Comics have influenced my creative activities over the decades. I can't really say that I read them in vast quantities; rather, I enjoy drawing them. Already in high school, I contributed to the popular humor magazine "Pikker" at the time. Several cartoons were published, but even then, I realized that the ideas I drew often couldn't be captured in a single image. I started creating comics. Veiko Tammjärv (born 1967) graduated in 1996 from the Estonian Academy of Arts.

The influences that led him to comic creation include works by Herluf Bitstrup and Roy Lichtenstein from early childhood. Among other influences, the 1985 music video for A-Ha's song “Take on Me,” created in a comic-style animation, also had a significant impact.In the 2000s, he developed a distinctive comic style where the story and content are conveyed solely through pictograms and symbols. These stories do not contain speech bubbles as are typical in comics. Examples of pictographic comics include "Day Off" and "Paradise Club." During this period, he published several works in both Estonian and international comic anthologies and art magazines.

The focus of his later work shifted towards a more traditional drawing style. In 2020, Tammjärv published a graphic novel based on the film "The Hotel on the Edge of the World" (Tallinnfilm, 1979), created after the brothers Strugatskys. As a two-part series, a graphic novel was also produced based on Andrus Kivirähk’s “Rehepapp.” The first part of the book was published in German in 2023 (Voland & Quist, 2023).

As a guest artist, Tammjärv has participated in comic festivals in Brussels, Treviso, and Helsinki. Veiko Tammjärv works as a creative director at an advertising agency. As a graphic designer, he has received several awards for his work and has also served as a jury member in various competitions.

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Contact: veikotammjarv@hotmail.com