4th Festival for Graphic Storytelling: Participation of the art academy

From January 23 to 27, the 4th Festival for Graphic Storytelling will take place in Kassel, offering comic readings, presentations by publishers, lectures and an exhibition. The venue is the Kassel Kunsttempel.

January 24, 6 p.m.: Short Stories: The illustration class of the Kunsthochschule presents new comics

The illustration class of the Kassel School of Art is taking part in the 4th Festival for Graphic Storytelling with its own contribution. Students will present their latest short stories and provide insights into their diverse work.

January 27, 1:30 p.m.: Michel Esselbrügge (illustration class at the Kunsthochschule Kassel) presents his comic debut "Langfinger & Wackelzahn".

MichelEsselbrügge is studying Visual Communication at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. He is co-founder of the Institute for Contemporary Cartooning and part of the cartoonist collective FAN ART. His comics have been published in international anthologies such as Orang, Kuti Kuti and kuš! as well as on vice.com. "Langfinger und Wackelzahn" is his first full-length publication.

Langfinger is a teenager, orphan and self-proclaimed master thief. Together with his dog Wackelzahn, he lives in an empty factory building near a forest. Together with the almost-divorced child Max and his stone toad Gunter, they roam through derelict industrial areas, adjacent fields and woods, throw stones at people and destroy the territory of the hostile gang "Logbook Oak". In his coming-of-age story, Michel Esselbrügge creates a socially critical picture of youthful lifestyles, but without moralizing. His characters operate in a childish imaginary world consisting of superpowers, gang life and destructive "angry youth" riots. They are in search of belonging in order to construct some kind of identity, but this makes them neither more mature nor more adult.