I’m Julia Schneider, also known as Doc J Snyder—a Berlin-based comic essayist, PhD economist, and former AI consultant. I create Handgeschneiderte Comic Essays that aim to bridge intellect and intuition—hopefully deep and thought-provoking, but never preachy.

I am most drawn to the big questions, with a particular interest in the following topics:

1. Technology and Society: The societal, environmental, and ethical impacts of Artificial Intelligence (AI), blockchain, computing or NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens)

2. Equity and Inclusion: How to create fair and inclusive opportunities for all in unequal, diverse, and ageing societies

3. Systems and Change: Rethinking economics, money, work, laws, and policy to address outdated systems and global challenges

What I Do

I do the conceptualizing, researching, writing, and storytelling for my comic essays, often scribbling rough ideas alongside the text. On the visual side, I collaborate with brilliant artists who elevate my content to a new level, each guided by their own artistic compass. I also enjoy teaming up with other scientists and experts to deepen complex topics.

Increasingly, I enjoy presenting live readings, ideally with some disorientation effects and a touch of interactivity – preferably alongside my fellow comic creators, much like a band. I also often speak on panels about the themes in and around my comics.

Where You Might Have Seen My Work

A wide audience has read, shared, quoted, and loved my comic essays. They’ve been exhibited in museums, science centers, conferences, festivals, and comic conventions; found their way into lecture halls, workshops, newspapers, magazines, museum catalogs, social media, theater brochures, podcast, TV magazines, educational kits, galleries, city halls, fabric lofts—and yes, even on TV. Though, mugs and T-shirts are still missing.

Exhibitions

In 2024, I co-curated my first exhibition on AI, which will tour science centers across Europe through 2029. For the „Blackbox“, I created a giant wall comic explaining how AI works. In a white cube, my comics were turned into animated films exploring ethical questions around AI. It was the first time my work made it onto walls and screens—both surreal and fantastic.

Accessible by Design

I believe knowledge should be open to everyone. That’s why most of my work is published under an open license, so it can be freely shared, used, and discussed by people everywhere.

Contact

If you enjoy approaching complex topics with creativity and respect—and are as tired of clichés as I am—let’s connect. There are enough shallow, fear-driven narratives out there. Reach me at hello@docjsnyder.net or on social media @docjsnyder.

Current Projects

>> Proof of Work – How Diversity runs the labor market, with Miriam Beblo (scientific collaboration) and Zoe Brandcyk (scheduled for mid-2025, appr. 30 p., in English, self-published)

>> KI nachhaltig entwickeln? Seegurke sucht Seegraswiese (Developing AI Sustainably? Sea Meadow Searches Seagrass), with Pauline Cremer, Marcus Voß and KI-Ideenwerkstatt für Umweltschutz (2024, 4 p., in German, also as Giant Exhibit in the rooms of KI-Ideenwerkstatt, funded by the Federal Environment Ministry)

>> Altern, or: One day, baby, we’ll be old (Ageing, or: One day, baby, we’ll be old), with Pauline Cremer and in cooperation with Deutsches Zentrum für Altersfragen (DZA) (2024, 3 p., in German)

>> Absurdität für Deutschland—Ein Comic Essay (2024, 7 p., in German) & Absurdity for Germany (2024, 7 p., in English)

>> KI-Box Klima (AI Box Climate), 500 educational kits for young people, carried out by BildungsCent e.V. and TüftelLab and supported by the Federal Environment Ministry (2024, in German). The box includes three of my AI comics: We Need to Talk, AI (2019, with Lena Kadriye Ziyal), Schokoroboter und Deepfakes (2022, with Nele Konopka and Kristina Laube), and A Pigeon’s Tale (2023, with Pauline Cremer, Marcus Voß, and Birds on Mars).

