Merel Barends (1980) is a comic artist and illustrator. Her work has been published by several renowned publishing houses like De Bezige Bij, Uitgeverij Atlas/Contact and Uitgeverij Podium. She did commissions for a wide range of clients, such as IDFA, Vrij Nederland Magazine, Mindshakes (NRC Media), OneWorld, Amsterdam Young Academy, CPNB and Greenpeace.

Barends participates regularly in artistic group projects. Her work was exhibited both in the Netherlands and internationally, including in Burundi (1 Femme, 6 Humeurs), Tunisia  (correspondents.org) and the Czech Republic (De Inktpot). At an earlier edition of Cross Comix, she curated the exhibit-in-the-dark ‘Stripped! – A pretty dark room’, where she invited 20 female comic artists to create work inspired by Nietzsche (and his influence). 

Barends is an editor of graphic journalism platform Drawing the Times. As a graphic journalist, she found an international audience and her journalistic comics were published in Dutch, English and Arabic. She’s also part of the Medifoor team, an initiative by medical professionals to visualize complex diagnoses and treatments in a patient-friendly way.

Since 2017, together with writer/producer Jantiene de Kroon, Barends has been working on Oranova, a transmedial world building project. Within this arena, she examines new methods of storytelling, always with her own drawing style as a starting point. She developed motion comics (a mix between comic and animation) and directed an animated VR-experience, Oranova Night Market. The latter had its world premiere at Kaboom Festival, and won the second prize in the New Frontiers Competition at Future Film Fest in Bologna. 

In 2023 Barends developed a theatrical VR-performance with fusion band Zettai, Fight Your Inner Demons, which is still on tour.At the moment, she’s also working as an art director and designer on Lagos, Home For All, an XR-collab with Nigerian animators and comic artists.

Melek Zertal is a French Algerian illustrator and comic artist, based between Paris and California. She likes to create contemplative, slow reading narratives, all put together by a thorough work of image curation and by washed out pastel colors.

She tries to find a way to convey atmospheres that words cannot express, fleeting moments, and unrequited loves. An unforeseen warming sunshine in the midst of winter, last words of a loved one, four hands forging a cherry pie simultaneously. Stories have no beginning, no end , we’re just thrown in the middle of a story that sounds vaguely familiar. However, through the dreamy haze-like and heartfelt narratives, societal dynamics always find a way to catch up to her characters.

Lauraine Meyer is a French graphic novelist and illustrator based in the Netherlands. She studied illustration and graphic design in Paris. Committed feminist, she questions gender norms and sexism with humor and a colorful and joyful style. Her main goal is to make complicated subjects more digestable in order to be accessible to everyone.

After a career as art director in advertising, she published Feminists in Progress in 2022, Moi, j’aurais pas fait comme ça in 2024 and Mecs in Progress in 2025. Feminists in Progress is available in Dutch.

Nova de Hoo is a comic artist who wants to preserve the traditional elements of fun and irony in her comics, whilst also addressing social issues with care and sensitivity. She knows this is quite a difficult cocktail, and she doesn’t think she’ll ever fully get there!

She loves comics with her whole heart. Just like animation they are so incredibly concrete, and there’s no need to discuss a good comic because you don’t have to guess what it’s trying to convey, it’s just right there on the page.

As someone who is incredibly bad with abstraction and subjectivity, she loves the down-to-earth vibe that comics have. Currently she is writing a fictional story based on experiences she’s had in South Africa, hanging out with sex workers in Johannesburg and in doing so learning a bit about their struggles and dreams. In general she is drawn to feminist themes, and loves to write a little about her own experiences as a gay woman.