Greek Comics Artists

As in previous editions, the main body of the festival is a group exhibition of Greek comic designers who create original stories on the theme of the festival. This year 27 known and younger artists are involved:

Hector Apostolopoulos
Hector is a Film Studies and English Literature graduate who spent much of his childhood ruffling through comic books. He was a regular contributor to the 9 comics feature of Eleftherotypia newspaper as of 2007. In 2011 he published his first collection of comic strips, Feathers, through Giganto Books. The publication was given the Best Comic and Fan Choice awards at the 2012 Comicdom Awards. You can now see sketches of his at comicdom-press.gr and on his personal website, lerapidograph.com. Hector lives and works in Athens.

Dimitris Vitalis
He was born in 1960 and is a comics artist and designer. He started publishing comics in Para Pente, in 1987, where he created the series Portes and in Mikro Para Pente the series Nova. He worked for the magazine 9 of Eleftherotypia newspaper (covers, comics, Tereza series) while other works have been published in various newspapers and magazines (To Pontiki, Cinema etc.). In 2006 the Portes series was released in the form of an album. He has worked for advertisement companies as a designer, creating storyboards, scenery, and animation for a lot of projects. He is also a painter and sets up installations, while he also plays drums in various bands.

Kostas Vitalis
Kostas Vitalis was born and “grown up” in Athens. A self-taught painter and illustrator, he worked in advertising as a storyboard artist and a graphic designer. His acquaintance with artist Elena Navrozidou was crucial for his presence in comics and art. Together, they published two comic albums, The Temptation of St Anthony and Spring Night. He went on publishing his personal work in Babel and Para Pente comics magazines, and in several fanzines. He has participated in many exhibitions in Athens, Thessaloniki and elsewhere. He is also involved in writing lyrics, poetry and music.

Gousis Giorgos
He was born in Athens in 1986. In 2006 he won the third prize in the new talents category at the 6th comics competition organized by the newspaper inserted magazine “9” of Eleftherotipia and since then, he has been working as a comics and illustration professional. His first personal archive, “Innocent eras”, was published in 2011 by ΚΨΜ editions, which contains a collection of all the short stories he had created until then. His comic “Getting my penis back” was recently transferred from the page to the cinema screen as a short film directed by Costas Gounaris, under the same title. At the moment, he is trying and muddling through. You can track him down at shyborg.blogspot.com.

Christos Dimitriou
Christos Dimitriou was born 1960 in Drama, a small city in northern Greece. He is an artist painter and a comic’s designer. He had a lot of exhibitions in Greece, Italy, Germany, Serbia, Turkey and Romania.
His stories where published at many magazines and newspapers, like “Babel”, the comic magazine “9”of the newspaper “eleutherotypia” , “EF” the magazine of Athens festival, “max”, “Diva”, newspaper “Ta nea” and others. Since 1998 he lives and works in Drama.

Andreas Zafiratos
Born in 1978 in the city of Athens. Studied architecture in the National Technical University of Athens, where he completed his postgraduate studies in space design. He spends his nights on roofs, petting cats and gazing at clouds, hoping that one day it will be the other way around. Every now and then, when possessed by forgotten sky deities, he paints.

Petros Zervos
He was born in 1958 in Athens and studied Architecture. Since 1981 he has worked for various magazines as a cartoonist and comic artist, while he has participated in several exhibitions in Greece and abroad. Since 2000 he has been a regular contributor for the magazine 9 of Eleftherotypia. Today he works for the newspaper Dromos tis Aristeras. He has published four books with comics and cartoons and he has won the second prize award in the international cartoon contest of Rhodes.

Lila & Maro Kalogeri
Lila Kalogeri works as an illustrator, comic artist and painter for publishing houses, magazines and advertising agencies.
Maro Kalogeri works as a copywriter, script writer and content designer, working with communication and advertising agencies.
Together, they create comics (and, on occasion, children’s books) and have published their one-off and serialised stories in Eleftherotipia’s “9” comics magazine and Vavel, as well as other publications. They also participate in collective editions and comics exhibitions in Greece and abroad.

Valia Kapadai  
Valia Kapadai  is a full-time dreamer and a comic junkie. She‘s currently working as a graphic designer at the UoA in the morning, while she shifts into a watercolour thirsty creature by night, drawing comics. She has been involved in various anthologies (IDW, Insomnia, Accent UK, BLC, DapshowPress, Markosia), she has published 3 graphic novels (Markosia, ComicdomPress). She loves spending her little free time with beloved people, reading (comic) books and listening to music. Usually lost inside her own messy world, she can also be found wandering through the web. www.neurotic-elf.deviantart.com 

Kostas Kiriakakis
Kostas Kiriakakis makes drawings and comics. He also makes a divine lentil soup and amazing apple pie. For more drawings and comics visit his website at www.kappakappa.net For amazing apple pie try visiting a pastryshop.

