Andrew Kozlowski is one of the most formally interesting cartoonists making swipe comics today. It feels fitting to call him an auteur of the genre, given that his work, from its tone to its color and layouts, is uniquely his own. (Swipe comics refers to how the comics are read not their origin.)
Kozlowski’s comics explore his interiority with a mature simplicity and quiet that’s refreshing in the chaotic hellscape that is Instagram and the internet at large. Most of Kozlowski’s comics exist somewhere between diary comics and memoir cartoons. I say memoir cartoons and not comics because his comics are often more interested in the tableau of Kozlowski’s internal emotional life than in expressing a linear story.
Take his piece i Wanna Dance, from June, 2025 (seen above via @andrew.kozlowski on Instagram). Sure, the left-right up-down reading order is the same as any normal comic, and there is movement from one panel to another, but Kozlowski’s solitude in each panel means we’re really experiencing the incredible feeling of dancing for dancing’s sake, not a real conversation. The stamped lettering of his shaming counterpart further breaks Kozlowski free from the confines of the normal, linear time of say, a Spider-Man comic.
This feeling pervades a lot of Kozlowski’s work, but calling his work escapist is an oversimplification. I mentioned above that stumbling upon a Kozlowski comic while doomscrolling through Instagram is like finding yourself suddenly in the eye of a cyclone while the storm continues to rage all around you. Kozlowski’s work is constantly engaged with the cotidian anxieties and melancholies which we all experience, from taxes to artist’s block to back pain. Despite this, Kozlowski’s cartoons are forever calm, accepting that to exist is often to struggle and hurt, and that accepting life with calm and kindness is the only way to stay sane and well.
Kozlowski holds a BFA in printmaking and an MFA in painting and printmaking, so it’s unsurprising that his work has the tactile feel that I love. Whether it’s his use of over-inked letter stamps, linocuts, or scribbled marker, each panel is a treat in and of itself to look at, even on the flat, dead glass of a phone screen. Printmaking is such an intrinsically physical medium that it’s unsurprising Kozlowski’s work has a handmade craft aspect to it.
Kozlowski’s comics are reminiscent of of the work of Lynda Barry (One Hundred Demons, Syllabus, What It Is, etc.), who writes extensively on valuing the unique, very human aspects of comics which so often lead us to crumpling up a drawing and throwing in the trash as bad, or poorly drawn. One sketchbook page posted on Kozlowski’s Instagram from December 2024 is covered in blobby hands with the stamped caption: “Reminder: Nobody knows how to draw hands so just go ahead and let it happen.”
Barry herself has noted in her many books on teaching and learning comics that most people stop drawing when they realize they can’t draw a ‘good’ hand or nose. She notes that much of her task as an arts educator is to convince people who believe they are ‘bad artists’ that there is, in fact, no such thing.
Another notable parallel between Barry and Kozlowski is their insistence on ink and paper as their media. Digital art is often taken for granted as the medium of webcomics, which has led to an unwarranted and reductive maligning of webcomics by so-called ‘print purists.’ This has never been true of webcomics, as they have always been a mix of many media, but in the years since the pandemic, the rise in swipe cartoonists who prioritize physical media in their online work, such as Simon Hanselmann, Alex Graham, and Kozlowski, indicates an expansion of the boundaries of what can be a ‘successful’ comic online.
Calling Kozlowski just a “swipe” cartoonist doesn’t do justice to the work he does as an educator, zinester, and small press publisher. Kozlowski founded the comics and zines publisher Paper City Publishing, which publishes not just his own prints and comics but also the work of other notable indie cartoonists such as Ben Wrex(@benwrex on Instagram), James Greene(@jax_comix_core on Instagram), and Ellen O’Grady(@ellenogradyart on Instagram), whose zine How Are We To Live? Comics for a free Palestine raises money to pro-Palestinian nonprofits.
Kozlowski is also a prolific zinester with some of his notable works including Professor Kozlowski’s Comics Work Book, a riso-printed syllabus designed to be drawn directly upon, Anaisthesis, which imagines what life would be like if you slowly lost your senses and became anaesthetized to everything. He was also featured in a recent installment of the Museum of Modern Art(MoMA)’s Drawn to the Museum, which consists of artists drawing their visions of MoMA. Kozlowski’s piece, titled Inside Out is a rumination on the tension between the inside and outside world of museum and art.
As you’ve likely guessed, you shouldn’t expect gags from the strips of Andrew Kozlowski. They’re often funny, anxious, and melancholic all rolled up into one. Most importantly, they are always heartfelt, there is none of the sarcasm nor the biting irony standard for the internet today. Kozlowski clearly loves the work he’s doing, and he wants to spread that to those who read it.
