Jason Lutes
Jason Lutes was born in New Jersey in 1967 and grew up reading American superhero and western comics until a trip to France at age nine introduced him to the world of "bandes dessinées." In the late 1970s he discovered Heavy Metal magazine and the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, both of which proved major influences on his creative development.
Lutes graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Illustration in 1991. While at RISD, among the many new comics he encountered were Art Spiegelman's RAW magazine and Chester Brown's Yummy Fur, which together inspired him to start publishing minicomics under the imprint "Penny Dreadful."
Upon graduation in 1991, he moved to Seattle, where he spent several years working as a dishwasher and assistant art director at Fantagraphics Books. His "big break" came in 1993, when he began drawing a weekly comics page called "Jar of Fools" for The Stranger, Seattle's alternative paper. By 1995 he had become the paper's art director, but upon collecting and self-publishing Jar of Fools in 1996, he left The Stranger and made the leap to becoming a full-time cartoonist.
In the handful of productive years following that decision, Lutes began the comic book series Berlin, an ongoing 22-chapter story set in the twilight years of the Weimar Republic. The first eight chapters are collected in Berlin: City of Stones, and chapters nine through sixteen are collected in Berlin: City of Smoke.
Lutes currently lives in Vermont with his partner and two children, where he teaches comics at the Center for Cartoon Studies and works on City of Light, the final installment of his Berlin trilogy, whenever he can find the time.
He still tries to play Dungeons & Dragons once a week with friends.

Featured Book
Eisner Award
Nominated for Best Graphic Album—Reprint for Berlin (Hardcover)
Excellence in Graphic Literature Award
2019 Book of the Year for Berlin (Hardcover)
Excellence in Graphic Literature Award
2019 Best in Educational Comics: Adult, Fiction for Berlin (Hardcover)
Harvey Award
Nominated for Book of the Year for Berlin (Hardcover)
Ringo Award
Nominated for Best Presentation in Design for Berlin (Hardcover)
Diamond Gem Award
Indie Graphic Novel of the Year for Berlin (Hardcover)
ALCUIN Society Book Design Awards
Honorable Mention for Berlin (Hardcover)
Eisner Award
Nominated for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work for Berlin Book Two: City of Smoke
Eisner Award
Nominated for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist) for Berlin Book Two: City of Smoke
Eisner Award
Nominated for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work for Berlin Book One: City of Stones
Harvey Award
Nominated for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work for Berlin Book One: City of Stones
Eisner Award
Nominated for Best Continuing Series for Berlin 05
Eisner Award
Nominated for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist) for Berlin 05
Ignatz Award
Nominated for Outstanding Artist for Berlin Book One: City of Stones
Ignatz Award
Nominated for Outstanding Series for Berlin Book One: City of Stones
February 7, 2022
The comic strip, la bande dessinée, the graphic novel. These are all part of a medium with an intrinsic connection to ...
February 11, 2021
In his pathbreaking graphic novel, Berlin (Drawn and Quarterly, 2018), Jason Lutes creates a multifaceted exploration of...
October 27, 2020
2020 has been an unprecedented year in pretty much every way. We are overjoyed to have published 23 titles by outstanding…
September 1, 2020
The paperback edition of Jason Lutes’s epic graphic novel chronicling the rise of Nazism in Germany is in stores now. Berlin…