>> AI, What’s Up? (KI, was geht?), co-curation and content for an exhibition about AI, in cooperation with Science Center Universum Bremen : wall comics for the Blackbox AI, and comic films to think about AI in the Thinktank, with Archimedes Agency (2024-2029, in German, English and French, other partners: experimenta, Heilbronn, AHHAA, Tartu, Musée de l’Air et de l’Espace, Le Bourget)

>> A Pigeon’s Tale -‒ A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability, with Pauline Cremer, in cooperation with Marcus Voß and Birds on Mars (2023, 12 p., in English and German, also available for purchase as a German print edition)

>> Internet of Bodies ‒- A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence and Connectedness, with Wolfgang Kerler (work in progress, in English)

Other works

Book-length comic essays

>> Schokoroboter und Deepfakes -‒ Ein Comic-Essay über Künstliche Intelligenz aus der Perspektive von Jugendlichen (Chocolate Robots and Deepfakes ‒ A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence from the Perspective of Teenagers) with Nele Konopka and Kristina Laube in cooperation with the Tübingen AI Center and the Bundeswettbewerb Künstliche Intelligenz (2022, 80 p., in German, also available for purchase as a print edition)

>> The Non-Fungible Comic -‒ A Comic Essay about Non-Fungible Tokens, with Noëlle Kröger (2022, 56 p., in English and German, also available for purchase as a print edition)

>> Money Matters -‒ A Comic Essay about Money, with Pauline Cremer and Miriam Beblo (2021, 164 p., in German, also available for purchase as a print edition)

>> We Need to Talk, AI ‒- A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence, with Lena Kadriye Ziyal (2019, 56 p., in English, German (KI, wir müssen reden – Ein Comic Essay über Künstliche Intelligenz), Turkish, Spanish, Russian, Slovenian and Czech, also available for purchase as a print edition and as open online course)

>> The Corona Scribbles, a Comic Column about Life in times of Corona, on 1E9 magazine (April 2020-May 2023, 31 episodes, in German)

Shorter comic essays

>>Coworker or Overlord? -‒ A Comic Essay about ChatGPT+, with dall-e-2 and ChatGPT (2023, 2 p., in English)

>> The Big Third and the Blockchain -‒ A Comic Essay, with Fall e-2, inspired by Katrin Becker (2022, 12 p., in English), release 2023 on 1E9

>> Overcoming the Flaschenhals -‒ Ein Comic-Essay zu neuen Computing-Konzepten (Overcoming the Bottleneck ‒ A Comic Essay on New Computing Concepts) with Noëlle Kröger in cooperation with the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (2023, 3 p., in German)

>> AI in a Biased World, comic essay and artistic research project for the South African University of Stellenbosch’s Journal HERRI, Special Theme AI in Africa, illustrated by an AI to use the BIAS inherent in the algorithm, curated by Vulane Mthembu (2023, 1 p., in English)

>> Urheberrechte, oder: On the Shoulders of Giants – A Comic Essay about Copyright, with Karina Filusch, Eric Eitel and Nele Konopka (2022, 3 p., in German)

>> #teilenstattsplitten ‒- ein Comic über das Ehegattensplitting (a Comic Essay about German Tax Splitting for Spouses), with Pauline Cremer, Miriam Beblo, Jutta Allmendinger, Janina Kugel and Monika Schnitzer, in cooperation with the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (2021, 3 p., in German)

>> Abtreibung -‒ ein Comic Essay, with Maren Burkhardt (2020, 2 p., in German)

On this subpage, you’ll find three of my most important comic essays in German.

Other projects

>> ChatGPT Bullshit Bingo on LinkedIn (2024, 1p., in English)

>> AI 🐂💩 Bingo ‒- A playful intervention for panels, keynotes and workshops on Artificial Intelligence, with Katrin Fritsch and Theresa Reimann-Dubbers (2022, 4 variations of cards, in English)

My comics have been part of some pretty exciting exhibitions, including: Futurium Berlin; Zeppelin Museum Friedrichshafen; Deutsches Museum Bonn; ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe; Long Night of Science in Dresden and Berlin; I AM A.I. Exhibition

Sample press coverage