Wolfgang Bylsma is the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Gestalt (for 21 years and counting…) His publishing endeavours have helped change the nature of the comics industry in Australia and assisted in building reputations and careers for Australian talent on the international stage in comics and beyond.
Name: Wolfgang Bylsma
Role: Editor-in-Chief, Letterer, Publication Designer (and a whole lot more besides…)
First comic I remember owning: A Jack Kirby joint, naturally — Machine Man #2 from… 1978? I grew up in regional Western Australia and comics were only available via the newsagents in a seemingly sporadic manner, so it would be months before I could get my hands on another issue. I read and re-read it until it just about fell apart. I still have what’s left of it.
Current projects: I’m juggling a LOT of projects currently, but the current priorities are a series of new Indigiverse titles that I’m editing and lettering (more on that in the next edition!) as well as wrangling the last few stories for AXIOM, our upcoming science-fiction anthology project.
Comic Influences: There are a few editors who have greatly influenced me, including Karen Berger and Shelley Bond whose collaborative work with so many great talents on the DC Comics VERTIGO imprint from the 1990s proved a huge inspiration. But also the works of European mainstays like Lewis Trondheim (Dungeon), Andreas Martens (Rork), Joann Sfar (Rabbi’s Cat). All of that said, I think the comic that first really opened my eyes to the potential of the medium was Skin by Peter Milligan, Brendan McCarthy and Carol Swain —a controversial and hugely political work of social commentary that dealt with difference, disability and disenfranchisement in a devastatingly disconcerting manner. Other influences include Dean Motter’s Mister X, Love & Rockets by the Los Bros Hernandez, Bone by Jeff Smith, the works of Rian Hughes… the list could go on and on and on and…
Non-comic influences: SO many books, but a shortlist of influential works would have to include Irvin Yalom’s When Nietzsche Wept, Russell Hoban’s The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, Kurt Vonnegut’s wondrously semi-nonsensical Timequake, the works of Margaret Atwood (Surfacing is a favourite), JG Ballard, Alan Moore’s novels, Alfred Bester, Mary Renault, Ted Chiang… Again, we could be here for ages…
Also: music! It has been a constant companion to my creative life, often embracing the minor key, with high rotation artists including Hem, Over the Rhine, Kavinsky, Gorillaz, Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen, Hugar, Lucy Rose, Olafur Arnalds, and Iron & Wine. Mellow if not melancholy is my habitual preference.
Tools of the Trade: I spent a great part of each work day esconced behind my Mac Studio, which has proven itself a reliable workhorse for publication design, graphic design, lettering and everything else I need it to do. I’ve worked in a Mac environment for about 15 years with no regrets (other than the price tag). I also have a Wacom Intuos and iPad Pro with Apple Pencil that I use for lettering and occasional design elements. Software workflow varies between Word and Google Docs for collaborative scripting/editing, and use the Adobe Creative Suite for our production pipeline.
Favourite Gestalt Moment: What a question! There have been a great many exultant highs and at least an equal number of devastating lows, often occurring concurrently. But, never one to abide by definitive rules, I’m going to share two moments rather than just one.
The first is a moment that was captured in the Comic Book Heroes documentary that screened on ABC TV some years ago. Whilst Gestalt was exhibiting at San Diego Comic-Con in the US, we had spent the first day and a half of the convention waiting on the FOUR new books we were meant to be launching. By midday of the second day they still hadn’t arrived, and — whilst leaving some of our creators attending a fairly sparse booth — we were waiting for the delivery approximately three kilometres away, only for them to *finally* arrive, with 30-odd boxes piled up on the pavement and no way of getting them to the convention centre until I slipped the DHL drive $50 and they agreed to load the boxes back up, allowing us to ride in the back of the van. He drove us all the way up to the convention centre doors, despite traffic controllers endeavouring to keep him from doing so. Naturally this was all filmed by the documentary crew following us at the time. It’s the sense of sheer, absolute relief of getting the books to the booth that makes this a favourite moment…
The second moment has an entirely different flavour. In 2025 we celebrated twenty years of Gestalt as guests of the Perth Comic Arts Festival, which included my curating an exhibition at the State Library of WA along with participating in Q&A panels. It was humbling to take stock of two decades of supporting and enabling comics in Australia, and to delve through the scripts, artwork, finished pages, merchandise and other collateral that had amassed over this period, resulting in the realisation that maybe, just maybe, I did actually have at least half an idea of what I was doing. This, coupled with the sense of creative community, peer acknowledgement and support, and celebration delivered such a massive boost of motivation that I could actually see Gestalt continuing for another twenty years!
Related Posts
