The Magnesia Litera Award for best student comic went to Maxmilián Hrstka from Sutnar Faculty

A student at the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art in Pilsen scored big at this year's Muriel Awards. In the category of best student comic, the jury was most impressed by Ulrich Maxmilián Hrstka's gothic drama. Two other students from the faculty were also nominated in the same category.

The Muriel comic book awards ceremony at Prague's Atlas cinema brought good news for Sutnar in Pilsen. The dark Gothic drama Ulrich by student Maxmilián Hrstka won this year's Magnesia Award in the student comic book category. Two other works from the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art (LSF) at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen were also nominated: the comic book Z masa a kostí už nikdy nebudu (I Will Never Be Made of Flesh and Bone Again) by Ruby Jestřábová from the Media Illustration studio and the story Red Birch Period by Štěpánka Mrázková from the Comics and Illustration for Children studio.

The winning comic book, Ulrich, was created as a bachelor's thesis under the supervision of Václav Šlajch and Dominika Lizoňová from the Media Illustration studio. It tells the story of a young man who studies magic and medicine at a university in the fictional city of Hulm, located in the middle of a steppe wilderness. Under pressure from his obsessive behavior, he decides to use the knowledge he has gained in his studies to transform his own appearance. However, the situation soon spirals out of control, and his actions lead to a tragic end. „I wanted to create a comic book that my sixteen-year-old self would want to read," said author Maxmilián Hrstka about his choice of theme and setting, adding: "But I've also had good feedback from adult readers."

Hrstka systematically devoted himself to comics while studying illustration at the Secondary School of Art and Design in Brno. He worked intensively on Ulrich throughout last year – writing the script, creating a detailed storyboard, and realizing the final form using a combination of digital and traditional techniques. The resulting comic book is approximately 100 pages long and is intended to be the first part of a planned trilogy. The author published the first edition of Ulrich at his own expense. „I first presented the comic at the Frame 2025 festival. If you want to succeed, you have to show initiative," Hrstka summed up. He has also published his story A tak jsem zemřela (And So I Died) in the anthology Hikobae, created as a result of a trip to Japan by students from the Media Illustration studio. He is currently discussing the possibility of publishing Ulrich in book form.

Maxmilián Hrstka is a first-year student in the Media Illustration studio at the Faculty of Design and Art. In addition to comics, he is interested in film and game production; he is particularly fond of visual storytelling in horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. He finds inspiration in literature, for example, in the works of Andrzej Sapkowski and Neil Gaiman. Films and music also inspire him. At Sutnar Faculty, Hrstka appreciates the field's openness, its tolerance for individual themes, and the possibility of crossover into the gaming industry.