(born 4 January 1956 in Poznań)
Jacek Skrzydlewski is a Polish comic book artist and illustrator associated primarily with science fiction and adventure comics. He belongs to the generation of creators who, during the 1980s, helped shape the so-called “golden age” of Polish comics published in the press.
He began his artistic career at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s, publishing drawings and sequential forms in cultural magazines and periodicals. He made his debut in 1977 with a one-page comic titled Fear (Strach), published in the monthly Relax. In 1979 he followed with the four-part story Super-man in the magazine Świat Młodych. From 1988 onward, he established a long-term collaboration with that periodical, co-editing the quarterly games-and-activities supplement Bazar. In the same year, he co-created the first issue of a children’s magazine derived from the monthly three-part cycle Ja – Ty – My (I – You – We). In 1992, he also published a series of humorous strips in the West German weekly Bunte.
A turning point in Skrzydlewski’s career was his collaboration with the monthly Fantastyka, one of the most important literary and artistic magazines of the period. It was in Fantastyka that his comics and illustrations appeared regularly, firmly establishing his position within the Polish science-fiction and fantasy community.
Skrzydlewski worked with prominent writers of Polish comics, taking part in collaborative projects of a collective nature. He was involved in the development of one of the most iconic science-fiction series in the history of Polish comics—Funky Koval, created by Maciej Parowski and Jacek Rodek, initially published in serial form and later as albums. His contribution included drawing and illustration work that helped define the visual identity of the series.
In addition to sequential comics, Skrzydlewski also worked in press and cover illustration, providing artwork for literary texts, short stories, and journalistic pieces. His body of work constitutes an important chapter in the history of popular and science-fiction comics in Poland at the end of the twentieth century.
Jacek Skrzydlewski’s style is characterized by a realistic, precise line and strong compositional discipline. He pays particular attention to detail—architecture, technology, mechanics, and human anatomy—lending his work a sense of credibility and a “hard,” technical drawing quality especially valued in science-fiction comics.
His visual narration is clear and dynamic, inspired by the language of cinema and the tradition of classic European comics. Skrzydlewski’s panels often have an illustrative quality while remaining fully subordinated to the demands of storytelling, maintaining rhythm and legibility within the sequence. He skillfully combines realism with futuristic elements, creating evocative visions of imagined future worlds.
Skrzydlewski’s work occupies the space between illustration and narrative comics and stands as an important record of the visual aesthetics of Polish science fiction in the 1980s and 1990s.
(drawing and illustration contributions)
Funky Koval – cult science-fiction series
(co-creation of the graphic and illustrative layer; publications in Fantastyka magazine and later album editions)
Comics and sequential works published in Fantastyka
(short stories, episodes, and narrative illustrations)
Illustrations for science-fiction stories and texts
(press publications, anthologies, and book editions)