Con Chrisoulis
Con Chrisoulis grew up in Australia, travelling back and forth between Victoria and Greece. He now lives in England. He self published many titles throughout the years (Clans, Tales of Unsurpassed Vanity, Subart etc.) and freelanced for 9 and Big Fish magazines. Published in Athens, Con’s right-wing superhero parody Giant-Size Fascists won the Comicdom Award for Comicbook of the Year in both 2008 and 2010. In 2010 his illustrated concept album Autodivine was released, while at present he’s preparing another concept album with his new band Ghosts of Future Past. His comicbook series Dryland was a finalist at the 2012 First Fictions UK competition and will be released in 2013 by an esteemed publisher. His current work is Tales of The Smiths, which is published daily online at www.socomic.gr
www.facebook.com/con.chrisoulis.artist
www.conchrisoulis.com

Giorgos Maraziotis
Born in Athens, in 1984. Studied Illustration (BA(Hons)) at the University Of Wolverhampton (UK) from where he graduated with a 1st Class Degree. Since then he has been working as a freelancer illustrator, painter and installation artist with various teams and institutions (both public and private ones). Since 2007, he has also been working as a set- designer for the theater. In 2012, he was proposed to represent Greece at the 1st W.Y.A exhibition in Nottingham (UK) while at the same time, he was invited as a guest lecturer at the Digital Communication Department of Wolverhampton University. Finally, his work has been exhibited in team and solo shows in Greece and abroad.
maraziotis.com

Christos Martinis
His published works with Jemma Press include a 12 page short horror story for the comic anthology Gran Guignol and the graphic novel 'Mountainshack' which served also as the thesis for the BA in graphic design. For Comicdom Press, he has provided art for the first issue of the Syndrome miniseries and the graphic novel which concludes the story. He is the co-creator of the Plotpoint Productions studio through which Mountainshack was created. Plotpoint productions has also provided artwork for the flash game KOLOBOK 2012.
www.plotpointproductions.blogspot.com/
www.christos-martinis.deviantart.com/
www.templedarkness.com/temp/kolobok

Vagelis Matziris     
Born in Germany April 1973,he reads and designs comics with great enthusiasm since he remembers himself. He was first published at Fanzine Zeppelin and won the first prize in a comics competition during the events of Thessaloniki Cultural Capital of Europe 1997.Other works include:group-student exhibitions, exhibition on the first International Congress of Comics Studies of the DCTC University of Aegean,many Inernational Comics Festivals Gazi,"Comics and Realism"Festival-Galera Magazine 2006,GRRR Festival-Panchevo Serbia,Dimitria Festival 2006,1st International Comics Festival "Provlita 2006" Thessaloniki,coopertion with varius magazines.Graduate of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki-School of Fine Arts-Sculpture Department.

Giorgos Botsos
He was born in Athens, on 1960. He published his first comic in “Babel” comic’s magazine on ’87. Since then he has a stable presence in the Greek scene of comics. He also worked all these years, as a freelance illustrator for magazines, worked as a creative director in advertising, wrote and illustrated 7 books for children and made several personal exhibitions as a painter. Since 2000 he is teaching comics and he is director of the Scetch-Comics-Cartoon section of AKTO College.

Panayiotis Pantazis
Panayiotis Pantazis was born in Athens, in 1982. He has published Common Comics #1-5 via Giganto Books, along with other 6 comics albums. Everything about his work can be found at postnoise.com
pan pan http://postnoise.com

Konstantinos Papamixalopoulos
Born in Athens, Greece. Studied painting and printmaking in the Athens School of Fine Arts with professors Rena Papaspirou and Michalis Arfaras respectively. He is currently a postgraduate student in the "Digital Forms of Art" program of the Athens School of Fine Arts. Contributed to Babel and Mov magazines, worked with "9" & "Vivliothiki" magazines of the Eleftherotypia newspaper and is now an illustrator in the Vima newspaper as well as the Athens Review of Books. In 2000 his first graphic novel "The Jap" was published followed in 2003 by "The Jap - Deuteronomion" and "Epilarchia!" in 2011. In 2004 the work has become part of the Benaki Museum permanent collections. In 2003 he has received a commission by the Benaki Museum for a portrait of the benefactor Andonis Benakis. His works are in various public and private collections both in Greece and abroad.  

Dimitris Papastamos
Born on April 3, 1968 in Athens. He studied Plastic Arts and History of Art at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1999 he won the first prize in comics awarded by Nemesis magazine, and in 2000 he published his album O Mavros Angelos (The Black Angel). In 1994 he held a solo exhibition at Le Saint gallery in Paris, and the following year he took part in a group exhibition at Saint Charles.

