This year, 110 comic book titles published between 1 July 2024 and 30 June 2025 were competing for the Zlatirepec Award: 26 Slovenian comics for children and young adults, 53 translated comics for children and young adults, 15 Slovenian comics for adults, and 16 translated comics for adults.

The Zlatirepec Award was presented in six categories for the first time: Best Slovenian Comic for Children and Young Adults, Best Slovenian Comic for Adults, Best Translated Work for Children and Young Adults, Best Translated Work for Adults, Best Translation for Children and Young Adults in cooperation with the international Sophie Castille Award, and Best Translation for Adults in cooperation with the international Sophie Castille Award. The award for Best Translated Work went to the publisher, while the award for Best Translation went to the translator.

The jury consisted of comic artist Dora Kaštrun, comic critic and Stripburger magazine editorial board member Katja Štesl, and graphic designer and comic expert Žiga Valetič. The jurors were selected by members of the Packa Association of Slovenian Comics and Related Sequential Arts, which coordinates the award in cooperation with Stripolis Institute.

The international Sophie Castille Award for Comics in Translation was created in 2022 in memory of Sophie Castille, who had passed away suddenly. For many years, Castille was the international rights director and V. P. of licensing for Mediatoon, as well as the co-founder of the Europe Comics platform. Since the late nineties, she had built bridges between comics, authors, publishers, and fans around the world, becoming a key figure in the expansion of comics translation. Today, the award is presented for comic translations into six languages and at six renowned European festivals: in England (LICAF), Greece (Greek Comics Awards), Italy (Comicon Napoli), Poland (Łódź Comics Festival), Slovenia (Tinta Comics Festival), and Spain (Comic Barcelona).

The winners were announced on Saturday, 11 October, at 8.30 pm at Kino Šiška. The Sophie Castille Award was presented by renowned British comics historian and theorist Paul Gravett. The ceremony also featured a performance by singer-songwriter Niko Novak, who showcased his new music-and-comics album Haphazard Reruns (ŠKUC, 2025), created in collaboration with young visual artist Tamara Mihalič.

 

ZLATIREPEC 2025 – Best Slovenian Comic for Children and Young Adults
Lažninka, Manca Krošelj, Maša Ogrizek (Založništvo tržaškega tiska, 2025)

The serially created short comics in the Lažninka collection are thematically layered, visually appealing, and address a wide age range of readers. Heavier subjects, such as parents separating, grieving the loss of a loved one, and moving house, are introduced into the comic by the authors with skill, authenticity, lightness, and a great deal of warmth. The illustrator does not hold back on playfulness and vibrancy, while the writer guides us through the story with subtlety, clarity, and fluency. Through the interplay of drawings and text, they manage to fully harness the potential of comic storytelling, especially in juxtaposing different realities and perspectives – the imaginative world of children and the more serious one of adults.

 

ZLATIREPEC 2025 – Best Slovenian Comic for Adults
Iz jame, Katarine Šeme (VigeVageKnjige, 2024)

Author Katarina Šeme takes us to a place where no one in our cultural space has taken us before, as she depicts in a complex and dramatic way a cave rescue operation that unfolded in just 33 hours. She lowers us by rope into a realm of sensory deprivation, where in April 2023 an accident occurred in which a member of the Vranjedol Cave research expedition was critically injured – an operation in which the author herself also took part. She approaches this demanding subject with caution yet expertise, bringing to the forefront humanity, selflessness, and the strength of community, highlighted by the relaxed drawing style, warmly coloured figures, and lights that illuminate only the most crucial aspects of the action. For all these reasons, the comic Iz jame represents a milestone in Slovenian documentary comics.

ZLATIREPEC 2025 – Best Translated Work for Children and Young Adults
Mohi, Noemie Marsily, Isabella Ciely (Mladinska knjiga, 2024; translation: Mojca Medvedšek)

A quiet yet powerful narrative style and a refined, playful drawing approach build a smooth reading experience in which visual and textual elements seamlessly form a whole that leaves no reader indifferent. The seemingly naïve drawing style suits the content well, as it feels authentic and personal. The authors are remarkable observers of small gestures, children’s playfulness, desires, and relationships. They guide us elegantly through conflict situations, gradually exposing wounds while simultaneously healing them, all the while raising the question of how a child should respond to their environment and build positive peer relationships if they have never received the attention and love from those who should have given it most. The comic Mohi (Memet) cuts like a gentle razor – sensitive and deliberate.

