Essa van Geffen

Liebling,...

Hey, my name’s Essa van Geffen and I want to welcome you to join me in my journey towards graduation.

When I first moved from Barcelona to Zwolle, I never imagined the growth I would experience on both artistic and personal levels. I grew up in a warm country where the sun welcomed me most days and I spent my childhood drawing comics and inventing stories on our back terrace. When I moved to the Netherlands, most days were grey and dreary, and I started to think the Sun had left me for good.

During these years at Artez Zwolle, I’ve battled depression and anxiety but I also gained a strong sense of pushing through and a strength I didn’t know I had in me. In my third year I transitioned from Animation to Comic and things got better because I was more in my element. I became curious and was allowed to explore the limits, which had been very restrictive up to that point. Not only that, I had become restrictive with myself and comics helped me find my freedom once more. Under the guidance of my teachers, I became a better creator.

For my graduation comic I decided to tell a personal story, fueled by my recent heartbreak. It was an amazing experience to let go of my pain just like my main character did; but I think the most important aspect of my story is the message it sends across: it’s okay to not be okay, it’s fine to go through bad times, it’s absolutely understandable to feel pain and you don’t have to push it away or conceal it from the world. Only then it will start to heal. 

I believe both personal fascinations and your own experience are very good material when you’re a creator. The combination of the two is what makes a story interesting, in my opinion. Part of what frustrates me is that I have too many interests to pursue all at once, but being a storyteller allows me to be the explorer, the pilot and the idol of my dreams. In this case, I have a fascination for old abandoned theme-parks and I’ve gone through recent heartbreak. Those two aspects blended together to create something new, which I can now call Liebling.

Thank you for coming along this journey with me. I came from one path but many new ones lay in front of me. I hope we can keep exploring them together in the future.

Deze pagina is voor het laatst gewijzigd op 27 mei 2022

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