Kurt Ankeny is an award winning cartoonist and painter whose work has been featured in Best American Comics, at the Society of Illustrators, and in Comics Workbook.
Kurt Ankeny is an award winning cartoonist and painter whose work has been featured in Best American Comics, at the Society of Illustrators, and in Comics Workbook.
Kurt Ankeny has been producing comics since he was a kid. His first collected work, In Pieces, was published in 2016. His second collection, Pleading with Stars, was released by the great indie publisher AdHouse Books in 2019.
WHAT READERS ARE SAYING:
“An impressive debut collection of short stories that explores various genres and styles. Ankeny is an artist with immense range and skill.”
—Marc Sobel, The Comics Journal, The Best Comics of 2019 article
"As someone worn out with the over-coloring and digital conformity of certain mainstream comics, Kurt Ankeny is a sight for sore eyes.”
—Jake Grubman, ComicsVerse
"'Gulls' by Kurt Ankeny, is one of the most beautiful comics I have read all year. […] It’s an incredibly touching story that resolves satisfyingly, while also leaving narrative threads for the audience to follow, in their own minds, once they turn that last page. A great read."
—Chris Beckett, Warrior 27
"Pleading with Stars, Kurt Ankeny's new collection from AdHouse Books, showcasing his work from 2014 to 2019, maps an intricate constellation of words and pictures. And what pictures! Ankeny can draw. […] The core of the collection is a series of meditations on the mysteries of human behavior. […] If these stories are linked in any way, it is in their searching for, finding and then exploring facets of souls shrouded in darkness and striving for illumination; pleading with stars.”
—Bill Boichel, The Copacetic Comics Company
“At times, especially in the beginning [of In Pieces], all these moments can see displaced from each other, but as they accrue through the work, you see what Ankeny is building. It’s like being presented with sections of a map that don’t quite fit together at first, but which are being handed to you in a purposeful way, in order to nurture your understanding of the area in the map and give you a different vantage point once the full map is in front of you. Ankeny’s process of doing this is gentle and patient, and it builds up into a rich and gracious examination of place and self and what one means to the other.”
—John Seven, Indie Beat Column, The Comics Beat
"Kurt Ankeny’s In Pieces: Someplace Which I Call Home (Two Hundred Zoo Press) is a poetic and thoughtfully crafted graphic novel that is centered around the notion of place. Through a series of beautifully drawn interactions, observations, and reflections, Ankeny brings the small Massachusetts town of Ipswich to life. […] What results is a purposely fragmented tale that highlights the ineffable quality of what makes a place a home."
—Whit Taylor, Cartoonist and Guest Editor for Pen America
