Eszter Szép

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Tag: comics

  • COMPLEX Awarded Honorable Mention at Supertoon Festival

    Our choose your own adventure comic COMPLEX won Special Mention in the Fanzine category at Supertoon Festival! We are honoured! We are The Random Factor Comics Collective: Anamarija Kvas, Anna Benczédi, Ivana Geček, and myself.

    Complex was fun to make — each of us staying in a different country, having online meetings about storylines and how to connect them, crazyness and lots of fun. Readers also seem to be enjoying it. 🙂

    In COMPLEX, you help our heroes navigate the maze of their lives! We offer you many storylines, each starting out at an exhibition. Depending on your choices, you can test gravity on various space objects, challenge patriarchy with cats, or help our heroes survive their poor life choices.

  • Black Hole Woman – Riso printed zine

    My new zine, Black Hole Woman is an illustrated poem I wrote in a passionate and compassionate voice and drew in quick graphite lines. It’s full of emotions (at least for me, and it offers (I hope) solace and consolation.

    It’s also my first riso zine that is fully printed by me! As I got to understand riso better, the first version has been updated into a second version that is richer in detail. Registration has also gotten better!

    Printed in March-April 2026.

    Festival Appearances:

    • Sābrs Zine and Small Press Festival, Riga, 4-5 July 2026
    • Stockholm International Comics Festival (SIS), 16-17 May 2026

  • Thinking with colors: I made an academic zine with riso

    Earlier this week I’ve been part of an inspiring and intense comics conference (4-5 May 2026, Malmö, Sweden), where a most friendly and generous international community spent days and nights reflecting on the field. I was a respondent in the MATERIALITY section. As respondent, I could spend time with the smart and passonate position papers by Barbara Chamberlin and Hailey Austin. I felt it only appropriate to prepare a handout… but then my brain started overthinking the innocent idea and turning it into a two-week project. So I responded to the papers by making a zine in the risography studio of Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture (2 weeks, 3 colors).

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  • Keynote at IGNCC

    One of the greatest honors of my life has been to keynote at the joint conference of IGNCC and IBDS (International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference, International Bande Dessinée Society).
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  • COMPLEX: A Choose your own adventure comic!

    COMPLEX, is a collectively made choose-your-own-adventure comic by Anna Benczédi (Romania), Ivana Geček (Croatia), Anamarija Kvas (Croatia), and Eszter Szép (Hungary) that debuted at Ukmukfukk Festival, Budapest, in 2025.

    COMPLEX has won an award! We are extremely happy to have won Honorable Mention at Supertoon International Animation and Comics Festival, Šibenik, Croatia.

    In COMPLEX, you can navigate between many storylines. It starts out at an art exhibition, and depending on your choices, you can test gravity on various space objects, challenge patriarchy with cats, or can help our heroes survive their poor life choices. This is THE choose your own adventure comic from the Balkans that you would not want to miss!


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  • Versions of Me – Comics Anthology

    Last autumn (2024) I had the pleasure to co-teach a one-week practical workshop on making comics and feminism. This practical workshop was attended by young creative women studying at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, and and they were so dedicated and hard-working, that we managed to publish an anthology of our work. My co-teacher, Nikoletta Mihalik took on the role of designing our booklet, which contains a lot of 2-page comics on the experience of being a young woman in Hungary today. Topics include body image, work-life balance, wrestling, and the most popular topic is the weigh of expectations.

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  • Fulbright visiting researcher in comics and design

    I spent the first half of this year in the USA as a Fulbright Visiting Researcher at the University of Oregon. I cannot tell you how privileged I feel for having been given this grant and the opportunity to immerse myself into the world of comics.

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  • Weekdays – my comic book on depression

    Have you always wanted a Hungarian comic in which nothing happens? In which Lidl cashiers are grumpy and the protagonists know all Netflix series by heart?
    Then Weekdays, my first comic book, is for you! Nothing really happens in this story about three siblings. For one of them reality seems darker, gloomier, more unbearable, and the other two brothers try to help him in their own ways.

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  • Feminist Comics Network at the Balkans

    I am honored to be a mentor and advisor in WOMCOM, a groundbreaking 6-country comics initiative that aims at creating a network for women and non-binary creators in the very patriarchal comics cultures and societies of Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia.
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  • Remarkable Educator Award

    Proud to share that I got an award for being a remarkable educator! This was the first time Milestone Institute handed out awards, and I’m honored.

    That said, I also would like to say that I’m absolutely open to teaching at your institution, too!

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