Pavlos Pavlidis
Pavlos Pavlidis is a psychotic comic creator realizing the world through a black and white perspective.He likes to create scary , disturbing and dystopian images ( touching on political and more personal themes ).He loves his pentel brush with a passion and it feels to him like an extension of his hand! He has self-published five comics to date ( Unstrung! , Fixed! , Such a waste..! , Full Bloom and also Lamda with Valia Kapadai and Lee Grice  ) . Now he is currently working on various projects of his own and in collaboration with others .
www.paulnaut.deviantart.com
www.twitter.com/Unstrung7

Thanasis Petrou
Born  in Thessaloniki in 1971, he studied French Literature in the University of Thessaloniki and in Paris. He has also a Master's degree in sociolinguistics. In 2002 he won the 1st prize in the 2nd Comics Competition (category "New Talents")  organized by the comics magazine "9" in collaboration with the  AKTO art college . In 2005 he graduated from AKTO (section Sketch-Comics-Cartoon). During the period 2004-2010 he worked for the comics magazine “9”. His comics have been published in the magazines “9”, “Galera”, “Vavel” and others. He participated in many exhibitions in Greece and abroad (Athens, Thessaloniki, Mitilini, Serbia, China, Sardenia, Poland). In 2008  was published his first book, The drummer and his friends (Vivliopelagos ed.), a comic collection of short stories. In 2011 was published the comic book Pararlama and other stories of Demosthenes Voutyras(scenario Dimitris Vanellis, Topos ed.) as well as The Corpse(scenario Tasos Zafiriades-Yannis Palavos, Jemma Press ed.). In 2012 was published the comic book Yousouri, and others fantasy stories, based on short stories by Cavafy, Caryotakis, Papadiamantis and others. At present, he is working on a comic adaptation of the novel Amanita Muscariaby Pavlos Methenitis.

Fotis Pehlivanidis
Fotis Pehlivanidis works for magazines as an illustrator and an art director. He has presented two solo comic-painting exhibitions and has participated in various group exhibitions and comics festivals (all Comic Festivals organized by “Babel” at Gazi) as well as designing book covers, posters etc. In 2001 he published the graphic novel “Luna,” the first Greek comic published in the USA. Since 1999, he has also taught at the Akto Institution of Art and Design. He won the 2004 EVGE Artistic Design Award for press design (Athens Voice). 

Smart
Born in 1982. Since then he has been trying to overcome this unfortunate fact by designing, painting, photographing and generally creating anything that has to do with the representation of reality and non reality. He gets inspired from anything in life, except for the lack of humor, because the greatest truths are said jokingly. Comics and illustrations can be found in Babel and mov. Magazines and at smartonoff.deviantart.com

Soloup
Soloup has been working since 1989 in Greece as a comic creator and cartoonist. He has published his work important Greek magazines and newspapers (Babel, Galera, Os3, Vima, Goalnews etc.) while for the last 8 years is working in politics and satirical newspaper "To Pontiki" (=the Mouse). Soloup has studied Political Science in Panteion University (Athens) and a Ph.D holder of Cultural Technology and Communication (Universtity of the Aegean, Mytilene).

Nectarios Stamatopoulos
Nectarios Stamatopoulos (nec) was born in Athens in 1976. He has studied Graphic Design, Animation & Multimedia Production. Works independently as an illustrator and comic creator since 1998 for many Greek publications (ATHENS VOICE, ‘9’ magazine, TILT etc) and Advertising and as full time designer/art director for major event and film production companies in Athens since 2000.He has participated in many art exhibitions in Greece and abroad (UK), most notably at the Institut Français d'Athènes and the Benaki Museum among others and has received awards for his art and design work. He designed the stages and the art installations for the TEDxAcademy event in Athens at the Benaki Museum in 2011 and 2012.
www.necillustrates.carbonmade.com
www.necen.blogspot.com
www.ncomix.blogspot.com

Anna Holak
Anna Holak was born in 1980 in Poland but she grew up and lives in Athens. Before getting hooked on comics she studied acting and psychology. In 2008 she won the first prize in the 8th National Comics Contest held by Eleytherotypia which came with a full scholarship from AKTO Art College. She graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts in Comics and is trying to fit in ever since. She has participated in various comics exhibitions in Greece.
http://littlemonsterblue.deviantart.com/

Petros Christoulias / Tasos Zafiriadis / Loukas Tsouknidas
Loukas Tsouknidas is a journalist. Petros Christoulias is an artist. Tasos Zafiriadis is an orthodontist. These three guys have a lot of fun together and this is also evident to the publication SLAP! It is possible that you have seen some of these names on some of the following: Arachova, Burger Project - We live in Athens, It Is Not What You Think, IntraMuros, Stories of Inkcities, Kyr-Kong, Batman that faggot 2, Sectet Identity, Corpse, Spif & Spaf, The Drah, Chaki Chaikou, Trenches. More SLUP! at www.ashutupcomedy.gr

Thanasis Psarros
According to legend, Thanasis Psarros, was born near the end of the last century in a certified maternity clinic. Few have met him, but those who have describe him as follows: Semi-tall, imposing figure, with eyes that glow like those new economy lamps. He shoots lightning from his mouth and lavender from his behind. He makes a living by teaching modern European botanology to Asian tourists. In his free time he makes comics and walks around pretentiously. None of the above is true.