A House with Many Windows - Comics & Graphic Novels from Germany

What would you do if a stranger offered you 6,000 euros for a handshake? Luca doesn’t have to think long,...

What would you do if a stranger offered you 6,000 euros for a handshake? Luca doesn’t have to think long, because he could really use the money: he’s broke, he’s been chucked out of his flat by his quarrelsome ex and he’s in debt to a dangerous pair of gangsters. Luca enthusiastically agrees, but that’s just a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire: Benedikt Bosch wants Luca’s soul in exchange for the money. The black wizard has sold his own soul to the demon Faffnir in exchange for good fortune and endless success. But because the deal is transferable, Bosch is off the hook if he can find someone stupid enough to take his place. Now Luca has to quickly find someone else to take on the deal, because the countdown is on – he only has 24 hours left!

Karlotta’s day-to-day life changes abruptly when the summer holidays are over. At night, she enters a dream world where she...

Karlotta’s day-to-day life changes abruptly when the summer holidays are over. At night, she enters a dream world where she is called Charlotte and leads a life of adventure. Karlotta has had enough of her monotonous life and wants to be Charlotte in her very ordinary world too. It eventually gets to the point where she no longer knows who she is.Luise Mirdita’s powerfully illustrated debut work tells a story of searching for identity and fleeing from reality. It encourages us to see the good things in ourselves and to have a healthy relationship with role models.

The house with the many windows is an old people’s home with lots of floors and rooms. Behind every window...

The house with the many windows is an old people’s home with lots of floors and rooms. Behind every window lives a person with his or her unique story. All these people are different and so are the stories they recall as they approach the end of their lives. There are memories of love, moments of fun and things that made them proud, as well as memories of grief and loss and misfortunes. People shared these stories with Charlotte Müller when she was working as a carer at an old people’s home. Now she has written them down and illustrated them so they won’t fade into obscurity after the people who told them have died.Selected for the BRAW Amazing Bookshelf at the 2023 Bologna Children’s Book Fair.

Konrad and Paul are trying to get through the second winter of the Covid pandemic, still wearing masks, but feeling...

Konrad and Paul are trying to get through the second winter of the Covid pandemic, still wearing masks, but feeling more and more impatient to go out partying, have fun and listen to the new album by ABBA. Aside from the pandemic, however, they also have other worries. That’s hardly surprising these days. But after decades of seemingly peaceful, problem-free coexistence, these two very different characters suddenly – and with good reason – start to ask themselves a frightening question: what if their love has run its course?Nominated for the 2023 PENG! – Munich Comic Award.

Three 15 to 16-year-olds from Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea arrive in Geneva and are left to fend for themselves. It’s...

Three 15 to 16-year-olds from Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea arrive in Geneva and are left to fend for themselves. It’s a clean, wealthy city, but they’re not welcome there. Living in a shelter for unaccompanied young migrants and traumatised by their experiences, they try to get by and find their place.Alone in the Unknown is the result of an encounter between three young migrants and three artists, who tell these true stories from their subjects’ own point of view. The illustrators have immersed themselves in the refugees’ world and explored their questions and feelings: how do you fit in and process your trauma while living in a place where you’re not welcome?

A graphic novel like a bewitching nightmare, with images that flit between ecstasy, drug trip and utopia. A man receives the...

A graphic novel like a bewitching nightmare, with images that flit between ecstasy, drug trip and utopia. A man receives the news that his brother has died in an accident. He breaks up with his overprotective partner and flies abroad to give a lecture. Upon arriving in the foreign city, he puts off his client and instead starts heading out from his empty flat to the city’s cruising spots: the darkroom of a gay bar, an almost forgotten part of a sculpture park, an abandoned car wash.With a determination verging on self-extirpation, he seeks to distance himself from his past. But the deeper he delves into the cruising scene, the more relentlessly he is haunted by memories of his brother.

Back in the late 1990s, Hamed is growing up in a provincial town in west Germany. Alternating between skating in...

