Reinhard Kleist was born near Cologne in 1970. After studying Graphic Design at Münster University of Applied Sciences he relocated to Berlin in 1996. There he works in a studio, which he shares with comics artists Fil, Mawil and Andreas Michalke. Since 1994, Kleist has had numerous comics published. In 1996, his graphic novel Lovecraft was awarded the Max und Moritz prize at the Internationalen Comic-Salon, Erlangen. In 2004 and 2005, he received ICOM prizes for Scherbenmund and The Secrets of Coney Island. He has also illustrated books by China Mieville, H.C. Artmann and J.G. Ballard; record covers for Terrorgruppe and Bear Family Records; and, on a large scale, various house façades around Berlin. Johnny Cash I See a Darkness has been translated into several languages and, in 2007, it was awarded the Peng Munich Comics Prize, as well as the Frankfurt Book Fair Sondermann prize. In 2008, it also received the most prestigious German comics prize, the Max und Moritz.