Tonto Comics
Edda Strobl and Helmut Kaplan (Graz, Austria) run this publishing house and collective founded in 2000.
Their publications gather some recurring Austrian authors: Marie Gmeindl, Michael Jordan, Helmut Kaplan, Clemens Stecher, Edda Strobl, and occasional guests from Austria and abroad (for example, Igor Hofbauer). The founders Strobl and Kaplan are dealing with comics from the early 90’s, occasionally publishing in various European and Austrian anthologies. Tonto Comics was founded as an extension to the already existing music publishing house Tonto Records founded in 1992 by Kaplan who is also active as a musician. They publish Tonto magazine which gathers short comics of the above mentioned authors, and occasionally some solo albums. They also organise exhibitions, workshops and concerts.
In Graz in 2008, they organized a workshop in cooperation with the French collective Le Dernier Cri in which Austrian and French authors participated, as well as authors from the collective Komikaze from Zagreb.
A common characteristic of artists gathered in Tonto is realistic drawing with influences ranging from classic American comic strips, through the photo realism to Funny Animals cartoons in combination with an experimental scenaristic approach.