Back in the late 1990s, Hamed is growing up in a provincial town in west Germany. Alternating between skating in abandoned buildings, smoking spliffs, spraying graffiti and finishing school, he lurches towards graduation and adulthood. A provincial adolescence with all the trimmings: Hamed experiences his first love, works towards his future dream of being an illustrator and worries about his best friend, who after experimenting with various drugs has moved on to the notorious ‘H’. While all that is going on, Hamed barely notices how his family, who moved to Germany from Iran years before, is falling apart. A sensitively told story about immigration and different generations, about coming to Germany and experiencing failure there.

Comrade Cuckoo is a graphic novel that blends fantasy and autobiography. The story spans from a 1960s childhood in the...

Comrade Cuckoo is a graphic novel that blends fantasy and autobiography. The story spans from a 1960s childhood in the village of Pritschitanow up to the privatisation of state-owned assets and industries in the 1990s. Kerstin arrives too late: her grandmother has already been buried and the photo album she was promised is nowhere to be found. She can no longer get away from the old village school where her grandmother taught Russian and Kerstin herself grew up. Kerstin is pestered by Effi about an unfulfilled promise. Meanwhile, Sternemann and Greiff, who have returned to the village intent on revenge, discover who really had them put in the home back then.

Princess Violet is descended from an ancient line of dragons and lives with her family in the kingdom of Asteria....

Princess Violet is descended from an ancient line of dragons and lives with her family in the kingdom of Asteria. When they are attacked, Violet and her handmaid are forced to flee. Their path takes them to Nordra, a land ruled by Kane Varian: an unpredictable young king who detests dragons …

In 1942, Emmie Arbel (who was born in The Hague in 1937) and her Jewish family are deported by the...

In 1942, Emmie Arbel (who was born in The Hague in 1937) and her Jewish family are deported by the Nazis. As a child, she survives the Ravensbrück and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. She is eight when the war ends. Her parents and grandparents have been murdered in the Holocaust.Emmie is adopted by a foster family, who in 1949 emigrate to Israel. In the kibbutz, she feels isolated and out of place – until, as a young woman, she takes her life into her own hands.Today, Emmie Arbel lives near Haifa. She often travels to Germany to talk about her first-hand experiences of the Nazi atrocities. Based on many in-person meetings and in-depth conversations, Barbara Yelin has created a powerful work of biography and memory.

Five fates – one story. A young woman and four young men from crisis-hit Afghanistan share their experiences of fleeing...

Five fates – one story. A young woman and four young men from crisis-hit Afghanistan share their experiences of fleeing to Europe: the dangers they endured, the decisions they had to make – and why they never turned back. They also talk about their lives back home: forced marriages, the violence of the Taliban, what it’s like to be part of a family of smugglers and then encounter the other side of the business as a refugee.An exciting, visually powerful non-fiction comic based on interviews, with explanatory texts and infographics to provide context and additional information. 

‘It was in the dreary month of November, The gloomy days grew shorter, The wind tore the foliage off the trees, As I...

‘It was in the dreary month of November, The gloomy days grew shorter, The wind tore the foliage off the trees, As I approached the German border.’So begins Heinrich Heine’s most famous work, Germany: A Winter’s Tale. Artfully interweaving poetry, prose and journalism, Heine speaks about themes of social, philosophical and personal significance: flight, exile, censorship, nationalism, Europe, love, beauty, nature, fairy tales. Heine is regarded as both the most modern and the most controversial author in the German literary canon. Gaby von Borstel and Peter Eickmeyer have created a visual world to match his mastery of the written word.

At first glance, Rita looks like a completely normal young woman. What nobody can see is that ever since she...

At first glance, Rita looks like a completely normal young woman. What nobody can see is that ever since she was a child, she’s been plagued by an intrusive ticking that seems to come from right inside her head. Even doctors are at a loss. But after she’s already given up hope of a cure, she meets a mysterious old witch who gives her a watch … 

He is considered the great sufferer of modern literature, a brooding existential author. But that is just one side of...

He is considered the great sufferer of modern literature, a brooding existential author. But that is just one side of Franz Kafka; few know that he was struck by legendary fits of laughter, loved slapstick and integrated many comedic elements in his texts. His friend Max Brod reported how Kafka had laughed so hard while reading the first chapter of The Trial aloud that ‘he couldn’t carry on reading at times’, ‘indeed, he liked to laugh and did so lustily and knew how to make his friends laugh too’.It is high time then to honour Kafka’s funny side. And who better to do that than Nicolas Mahler, who has turned so many classics into graphic novels? 

