Thomas Ott (born 10 June 1966) is a Swiss comic artist. His comics have been published in German-speaking countries, France, the United States, Spain, Denmark, Italy and other places.
Ott's often wordless comics feature a dark, grim atmosphere; he works mainly with cutters and scratchboard. [1]
After graduating from the School of Design in Zurich in 1987, Ott worked as a comic artist in Zurich and Paris. His first book, Tales of Error, was published by Edition Moderne in 1989. Other books followed with the same publisher as well as the French publisher L'Association. He has worked for Strapazin, Lapin, L'Écho des Savanes and various newspapers, among other publications. [2]
From 1998 to June 2001, Ott studied film at the Zurich School of Art and Design. [1] His diploma film was the 15-minute Sjeki vatcsh!.
The artist's favourite technique is scratchboarding: “it makes images emerge from multiple layers of black ink by literally ‘scratching’ them with a nib, specifically a Japanese cutter. A painstakingly delicate work that leaves no room for error, in which Ott is now a master”. [3] The dark, distressing and suffocating atmospheres of his stories have received critical acclaim. Ott skilfully combines “fragments of detective fiction, noir and horror. For him, popular genres, such as fairy tales, are a universal basis in which everyone can recognize themselves”. [4] Some add that “despite his lines steeped in black humour, one would do him wrong to see them merely as a parody of the horror genre [...] Ott empathises with the underdogs and has a certain sensitivity to truly tragic stories.” [5] And again: “For years, the Swiss comic artist has been delivering the darkest visions of the absurd side of modern civilisation.” [6]
In 2013, Ott released another new work after three years: Dark Country is the story of a nightmarish honeymoon and is a standalone adaptation of the 2008 film of the same name by screenwriter Tab Murphy and director and Hollywood actor Thomas Jane (The Punisher). Jane himself invited Ott to tell his film as a comic. [7]
In 2015, Ott co-founded the Swiss doom metal band Tar Pond. The other two founding members were former Celtic Frost bassist Martin Eric Ain (replaced by Monika Schori after his death in 2017) [8] and former Coroner drummer Markus "Marky" Edelmann. [9] Ott has performed vocals for the band since its founding, including on both of its studio albums, Protocol of Constant Sadness (2020) and Petrol (2023). [10] He also designs the band's t-shirts. [11]
Ott taught for a decade at the Zurich University of the Arts, deciding “just before the first wave of the pandemic” to resign in order to work as an author and illustrator. [12]
In 2020 he was awarded a scholarship from the Pro Helvetia foundation.
His latest work, The Forest (2022), is a “magnificent illustrated tale” in which Ott “manages to recount in his signature style, with extraordinary delicacy but without compromising on terror, the journey of a child facing and accepting the loss of a beloved person.” [3]
Dormammu is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the character first appeared in Strange Tales #126. He is the extra and inter-dimensional demonic entity and deity brother of Umar and the uncle of superheroine Clea who rules over the Dark Dimension. The character has endured as a recurring antagonist of the superhero Doctor Strange.
André Jaunet was a French-Swiss flutist. In later years he worked as a teacher in Zürich, Switzerland, where he taught flautists Peter-Lukas Graf and Aurèle Nicolet, Conrad Klemm among others.
Laurent Chabosy, better known as Lewis Trondheim, is a French cartoonist and one of the founders of the independent publisher L'Association. Both his silent comic La Mouche and Kaput and Zösky have been made into animated cartoons.
Martin Eric Ain was an American musician best known as the bassist of the influential extreme metal bands Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. He used the stage name Martin Eric Ain throughout.
The Max und Moritz Award , 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 Erlangen since 1984, and is awarded in several categories, including an audience award and lifetime achievement award. It is open to all material published in Germany.
Chaïbia Talal was a Moroccan painter.
Throughout the decades King Kong has been featured in numerous comic book publications from numerous publishers.
Wilhelm Uhde was a German art collector, dealer, author, and critic, an early collector of modernist painting, and a significant figure in the career of Henri Rousseau.
Vincent Paronnaud, a.k.a. Winshluss, is a French comics artist and filmmaker.
Buc is a commune in the Yvelines department and Île-de-France region of north central France.
The Savage Sword of Conan is a black-and-white magazine-format comic book series published beginning in 1974 by Curtis Magazines, an imprint of American company Marvel Comics, and then later by Marvel itself. Savage Sword of Conan starred Robert E. Howard's most famous creation, Conan the Barbarian, and has the distinction of being the longest-surviving title of the short-lived Curtis imprint.
The Ape Woman is a 1964 Italian-French satirical drama film directed by Marco Ferreri. The film was inspired by the real-life story of Julia Pastrana, a 19th-century woman who was exploited as a freak show attraction.
The Edelweiss was an international express train. For most of its existence, it linked the Netherlands with Switzerland, via Belgium, Luxembourg and France. Introduced in 1928, it was named after a mountain flower, the Edelweiss, which is associated with alpinism and the Alps, and regarded as a symbol of Switzerland.
Vittorio Santoro is an Italian-Swiss visual artist. He lives in Paris and Zürich. He is primarily known for his multimedia approach including installations, audio works, sculptures, works on paper, real-time activities and his artist books.
Michele Rech, known as Zerocalcare, is an Italian cartoonist. His pen name, literally meaning "zero limescale", was inspired by an Italian TV commercial jingle for a descaler product, and was chosen when he needed a nickname to quickly join a discussion on the Internet.
Disenchantment is an American animated fantasy sitcom created by Matt Groening for Netflix. The series is Groening's first production to appear exclusively on a streaming service; he previously created The Simpsons and Futurama for Fox. The story takes place in the fictitious medieval fantasy kingdom of Dreamland, a fictionalized take on the Dark Ages. The series centers on Bean, a rebellious alcoholic princess, as well as her naïve elf companion Elfo and her destructive "personal demon" Luci. Disenchantment stars the voices of Abbi Jacobson, Eric André, Nat Faxon, John DiMaggio, Tress MacNeille, Matt Berry, David Herman, Maurice LaMarche, Lucy Montgomery, and Billy West.
Edition VFO, Verein für Originalgraphik, is a non-profit arts institution, edition publisher and gallery based in Zürich.
Tár is a 2022 psychological drama film written and directed by Todd Field. Cate Blanchett stars as Lydia Tár, a world-renowned conductor, whose life unravels after being accused of misconduct. The supporting cast includes Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, and Mark Strong. Tár premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in September 2022, where Blanchett won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. It had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 7, 2022, before a wide release on October 28 through Focus Features.
Nicolas Mahler is an Austrian cartoonist and illustrator. Die Zeit, NZZ am Sonntag, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and Titanic print his comics. He is known for his comics Flaschko and Kratochvil and for his literary adaptations in comic form. His comics have been adapted into films and theatre plays. He was awarded the Max & Moritz Prize and the Preis der Literaturhäuser.
Léo Quievreux is a French author and illustrator of comic books, and founder of publisher Éditions Gotoproductions. His moniker as a musician is Pik.