Štěpánka Jislová

Štěpánka Jislová (b. 1992) is a Czech illustrator and comic book author. Before graduating from the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art, she won the CZ.KOMIKS student award for her short story The Tree. She was a Scholar-in-Residence at the Wilkinson College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences in Orange, California. Her short comic stories have been published in several Czech and international anthologies such as Bobla, Dirty Diamonds, and CBA. She co-founded the Czech branch of Laydeez Do Comics, which strives to bring female comic book artists to a broader audience. Her work explores the worlds of legends, archetypes, and current social trends.

Lukáš Komárek (b. 1995) started creating illustrations and comics thematizing Germanic and Slavic mythology while he was still a student of illustration at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. In 2016, he won Best Comics Work (Main Award) at the international Thomas Orrow Award – Comics Competition for his comic Maiden Fair. In addition, he collaborated extensively with the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle on the exhibition Maxmilián Lobkowicz – Diplomat in the Service of Czechoslovakia, supplementing it with his illustrations. In 2019, he won third place in the Henryk v bublinách contest organized by the Polish Institute in Prague. He has also collaborated with Literární noviny, creating cover illustrations for the newspaper, and in 2020, he published a comic called Království (Kingdom) as part of a collection of comics titled AARGH!. In the spring of 2021, he created a set of posters for libraries and schools in the Hradec Králové region to promote reading.

Lukáš Pokorný (b. 1991) is a freelance copywriter based at Veřejný sál Hraničář, a centre for independent culture in Ústí nad Labem. He is one of the organizers and founders of the FIK festival of illustration and comics. For over eight years, he was the editor-in-chief of ComixZone.cz, a website dedicated to comics. He currently makes YouTube content for Comics Academy, a channel dedicated to educating people in comics creation.