“Working with children with disabilities inspired me greatly and helped free up my personal style. I had a real breakthrough when I saw a child quickly draw a face in ink: I told myself that I too could look for that same spontaneity.”
Boris Hurtel is a comics author, illustrator and independent publisher. Initially trained in philosophy, he has been developing an alternative comics practice since the late 1990s, combining graphic narratives, self-publishing and collective projects. He founded the association and publishing house Une autre image, as well as the collaborative magazine Dérive urbaine, which received the Alternative Comics Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2015.
His work seeks a balance between carefully constructed storytelling and a deliberately simple visual language, informed by spontaneity, Art Brut and children’s drawings. Alongside his graphic novels, he leads workshops with children, teenagers and people with disabilities. These encounters have shaped both his artistic research and his belief that comics can become a space for play, expression and collective creation.
