Thomas Ott
Born in 1966 in Zurich
Lives and works in Basel and Paris
Thomas Ott studied at the Zurich School of Fine Arts and the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Thomas Ott is a comic book artist, illustrator, artist, and filmmaker. He is known for his black-and-white work, similar to engraving, for which he uses a technique of scraping white cardboard covered with a black layer with a cutter. His drawings are not accompanied by text but tell silent and complex stories that he describes as “dark storyboards.” His world is steeped in fantasy tales, noir novels, horror and suspense stories, and films. 

He publishes in numerous magazines, fanzines, and daily newspapers in Switzerland and abroad.
He received the Sierre Comic Book Competition Award in 1985, the City of Zurich Award and the Max und Moritz Award for his entire body of work in 1996, and the Micheluzzi Award for Best Foreign Comic Book in 2006. He has made two animated films, La grande Illusion in 1985 and Robert Creep, a dog's life in 1992. In 2018, he produced the Travel Book Route 66, a travel journal about the road connecting Chicago to Los Angeles, for Louis Vuitton Publishing. 

Thomas Ott a dit : « Je me suis toujours senti plus proche du cinéma que de la BD. Souvent, je me demande où je dois poser ma caméra dans le décor. Quant à l'humour noir, c'est le fruit de mon côté grand cynique de la vie. Garder son humour dans des situations graves est une force importante. »