Barbara Yelin begins as Professor of Comics and Comic Studies

July 7, 2026, marks the start of Prof. Barbara Yelin’s tenure. The announcement that Barbara Yelin would become Professor of Comics and Comic Studies at the Merz Akademie was made during the ceremony for the 12th Comic Book Award of the Berthold Leibinger Foundation on Friday, March 13, 2026, at the Hospitalhof in Stuttgart. The Leibinger Professorship for Comics and Comic Studies is the first professorship of its kind in the German-speaking world. Barbara Yelin is one of the most internationally renowned comic artists of her generation.

I’m excited to be starting my first day today as a comics professor at the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart, and I’m especially looking forward to what we’ll accomplish next semester!

– Barbara Yelin.

The initiative to establish the professorship was led by Dr. Barbara M. Eggert, President of Merz Akademie and a scholar of comics. She approached the Berthold Leibinger Foundation with the proposal for an institutionally anchored professorship in Comics Studies.

The professorship is linked to the establishment of a part-time master’s program in Comics and Comic Studies.

Barbara Yelin, together with Barbara M. Eggert, conceived an International Summer School on Comics, which will take place at the Merz Akademie starting Monday, July 20, 2026. Participants will include students from the Merz Academy as well as students from partner institutions: the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the Haute école des arts du Rhin in Strasbourg, the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Porto, the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and the University of South Wales in Cardiff. Barbara Yelin will give a lecture at the Summer School titled “Comics on the Menu: Graphic Storytelling as Urban Research.”
The International Summer School on Comics is funded by the Erasmus+ program.