Get in touch if you enjoy approaching complicated matters with creativity and respect – and are tired of clichés.
hello@docjsnyder.net @docjsnyder

Julia Schneider, aka Doc J Snyder, is a Berlin-based comic essayist, PhD economist, and former consultant in the field of artificial intelligence. Her handgeschneiderte comic essays aim to bridge the gap between intellect and intuition; to be profound but never pedagogical. They have been read, bought, quoted, and shared by a wide and passionate audience, exhibited in museums, science centers, at conferences and comic conventions, and reviewed favorably in both national and international media. Her work explores complex matters at the intersection of science and art, addressing questions of technology, economics, and social change, such as Artificial Intelligence, Sustainability, Money, or, why old right-wing policies are bound to fail. In her work, Doc J Snyder typically handles the brainstorming, conceptualizing, researching, storytelling, and writing, often scribbling associations alongside the text. While she sometimes works with co-writers, she enjoys collaborating with various visual artists for the comic illustrations. In 2024, she curated her first exhibition (on AI) for four science centers, featuring comics on the walls alongside films, further exploring the fusion of science and art with comic essays. Equal access to opportunities is important to her, which is why most of her work is published under an open license.

Current projects of interest:

>> “Absurdität für Deutschland—Ein Comic Essay“ (2024, 7 p., in German) & „Absurdity for Germany — A Comic Essay on Why Outdated Right-Wing Ideas Must Fail in Seven Pages, 2024, 7 p., in English)

>> “AI, What’s Up?” exhibition by Science Center Universum Bremen: wall comics for the Blackbox AI, and comic films to think about AI in the Thinktank, alongside content curation and consultancy, with Archimedes Agency (opening May 2024)

>> A Pigeon’s Tale -‒ A Comic Essay on Artificial Intelligence and Sustainability, with Pauline Cremer, together with 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 (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, exhibition and digital release at re:publica22, release in print at 1E9 conference, 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, 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 (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:

>> 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)

Sample press coverage: