On Sunday, November 17, join Académie des Beaux-Arts member and comic author Catherine Meurisse and author and artist Nora Krug for a conversation on the art of comics as a pathway to healing trauma, moderated by Philippe Labaune. 

Both authors use visual storytelling to explore complex emotions and experiences. They will discuss how comics can serve as a medium for processing difficult personal and historical events, making the unseen visible and resonating with readers. 

The conversation will cover the therapeutic aspects of creating art, the impact of visual narratives on one’s healing journey, and how comics can promote empathy and understanding. Meurisse will share her experiences with creatively reworking loss, while Krug will discuss identity and memory in her graphic works. 

The conversation will take place in English and will be followed by a book signing. This event is free with RSVP. Click here for tickets. 

This event is co-organized with Villa Albertine and is a part of Albertine’s 10th Anniversary Celebration. 

CATHERINE MEURISSE is a French illustrator, press cartoonist, and comic book author, trained in Modern Letters and a graduate of the Estienne School and the Decorative Arts of Paris. She joined Charlie Hebdo in 2005 and has since contributed to various newspapers (Libération, Le Monde), as well as publishing several comics and children’s books. Her work includes the acclaimed La Légèreté (New York Review of Books, 2025), which reflects on her recovery after the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo, and Les grands espaces (Dargaud), which won the 2019 Prix Artémisia in 2019. Catherine Meurisse was a Villa Kujoyama resident in 2018 and became the first comic book author to join the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2020. 

NORA KRUG is a German-American author and artist. She is the author and illustrator of the graphic memoir Belonging (Scribner), the illustrator of adaptation of On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, and an associate professor at Parsons School of Design in New York. Her drawings and visual narratives have appeared in the New York Times, The Guardian, and Le Monde diplomatique. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Maurice Sendak Foundation, Fulbright, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, and has received gold medals from the Society of Illustrators and the New York Art Directors Club. She was named Illustrator of the Year by the Victoria and Albert Museum and was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Autobiography in 2019. 

Photos credits: © Rita Scaglia / © Nina Subin