Kalter Krieg

Matthias Schultheiss’s Kalter Krieg, launched in 1985, is a single-issue German comic that distills the tense, paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War into a stark visual narrative. Written and drawn entirely by Schultheiss, this self-contained work stands as a potent, early example of a European graphic novel that uses the era’s geopolitical chill to explore personal and political dread. Its concentrated, one-shot format makes it a distinctive artifact of 1980s German comics, showcasing Schultheiss’s signature fusion of moody art and taut storytelling.