Thomas Ott

Thomas Ott was born in Zürich in 1966. He received training as a graphic artist at the School of Design in Zürich and has been a free-lance comics artist and illustrator since 1987. From 1998-2001 Ott attended film studies at the University of Art and Design (HGK), Zürich. He currently lives and works in Zürich and Paris. Ott is also the lead singer of The Playboys.

"Swiss cartoonist Ott employs neither dialogue nor captions in his stories; words appear rarely, usually as chapter titles or signs in the background. Appropriately, Ott uses the early silent cinema as a motif... In keeping with the silent movie motif, Ott uses black, white and grays, enveloping his realistically drawn characters and settings in an expressionistic mood. The characters initially display understated emotions, and their situations seem familiar. Ott's storytelling moves at a slow but steady pace, making his protagonists' extreme reactions more believable when they, and the readers, are caught in Ott's imaginatively conceived, masterfully executed traps." – Publishers Weekly

"The wordless noir morality plays are both meticulous and unnerving." – The Times [London]

"Comics don't come much cooler than the heavily stylish, moody stories-with-a-twist created by Thomas Ott." – The Comics Reporter

See also:
• Blog posts relating to Thomas Ott on FLOG! The Fantagraphics Blog