Yiri T. Kohl

Yiri T. Kohl is an underground comic artist that was born and bred in Amsterdam. Though he spent much of his childhood in bed with migraines, in between attacks he would draw like a madman. At age five he decided that the only career worth pursuing would be that of an artist. During high school he grew out of the migraines, and into amphetamines and Transcendental Meditation.

This was a very good phase for his drawing outlets. In 1993 the first three issues of his underground comix series 'Bijlmer Boys' appeared. By the fourth issue, expectations of a comics career were high, but the tides were against him for a time, so he got a job at an IT company.

Artistically, Yiri's focus shifted to making paintings and poetry, which resulted in some exhibitions and two publications. In 2004 he left his desk job on his doctor's advice. Then in 2007 he hooked up with the international theater group FoolishPeople, first as an artist, then as a performer.

In early 2008 Yuri met comic artist Margreet de Heer, which encouraged him to draw comics again. He started working on the long-awaited fifth issue of 'Bijlmer Boys', as well as a special Omnibus-edition of the first four issues. He married Margreet in January 2009. Yiri and Margreet introduced his new 'Bijlmerboys Omnibus' on the 6th of February 2009 at Galerie Lambiek.