Alliance Française (The French Library)
1 Kildare Street, Dublin 2

Tomi Ungerer     website  |  facebook  |  twitter  |  instagram

Tomi Ungerer is an internationally celebrated French artist and writer living in Ireland. He is famous for his sharp social satire and his occasional controversial content. Ungerer was recently awarded the Legion of Honour in recognition of his excellence in arts and culture as well as his work towards improved Franco-German relations (Tomi is Alsatian). He is best known for his acclaimed children's books (timeless classics such as The Three Robbers, Moon Man, Zeralda's Ogre or Otto: The Autobiography of a Teddy Bear) and his provocative political posters against war, social & racial injustice, but his oeuvre encompasses diverse practices including illustration, advertising, writing, collage, sculpture and architectural design.
Aged 86, he has just released his latest book Ni oui, ni non in which he answers and illustrates 100 philosophical questions asked by children.

Sarah Bowie     website  |  facebook  |  twitter  |  instagram

Sarah is a Visual Analyst for a design thinking company by day and a visual story author/illustrator by evenings and weekends (and sometimes holidays). Her love for visual storytelling led her to co-found The Comics Lab, organise one of the first indie Irish-French Comics Festival and indulge in a three month residency in Angouleme, the European centre of the comic’s world. She has published three children’s books, her most recent We’re going to the zoo!, with The O’Brien Press in 2018.

Aoife Dooley     website  |  facebook  |  twitter  |  instagram

Aoife Dooley is a 5ft freelance illustrator, author and comedian based in Dublin hailing from the northside. She studied in Colaiste Dhulaigh for 3 years before going on to achieve a first class honours degree in Visual Communication. Aoife is best known for her 'Your One Nikita' (formally known as Dublin Hun) illustrations which chronicle the life of a 22 year old woman called Nikita and boyfriend Anto. She published her first book How to be Massive in October 2016 with Gill books and has a second book coming out later this year called How to Deal with Poxes on a Daily Basis. Her sweet and innocent illustrations are captioned and brought to life by the type of humour one can only accumulate from years of living on the Northside of Dublin where she studied at Dublin Institute of Technology.

Alan Dunne     website  |  facebook  |  twitter  |  instagram

Alan is an award winning illustrator living and working in Dublin. He enjoys working on narrative based projects. He worked for 12 years on a broad range of documentaries, opening title designs and tv shows for RTÉ television – Ireland’s national broadcaster. He now writes and illustrates short story comics and was twice shortlisted for the Jonathan Cape / Comica / Observer Graphic Short competition. He is a recipient of the Cecil Day-Lewis Literature Award by Kildare County Council, and was awarded best emerging talent at the IDI Irish Design Awards in 2017.

Philip Elliott     website  |  twitter

Philip is an illustrator and cartoonist. Formerly an art director he has been telling stories for clients for years through film, animation and print. He has recently ventured into the medium of comics for storytelling. He had a very successful exhibition of cartoon illustration – Observations of an Ectomorph in OB-City - in 2013 and has since illustrated a children’s book. He loves to turn words and ideas upside-down and inside-out and will do anything to illustrate a good pun. He is a member of Illustrators Ireland.

PJ Holden     website

PJ Holden is a Belfast based comic artist. While he is best known for drawing Judge Dredd for 2000AD, working professionally for over nearly two decades, PJ has drawn everything from Terminator/Robocop to WWII battles to James Bond’s Boss M visiting Belfast. PJ has also written articles for imageinFX magazine, and has taught a Comics Creation course for the Irish Writer’s Centre.

Debbie Jenkinson is a comic creator and illustrator living in Dublin 9. Her comics explore the small triumphs and frustrations of ordinary life, like Remorse, a long comic about a girl who gets trapped in a call centre job for ten years. Failed romances, overfed cats and the inner lives of office workers feature again and again in her stories. Her next long project is another romantic misadventure set in Dublin, called Ghosting. She is co-founder of the Comics Lab, (now a part of DCAF) a member of Illustrators Ireland and of Stray Lines Comics Collective.

Paddy Lynch is a cartoonist, educator and graphic designer from Dublin, Ireland. Through his comics he seeks to embrace and explore the complicated and often contradictory experiences that make us tick and reveal who we truly are. His comics have been published both domestically and internationally including: My Last Day at Seventeen a collaboration with acclaimed photographer Doug DuBois, published by Aperture Foundation. Big Jim: Jim Larkin and the 1913 Lockout, published by the O’Brien Press, We Speak in Code an ongoing series of poetic vignettes based around Dublin cityy. He has appeared in comics anthologies such as Zona (Comics Workbook, Pittsburgh USA) and š! (Kuš!, Latvia). He publishes his own work and the works of others in the anthology Stray Lines.

Elida Maiques is a visual artist with a strong line in comics, originally from Spain, based in Dublin since 2003. Her experiments in art and comics have been exhibited internationally and published in award-winning Polen magazine, Stray Lines, the publications of Plutón CC, RíRá, her own fold-out minicomic Slow, etc. She is an experienced educator, currently teaching Visual Storytelling in Marino College and other locations in Dublin and Wicklow.

Alé was born in Granada, Spain. Although he studied and worked as an industrial engineer, his passion always was comics. That took him to eventually quit his job with a major corporation and focus on graphic design, illustration and comics (which he considers the same discipline). Alé has been working in all areas of design as well as publishing his own children books and comics. Over the years his work has been gathering some recognition. Recently he was shortlisted for the prestigious Observer/Comica/Jonathan Cape Short Story Competition and earlier in the year he was also shortlisted for the IDI Irish Design Awards. He is based in Kilkenny since 2003 where he lives with Siobhán and their two children.

Melody Ung is a self-taught cartoonist, originally from Paris, who recently moved to Dublin. She is passionate about drawing stories since she was a kid. For many years these comics were only released among her family and closest friends. She finally decided to launch her blog Orchimy.com in May 2016. The main topics are her double culture (French/Vietnamese), being an expat in Dublin and her dear cat. All the comics are both in French and English.

Roger O’Reilly is an award winning illustrator. His work has been featured internationally in publications such as the Irish Times, The New Yorker, the South China Post and GQ magazine alongside a career illustrating for design and advertising agencies. He recently undertook the task of illustrating all the lighthouses that protect Ireland’s shorelines and which are now available in poster form. Comic art has always informed his work and can be especially seen is his storyboard work for movie projects. 

Cécile Palusinski is an author known for her studies of literature and painting. Part of her career has been spent in contemporary art galleries and she has notably written a monograph of the visual artist Flore Sigrist. She has also published several books for children on the subject of art, including Garance et le Maître des Couleurs. As a writer, she is also president of the association La Plume de Paon, which works to promote the audio book, in particular through a Francophone portal for this medium. In 2013 she founded the training and consultancy firm Numered Conseil dedicated to professionals in publishing and the visual arts as they confront the digital revolution. She is currently working on a literary multimedia project NORD-SUD (together with 2 illustrators Elsa Mroziewciz and Saba Niknam).

Originally from the US, Margaret Anne moved to Dublin to complete her Master’s Degree at the National College of Art and Design. She is also on the Board of Directors for Illustrators Ireland and when she is not illustrating, she is lecturing at Ballyfermot College of Further Education where she founded the Illustration course.