Can death be overcome? Kiela’s brother Quin died very young from a heart condition, and she is struggling to come...

Can death be overcome? Kiela’s brother Quin died very young from a heart condition, and she is struggling to come to terms with it. It is little consolation that Quin (like Kiela herself) had signed a contract with Helsheim, a company that guarantees its customers safe passage to the afterlife.One day, a thought crosses Kiela’s mind: could Helsheim make contact with the realm of the dead and help her to see Quin one last time? Soon after, she meets a boy at her school wearing a Helsheim uniform. That encounter paves the way for an incredible adventure …

Nici is a scientist who likes to get drunk in the bar next door. She secretly builds Melek, a body...

Nici is a scientist who likes to get drunk in the bar next door. She secretly builds Melek, a body she can use to travel to parallel dimensions. In one of these dimensions, she meets Nici – herself – in Melek’s body and begins a relationship with her.In a debut work that blends romance, sci-fi and character drama, Lina Ehrentraut transports us to a parallel world where everything seems effortlessly possible: dual identities, queer relationships, self-love. But for how long? Ehrentraut’s black and white comic sequences and colourfully painted illustrations skilfully guide readers through the various narrative levels.2022 Max & Moritz Awards: best German-language debut comic

Romi is sceptical when her friend gives her a ticket to the Memento Mori circus. The main attraction is apparently...

Romi is sceptical when her friend gives her a ticket to the Memento Mori circus. The main attraction is apparently an artist who leaps from the high wire to deadly depths each evening.But Romi’s visit to the circus is different from what she expects. The show is dominated by morbid figures and attractions. She feels mysteriously drawn to Auris the clown, and the two of them soon turn out to have more in common than she’d ever have thought possible.A coming-of-age story that blends dark romance and fairy tale, with a dash of Tim Burton.

‘Cheese slice girl’, ‘dirty cow’, ‘chav’ – just a few of the names Eva Müller’s protagonist was called all the...

‘Cheese slice girl’, ‘dirty cow’, ‘chav’ – just a few of the names Eva Müller’s protagonist was called all the time by other children when she was younger. Slurs designed to exclude her and put her in her place because she wasn’t from a privileged background.In this autofictional graphic novel, she tells her own story and the story of her family. With clear, powerful, impressive images of astonishing aesthetic variety, she depicts her grandparents’ rural origins, her parents’ working-class milieu in West Germany, the experience of growing up uneducated and poor, social shame, the stench of deep-frying fat, her cheap clothes, her alienation from her origins and finally her emancipation as an artist – and the self-doubt that she still can’t shake off, no matter how successful she is.

We can go anywhere, work anywhere, live anywhere – just as long as we have the right skin colour, the...

We can go anywhere, work anywhere, live anywhere – just as long as we have the right skin colour, the right education and, most important of all, the right passport. While teaching at a US college as part of an exchange programme, Birgit Weyhe is accused of cultural appropriation: is she exploiting her privilege as a white author when she tells stories about Black people? Birgit gets to know Priscilla Layne, an African American professor of German studies with Caribbean roots, who in her youth joined the skinhead movement and became a ‘rude girl’. How ought Birgit to tell a life story like that? In this biography, that question becomes a narrative level in its own right. Nominated for the 2023 Leipzig Book Fair Prize.

Munich, 1977: Rufus Himmelstoss is no more. As far as his family are concerned. And the police. And himself. Once...

Munich, 1977: Rufus Himmelstoss is no more. As far as his family are concerned. And the police. And himself. Once a cocksure blowhard, he’s now been living on the streets for two years, taking refuge in alcohol and sarcasm with equal elan. But Rufus realises he needs to get a move on if he wants to be a better father to his son from afar, as he’s experiencing alarming blackouts – and they’re growing more frequent and intense. Time to make a smart move …In the second instalment of his ‘groundbreaking comic’ (Andreas Platthaus, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung), Uli Oesterle once again effortlessly combines narrative depth with fast-paced suspense and masterful dialogue.