The Max und Moritz Award (German:Max und Moritz-Preis), also known as the Max & Moritz Prize , is a prize for comic books, comic strips, and other similar materials. It has been awarded at each of the biennial International Comics Shows of Erlan ...

. Further, she is considered as one of the most celebrated German artists working in

comics a Media (communication), medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of Panel (comics), panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, Glo ...

and graphic novels.

Life and career

Kreitz studied

Visual Design Communication design is a mixed discipline between design and information-development concerned with how media communicate with people. A communication design approach is concerned with developing the message and aesthetics in media. It also crea ...

at the precursor of the

Hamburg University of Applied Sciences The Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (German: Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hamburg) is a higher education and applied research institution located in Hamburg, Germany. Formerly known as ''Fachhochschule Hamburg,'' the ''Hamburg ...

and spent one semester at the

Parsons School The Parsons School of Design is a private art and design college under The New School located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art ...

in New York. There, she saw how graphic novels were made in a professional way. As of 2021, Kreitz was one among estimated 500 full-time cartoonists in Germany, where graphic novels usually are only printed in 5000 copies. After having published several cartoons and graphic novels since 1994, her first major success was a 2008

graphic novel A graphic novel is a self-contained, book-length form of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and Anthology, anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comics sc ...

about the German spy

Richard Sorge Richard Gustavovich Sorge (; 4 October 1895 – 7 November 1944) was a German-Russian journalist and GRU (Soviet Union), Soviet military intelligence officer who was active before and during World War II and worked undercover as a German journa ...

titled ''Die Sache mit Sorge,'' later published in English as ''Stalin's Spy in Tokyo''. Richard Sorge was a German journalist and

Soviet military intelligence Main Intelligence Directorate ( rus, Главное разведывательное управление, Glavnoye razvedyvatel'noye upravleniye, ˈglavnəjə rɐzˈvʲɛdɨvətʲɪlʲnəjə ʊprɐˈvlʲenʲɪjə), abbreviated GRU ( rus, ГР ...

officer who was active before and during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

and worked

undercover A cover in foreign, military or police human intelligence or counterintelligence is the ostensible identity and role or position in an infiltrated organization assumed by a covert agent during a covert operation. Official cover In espionage, a ...

as a German

journalist A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism. Roles Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...

in both

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

and the

Empire of Japan The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...

. Kreitz drew Sorge's covert activities in Japan between 1933 and 1944 in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

expressionist Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...

images, hiding the future political events. Subsequently, the novel was translated into English, French and Spanish. In 2011 she published a graphic novel with the title ''Deutschland. Ein Bilderbuch'' (''Germany, a picture book''). For this work, she chose one important event from almost every year in the history of the

German Federal Republic BRD ( ; English: FRG/Federal Republic of Germany) is an unofficial abbreviation for the Federal Republic of Germany, informally known in English as West Germany until 1990, and just Germany since reunification. It was occasionally used in the Fede ...

. The first event was the return from exile of German writer

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

in 1949, and the last dealt with the financial crisis following the crash of Lehman Brothers Bank in 2008. Other works by Kreitz have been graphic novels based on books for

young adults In medicine and the social sciences, a young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence, sometimes with some overlap. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages ...

by German authors

Erich Kästner Emil Erich Kästner (; 23 February 1899 – 29 July 1974) was a German writer, poet, screenwriter and satirist, known primarily for his humorous, socially astute poems and for children's books including ''Emil and the Detectives'' and '' Lisa an ...

and

Uwe Timm Uwe Timm (; born 30 March 1940 in Hamburg) is a German writer. Life and work Uwe Timm was born in 1940 in Bad Kreuznach, and was the youngest son in his family. His brother, 16 years his senior, was a soldier in the and died in Ukraine in 1943 ...

. In the 2020 book about ''German-East Asian Encounters and Entanglements: Affinity in Culture and Politics'', Kreitz has been called "one of the most celebrated German artists working in comics and graphic novels."

Awards and distinctions

* 1997: First German Comic Prize as best cartoonist in German language * 2008:

in the category for children and young adults * 2008: Sondermann Award for ''Die Sache mit Sorge'' * 2011: Sondermann Award for ''Haarmann'' * 2012: Max-und-Moritz-Preis as best artist in German language * 2019:

* 2023: e.o.plauen Award

Selected works

* 2008: ''Die Sache mit Sorge – Stalins Spion in Tokio'', Carlsen Verlag, mit einer Dokumentation von Frank Giese, ISBN 978-3-551-78743-9. ** English translation: ** French translation: ''L'Espion de Staline'', translated by Paul Derouet. Brussels: Casterman, ISBN 9782203029637. ** Spanish translation: ''El Caso Sorge: Un Espía de Stalin En Tokio.'' Barcelona: La Cúpula, ISBN 9788416400485. * 2009: ''Pünktchen und Anton'', Cecilie Dressler Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7915-1160-3. * 2010: ''Haarmann'', Carlsen Verlag, ISBN 978-3-551-79107-8. ** French translation: ''Haarmann, Le Boucher de Hanovre.'' Translated by Carline Dolmazon and Paul Derouet. Nouvelle édition. Bruxelles: Casterman, ISBN 9782203056787. ** Spanish translation: ''Haarmann: El Carnicero de Hannover. Un Asesino en Serie''. Translated by María Dolores Pérez Pablos. Barcelona: Ediciones La Cúpula, ISBN 9788418809224. * 2011: ''Deutschland. Ein Bilderbuch'', DuMont Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8321-9621-9; * 2012: ''Emil und die Detektive'', Cecilie Dressler Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7915-1168-9. * 2015: ''Rohrkrepierer'', Carlsen Verlag, ISBN 978-3-551-78378-3. * 2016: ''Das doppelte Lottchen'', Cecilie Dressler Verlag, ISBN 978-3-7915-1171-9. * 2018: ''Minzi Monster in der Schule.'' Text: Friedbert Stohner. Illustrationen: Isabel Kreitz, dtv, München 2018, ISBN 978-3-423-64040-4.

Literature

* * Moster-Hoos, Jutta, Kristina Gerigk, Horst-Janssen, Museum Oldenburg. ''Die neunte Kunst. Aktuelle deutsche Graphic Novels''. ''Hans Hillmann, Max Baitinger, Anke Feuchtenberger, Anna Haifisch, Jakob Hinrichs, Lukas Jüliger,

Reinhard Kleist Reinhard Kleist (born 11 February 1970, Hürth, Germany) is a German graphic designer and cartoonist. Life Kleist studied graphic design at the Fachhochschule Münster. There he created his albums "Lovecraft," "Dorian" and as a thesis "Abenteu ...

, Isabel Kreitz, Olivier Kugler, Ulli Lust, Felix Pestemer, Simon Schwartz,

Birgit Weyhe Birgit Weyhe, born 1969 in Munich, is a German cartoonist and illustrator. Biography Weyhe was born in Munich and spent her childhood in Uganda and Kenya. After taking the German college entrance exams, known as the Abitur, she returned at the age ...

Barbara Yelin Barbara Yelin (born 26 July 1977, Munich) is a German cartoonist who has won several awards in Germany including the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis, Max & Moritz Prize, and the Ernst-Hoferichter-Preis. As an educator, she has been affiliated with ...

''. Oldenburg: Isensee, ISBN 9783730814420.

References

External links