Between the unnerving and the tender: in conversation with Anna Dietzel

Anna is the creator of the illustration for Extra sci-fi festival Verona, 2025. Over a chat, we had the pleasure of getting to know her better.

You enthusiastically responded to our invitation to create this year’s image, becoming the illustrator for Extra’s 4th year, after previous contributions by Stefano Zattera, Jazz Manciola and Ivan Hurricane. How do you relate to the various worlds of science fiction?

It is a genre that I don’t immediately associate with my work, but precisely for this reason I was intrigued by the challenge to create the poster for the festival. Then when I started to research the subject, I realised that science-fiction is a very broad genre that includes aspects of other worlds, for example, horror. So I had in fact already encountered sci-fi in several works that had inspired me in the past.

 

Can you tell us about the concept behind the illustration you created for Extra?

When I met with Emanuele initially and he proposed that I work on the image, I immediately thought of Kaiju from Japanese cinema, which I thought would fit the context perfectly. I first made the two creatures and then worked on the buildings and other surrounding elements. I’d like to point out that I was explicitly asked to include the telecommunications tower from Verona.

You’re right to point this out… Your style is not easily labelled, how would you define it? What are your main influences?

I like to depict elements that shift between the disturbing and the tender, if that makes sense as a definition. Films are a source of great inspiration, TV series and artworks from other genres besides comics and illustration.

 

Could you tell us about your latest work, Necrofora – which was published in the Schizzo series for the Centro Fumetto Andrea Pazienza – and which you will present during the upcoming Extra festival on Thursday 27 March at La Sobilla?

Necrofora (which can be purchased here) is a comic I wrote and drew for the Andrea Pazienza Centre for the annual series of short stories by various authors. This year the theme was “Storie dall’invisibile” [“Stories from the invisible”]. Mine is about a girl who buries animal carcasses she finds in the street, hence the title. It was great to work on this with Roberta and Michele from the Centre and I recommend checking out the other works and series on their website. 

 

 

Do you have any other publications planned?

Yes, I am working on a longer, biographical comic book for Beccogiallo that should be out in spring/summer 2025.

What form will your participation in Extra 2025 take? Will your book be available for purchase at the festival? 

In the form of the one who made the poster ahah… I aim to go to as many screenings as possible and at every event it will be possible to buy my merchandise, comics, posters or t-shirts.

All-time favourite comic book author?

Junji Ito, Anke Feuchtenberger and the manhua (Chinese comic strip) of ‘Tian Guan Ci Fu’ created by Starember.

And among the lastest emerging illustrators, who do you find interesting? 

This is a difficult one, I have so many amazing peers and I can only name a few: Noah Schiatti, with whom I’ve been so luck to collaborate, Icaro Tuttle, Miguel Vila, the whole gang behind ‘Sieropositivo’, my friends who were with me in ‘Sigaretten’, the C.rude collective… but as I said I could list them endlessly!

 

Of course, we also have to ask you what your favourite science fiction film is…

I have several: ‘Everything Everywhere all at Once’, ‘The Thing’, the 2014 Godzilla and the ‘Resident Evil’ films: they were a guilty pleasure of mine when I was a teenager.

Well, Anna, before you leave us, how can people follow your work?

My work can mainly be found on my Instagram profile @anna.dietzel

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Anna Dietzel (b.1996) lives and works in Verona as an illustrator. After graduating in Illustration for Publishing in Bologna, she published her debut work ‘Tre di Notte a Miltenberg’ for Sigaretten in 2021. She works primarily in the sphere of self-publishing, both in collectives such as Sieropositivo as well as individually with works such as ‘Slow Dancer’ and ‘Verwesung’. Her illustrations and short comics have also appeared in magazines such as Internazionale and Domani inserto a Fumetti. She has recently released her latest short story for the Centro Andrea Pazienza ‘Necrofora’ and is working on her next comic for Beccogiallo.

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