JP Ahonen (Finland)
JP Ahonen is a comic artist and freelancer from Tampere. His most famous works are comic strip series Villimpi Pohjola and Belzebubs. He has also worked on the graphic novel Sing no evil. In his free time he plays guitar and cooks.
HP Lehkonen
HP Lehkonen is a Finnish comic artist. HP’s most known comics are Immortal Nerd and Silly Ghost. His comics often tell about the life of the gender and sexuality minorities.
Max Andersson (Sweden)
Harri Filppa (Finland)
Harri Filppa is cartoonist, Oulu Comic Center’s director and Oulu Comics Festival art director. Filppa has founded Oulu Comics Festival (2012) and Oulu Comics Center (2014). He works in Nordic countries and in Russia creating collaborative networks combining production and comics art. Filppa has produced and curated exhibitions internationally.
Hes latest comic book Vastarannan Siili Piipertää (Soiva Siili, 2017) is based on children music. Near future, his Vastarannan Siili books will also be published in Karelian and Russian languages. He is currently working with the biographical graphic novel Death did us part (Pohjoinen kustannustoiminta, 2017) will be published in Finnish and English in 2017.
Filppa is currently working with Arts Promotion Centre Finland’s grant.Filppa has graduated from the University of Lapland, faculty of arts and design in 2007. He is best known from his master’s degree publication Tiedettä ja Sarjakuvaa (Kustannus HD, 2011), which was the first Master’s work which is completely drawn to cartoon format.
Bjarni Hinriksson (Iceland)
Bjarni Hinriksson (b.1963) is living and working in Iceland Reykjavik. Hinriksson is one of the founding members of the artists’ collective (gisp!), formed in 1990. The collective has published 12 issues so far of the comics magazine that goes by the same name. Hinriksson’s comics vary in theme, length and visual style. He rarely relies on continuing characters, the only notable exception being his alter ego Máni, appearing in various semi-autobiographical stories through the years. Experimentation, metaphysical surrealism and everyday life form the basis of Bjarni’s stories. Hinriksson studied comics at l’École régionale des beaux-arts in Angoulême, France from 1985 to 1989. Since returning from France he has written, drawn and published comics. He has also worked as a graphics designer at The Icelandic National Broadcasting Service since 1989 and as a teacher at the Reykjavík School of Visual Arts since 2004. One of his latest graphic novels Hvað mælti Óðinn? was published in GISP! in 2017. At the Oulu Comics Festival Bjarni will exhibit material from the work-in-process Hildingur at Sarjasto.
Line Høj Høstrup (Denmark)
Line Høj Høstrup is a Danish cartoonist recently graduated from Graphic Storytelling at The Animation Workshop, Denmark. Her work ranges from the comical absurd to poetic abstractions and onward to the informative journalistic comic.
Clara Jetsmark (Denmark)
Clara Jetsmark has graduated from the Animation Workshop in Viborg this year and she has been awarded with the Danish Ping Prisen Best Depute Comic award in 2017.
Mikko Jylhä (Finland)
Kaisa Leka (Finland)
Kaisa Leka is a comic artist and graphic designer from Porvoo. Her latest book Imperfect is about a bike trip from New York to San Francisco. Her other books are Place of Death and Time After Time.
Juho Sihvonen (Finland)
Amr Mohammed Talaat (Egypt)
Tohtori K (Finland)
Veli-Matti Üral (Finland)
Veli-Matti Ural (b. 1991) is Oulu based cartoonist. His comics has been published in magazines, antologies and online-media. Ural has been the vice chair person at the Oulu Comics society and he has been working at Oulu Comics Center as a comic teacher since 2015. The most known comic of his is Keijo Teuras whose humoristic comics has been published online since 2016. Urals deput comic album Keijo Teuras was published by Arktinen Banaanin in Autumn 2016.
Emmi Valve (Finland)
Karstein Volle (Norway)