WINSHLUSS

The French comics master of a hundred styles and wordless critical jabs!

Winshluss, whose real name is Vincent Paronnaud (1970), is an infamous French comics artist and animator who began his career deep underground and rose to the very top of the French comics pantheon without compromising his expression in any particular way. In 2007, Winshluss and Marjane Satrapi co-directed the film adaptation of one of the most influential comic books of all time, Persepolis, which is about the Satrapi’s upbringing in Iran. The animated feature film was a great success with both viewers and critics and received numerous awards, including the César Award for Best First Feature Film and the Special Jury Prize in Cannes.

In the wider comics audience, Winshluss became famous with Pinnochio (Les Requins Marteaux, 2008), which also won the Best Album Award at the 2009 Angoulême International Comics Festival in France. The comic book, which has since been considered his magnum opus, is a cynical adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s classic. Through the transformation of the famous puppet into a war robot, it almost wordlessly guns down a whole host of social phenomena, from capitalism and the totalitarian state to religious fanaticism, all with humour and drawn in such a plethora of diverse styles that not even Tomaž Lavrič would have been ashamed of. In 2018, Stripburger also published his wordless comic masterpiece Smart Monkey about the prehistoric rise of primate intelligence.

Winshluss will be featured at Tinta with an exhibition of original works at the Equrna Gallery, and the opening of the exhibition will be by a conversation with the author. In honour of Winshluss’ visit, the Slovenian Cinematheque will screen the animated feature film Persepolis. Winshluss will present his creative process at Saturday’s masterclass at Kino Šiška, where he will also sign his comic books at the fair.