A third annual of the Czech-German comics symposium in Klenová has brought a very strong international topic – adaptation of classical literary work Faust a tragedy written by Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Nine artists (five from the Czech Republic and four from Germany) tried to deal with the topic, notoriously well known on both sides of the border. Legend from the early modern time narrates a story about astrologer and alchemist J. G. Faust who signed up his soul to the devil. The story was firstly treated at the end of the 16th century by German book printer Johann Spiese. In the 18th century it became a cornerstone for writers and philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment who reflected about humans and his will to change a priori ways of destiny and about modern man who doesn't reject an agreement with the devil on his chase after knowledge. Comics beginners were welcomed to participate in the project. They had a hard mission to read two volumes of epos about legendary hero pilgrimage but also to make up a simplified script regarding a selected voluminous part of the book. Some hundreds of pages of complicated rhymed legend squeezed in 45 pages long comics. Five chapters – stories were selected for KOMA.


Authors: Marek Berger, Jörg Hartmann, Magdalena Kaszuba, Janna Klävers, Marie Kohoutová, Anna Kucharčíková, Antonia J. Kühn, Karel Osoha, Viktor Svoboda