 

ZLATIREPEC 2025 – Best Translated Work for Adults
Moška koža, Hubert, Zanzim (VigeVageKnjige, 2024; translation: Saša Jerele )

At a moment when political battles are fought on the shoulders of gender and civilisational norms are breaking apart, the comic medium has given rise to a visually accessible yet thematically strikingly effective tale titled Moška koža (A Man’s Skin). Young Bianca experiences the full-blooded life of a medieval man when her mother gives her the so-called “man’s skin,” and once she puts it on, she can, as Lorenzo, enter spaces and relationships reserved exclusively for men – even their various intimacies. The story is destined to become an archetypal phenomenon, much like The Picture of Dorian Gray in literature, proving that comics are an extraordinarily vital art form, one that playfully and unashamedly grapples with the most demanding contemporary issues and carries them unreservedly beyond the bounds of time and space.

 

SOPHIE CASTILLE AWARD 2025 – Best Translation for Children and Young Adults
Jedrt Maležič  – for the translation: Supervikend ob oceanu, Gaelle Almeras (Morfemplus, 2024)

When translating didactic comics such as Supervikend ob oceanu (Super Ocean Weekend), it is essential to take into account both the life-like aspects of the comic dialogues and the established scientific vocabulary, which in this case covers the marine world above and below the surface. Translator Jedrt Maležič, supported by expert consultant Prof. Dr. Lovrenc Lipej and copy editor Andreja Jezernik, has brilliantly maintained the balance between these two aspects, a balance already suggested by the visual layer of the comic itself. A work of all-round high quality, the comic softens its wealth of information through the adventures of four animal friends and has been carefully adapted to our context, where we are somewhat more familiar with the “sea” than the “ocean.”

 

SOPHIE CASTILLE AWARD 2025 – Best Translation for Adults
Julija Potrč Šavli – for the translation: Oksi, Mari Ahokoivu (VigeVageKnjige, 2024)

Oksi is an extensive and complex comic in the way it introduces and intertwines national cultural heritage with contemporary perspectives on the psychological development of its characters and the creation of fictional worlds. Thoughtful dialogues and unique poetic passages evoke the mystical atmosphere and mythological backdrop of a story rooted in Finnish tradition. The translator has newly rendered a song from the Finnish national epic Kalevala, while the translation as a whole delicately reflects the distinctiveness of the speakers and their modes of expression. The work carefully relies on the layering of meanings enabled by the comic form, and through strong symbolism supports themes of nature and spirituality, motherhood, death, belonging, and exile.

Lažninka – Ivan Mitrevski (Založništvo tržaškega tiska, 2025)

Kapo in Bundo v muzeju – Damijan Stepančič, Majda Koren (KUD Sodobnost International, 2025)

Rdeča raketa na sanjskih počitnicah – Ivan Mitrevski (Brundevski, 2024)

Fritz Lang: Ljutomer – Berlin – Hollywood – Zoran Smiljanić (Kulturno turistično društvo Festival, Založba ZRC, 2024)

Iz jame – Katarine Šeme (VigeVageKnjige, 2024)

Neč nouga: kku ne? – Karolina Marušič (Stripolis, 2025)

Mohi – Noemie Marsily, Isabella Ciely (Mladinska knjiga, 2024; prevod: Mojca Medvedšek)

Momo (1. knjiga) – Jonathan Garnier, Rony Hotin (VigeVageKnjige, 2024; prevod: Klara Katarina Rupert)

Zlate češke pravljice – Lucie Lomova (Narava, 2024; prevod: Ema Kovač)

Frank: 14 klasičnih črno-belih zgodb – Jim Woodring (Forum Ljubljana, 2024)

Ideal – Thomas Hayman, Baptiste Chaubard (VigeVageKnjige, 2025; prevod: Saša Jerele)

Moška koža – Hubert, Zanzim (VigeVageKnjige, 2024; prevod: Saša Jerele)

Katja Šaponjić, Anja Zag Golob
Ariol – Račji ples (13. knjiga), Marc Boutavant, Emmanuel Guibert (VigeVageKnjige, 2025)

Jaka Bulc
Astrobučman, David Walliams (Mladinska knjiga, 2025)

Jedrt Maležič
Supervikend ob oceanu, Gaelle Almeras (Morfemplus, 2024)

Jedrt Maležič
Berlinska trilogija 1: Kristalno poletje, Francois Warzala, Pierre Boisserie (Morfemplus, 2024)

Julija Potrč Šavli
Oksi, Mari Ahokoivu (VigeVageKnjige, 2024)

Polona Mertelj
Sapiens v stripu 2: Stebri civilizacije, Yuval Noah Harari, Daniel Casanave, David Vandermeulen (Mladinska knjiga, 2025)