The 189th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday,  Aug. 29, 2017 at 7pm at Parsons School of Design, 2 West 13th Street, in the Bark Room (off the lobby). Free and open to the public.

Andre and Ed Krayewski on Creating Your Own Reality in the Age of Trump

In May 2015, 81-year-old graphic artist Andre Krayewski and his son Ed, 29, launched a monthly comics magazine, FKT, which chronicles their comics-creating and also features the comics they create. The reality constructed in the comics doesn’t track with our own, but influences the process of making the comics themselves. In the age of Trump, being part of the “reality-based community” is optional.

Andre Krayewski started his studies at the fine art academy in Wroclaw in 1952, but was quickly thrown out for wearing multi-colored socks, boogie woogie, and comics. This was all, because of the Stalinist control of academia, unacceptable. Later, he returned to the same school, but was thrown out again, for the same things. After some time, he moved to Warsaw, where the Stalinist rules were not so strictly enforced, and finished his studies in poster art under Professor Henryk Tomaszewski at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. For the last seven decades, he has been working as a graphic artist, poster designer, and artist painter. Andre was six years old when World War II started and lived under both Nazi and Soviet occupation. He liked the war because he didn’t have to go to school. He moved to the America in 1985 with his wife, Yagoda. They had two sons, both born in New York, New York. In 2009, he finished his first book, Skyliner, which with his son Ed he adapted into comic-book form. The two have been working on comics ever since. He has made Newark, a good fit, his home since 1986.

Ed Krayewski writes for Reason magazine as well as comics with his father, Andre. He teaches journalism at Seton Hall University, where he completed his bachelors and masters in diplomacy. He also holds a masters in journalism from Columbia University. He taught seventh grade language arts and social studies in Newark, N.J for two years, and has also worked at NBC and Fox News. He lives in Philadelphia with his wife, daughter, and cat.

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