Preview & Making-of: The Leibinger Chair for Comics and Comic Research at the Merz Akademie Stuttgart

On 1 July 2026, the multi-award-winning comic artist Barbara Yelin (*1977) will take up the newly established Leibinger Chair of Comics and Comic Research at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart – a significant step for the recognition and further development of comics in the German-speaking world. How did this endowed professorship come about? What impetus is it intended to provide for artistic and research-based comic creation? And what expectations are associated with it? Bianca Henze, project manager for the Berthold Leibinger Foundation’s Comic Book Award, and Florian Bayer, professor in the Department of Visual Communication at the Merz Akademie, address these questions in conversation with the future endowed professor, Barbara Yelin.
Barbara Yelin has published, among other works, the graphic novels “Irmina”, “Emmie Arbel. The Colour of Memory” and “Ein Leben für das Theater 1898–1975”. As a Rome Award winner, she is currently spending ten months at the Villa Massimo in Italy and will therefore be joining this discussion via live video link.