Aleksandar Zograf - 90s Mini-Comics Oral History Archives

Saša Rakezić (born 1963 in Pančevo, Serbia), better known by his pen name Aleksandar Zograf, is a Serbian cartoonist, who was working in the former Yugoslavia in the 80s and 90s.

His was the main and sometimes only cartooning voice that many in the United States knew of from that region, and was very active in American mini-comics and underground publishing.

Chris Lanier, on Zograf's website, writes, "Zograf's email dispatches (later collected in a book titled "Bulletins from Serbia," published by Slab-O-Concrete), ... talked about the images on Serbian TV, which mixed together old Yugoslavian war movies, Disney films, and news footage of [g*psies] taking scrap metal from a downed F-117 NATO plane. He mentioned the email battle of insults which took place after some Italians got hold of the email addresses of American bomber pilots, and forwarded them to Serbian friends living in towns that were slated for attack. He told how a refinery near his home was bombed, and released a cloud of steam that engulfed the area. He and his wife looked out the window of their flat, and "we saw just white fog, as if the whole world had disappeared..." His many works include books about this time, Life Under Sanctions and Bulletins from Serbia, but he also created many dream comics, notably Psychonaut, and Dream Watcher.

His website is https://www.aleksandarzograf.com

We're very honored he spoke with us.

Thanks for listening!