Anna-Maria Jung

I am a passionate Austrian illustrator with a quirky and sometimes dark sense of humor. I’ve been creating whimsical and endearing characters ever since I could hold a pencil, which naturally led me to explore graphic novels.

After earning a Master’s degree in Multi Media Art in Austria in 2007 (which included an internship at Bill Plympton Studios) and a Master of Arts in Illustration from FIT in New York in 2011, I began producing hundreds of charming and nerdy designs for the licensing market. My work also extends to illustrating children’s books for renowned publishers such as Macmillan, Workman Publishing, and Epic!

Comedy plays a central role in my art—especially when it comes to blending silly, innocent moments with a darker sense of humor. I’m fascinated by how the world can be both wonderful and terrifying at once, and how life itself is often just plain weird. I also have a special love for odd science topics, from gross bodily functions to parasitic lifeforms and beyond.

Anna-Mariaq Jung_Author Headshot_(c) Tamara Kokić

What cool travel spots would you most highly recommend?

Japan, anywhere! I have never been in a country that puts so much efford into the functionality and the design of things. And there are so many wonderful character designs everywhere!

Why is your humor so silly, but also dark?

Sometimes I wonder the same, and one thought I have is that in Austria, I grew up with quite “dark” children’s media. For example, a lot of Japanese/German animation productions featured themes such as death, suffering, and violence — for example, Alfred J. Kwak, produced in the late ’80s, had a cute duck experience terrible loss and other serious adult themes.

In addition, Austrian cartoonists I liked, such as Deix and Harderer, drew their subjects in a very unflattering light. Later in life, I was very influenced by the late ’90s Cartoon Network era and Monty Python. I have a lot of love for silly and dark humor.

Awards and honors:

Fulbright Scholarship, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) New York, 2009 – 2011: Master of Arts

Society of Illustrators, New York – Illustrators 54
Selected for inclusion in the annual exhibition and publication, 2012.

Star Trek: 50 Artists. 50 Years
Featured in this international traveling exhibition celebrating the franchise’s 50th anniversary, 2016.

Creative Process:

For most projects, everything starts with doodles in my sketchbook, maybe with a few research photos next to me. This always happens with analog materials, sometimes in a café. The doodle helps me nail down composition, idea, and mood.

The doodle works as a perfect underlay for the upcoming sketch phase. Usually, it takes me a couple of sketches — between one and five — to reach a stage that I consider ready for clean line art. To improve the sketch, I scan it in, mirror it in Photoshop, print it out at low opacity, and draw over it again multiple times. Sometimes a sketch feels like a “Quasimodo” in its first stage and slowly transforms into something presentable with each pass.

Something I learned is to keep making passes until the sketch works 100% (or at least 90%) — then I scan it and do the line art and color digitally in Photoshop. There, I work with many, many layers and very methodically. This means that I have a lot of easy control over the character’s position, color changes, etc.

This is all for finished client artwork — in my sketchbook, I go wild with watercolors, markers, and colored pencils.

Mediums:

Pencil on paper, digital, mixed media

Character design, Illustration, Licensing comics & art, Middle Grade, Picture books

Specialties:

Location:

Graz, Austria

Published books:

Redshirts: Star Trek’s Little Book of Doom (Insight Editions, 2016) – Illustrations
The Most Dangerous Book: Archery (Workman Publishing, 2017) – Illustrations
Turn This Book Into a Beehive (Workman Publishing, 2017) – Illustrations
TinkerActive Workbooks (Odd Dot / Macmillan, 2018-2020) – Covers & Character Designs
Creepy Cafetorium Vol. 1–3 (Epic!, 2019-2022) – Illustrations & one story concept
Disgustology: The Science of Gross (Odd Dot / Macmillan, 2025) – Concept & Illustrations
Turn This Book Into a Birdfeeder (Workman Publishing, 2025) – Illustrations