People by the river

The event is being organised in cooperation with »Donaubüro gemeinnützige GmbH« and as part of the »Ulm Comic Week«.

The beautiful blue Danube is one of the largest rivers in the world and flows through more countries than any other river on earth. Fascinated by this, the young graphics student Christian Schmiedbauer set off in 2000 to travel along the entire course of the Danube - from its source in the Black Forest to the Danube Delta on the Black Sea. The adventurous backpacker trip lasted a summer, during which the young artist portrayed the people along the river and their very personal relationship with the Danube. But the further east he travels, the greater the obstacles that stand in his way: Political unrest, knife gangs, a night in a run-down Romanian prison and, to make matters worse, a bout of dysentery threaten to derail his mission.

Christian Schmiedbauer was born with a preference for flowing waters: he was born in Straubing on the Lower Bavarian Danube in 1976. Since studying graphic design, he has lived on the banks of the Lech in Augsburg. His comic strip series „Süßwasserpiraten“ was listed among the eleven best German webcomics by Spiegel online in 2016. For his work on »Menschen am Fluss«, he received the Free State of Bavaria's working grant for writers. The book was published by Volk Verlag in 2025.

The Ulm Comic Week is a joint event organised by the Ulm City Library, the vh Ulm, the Donaubüro, the Griesbad-Galerie and the Comic Home bookshop.

The complete programme can be found here:https://ulm.de/comic-woche