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Simon Hanselmann is an Australian-born cartoonist best known for his Megg, Mogg, and Owl series. Born in 1981 he grew up in Tasmania, which he described himself to be a small town consisting of ‘super white, super racism and super homophobic’. Hanselmann has been nominated four times for an Ignatz Award, four times for an Eisner Award (winning twice), twice for the Harvey Award and won Best Series at Angouleme 2018.

Early Life & Family History
Growing up he expressed how he wanted to ‘confront the small town poverty issues with linking to the cycle of abuse’.Simone’s father chose to leave him as a child, he lived with his heroin addicted mother, leaving them to live off government funding. His grandmother took him in, whilst being a chair-bound smoking schizophrenic. He started crossdressing around the age of five, identifying as gender fluid.

His Start to Comics
From the age of five, Simone started buying comics and, MAD magazines at seven. He began self publishing at the age of eight, with an interest in Nickelodeon at eleven and twelve, aspiring to be an animator from his inspiration of ‘Rocko’s Modern Life’. Leading to an interest in image.

When Simone moved to London in 2008, he had been working on a previous comic book called ‘Girl Mountain’ a small town drama, which is a combination of dreams Simone had along with bad poetry and his autobiography.

Meg, Mog and Owl
Meg, Mog and Owl are Simone’s most recognisable comics, known as an ‘adult parody’, of the 1970’s original Meg and mog books created by Helen Nicoll with illustrations by Jan Pienkowski. Simone Hanselmann grew up reading this series, inspiring him to create some mock up comics in this style.

Although the title characters are a witch and a cat, like the popular 1970s children's book heroes Meg and Mog, "they are emphatically not the same". In Hanselmann's stories, the pair are "depressed drug users struggling with life", and are usually accompanied by two other regular characters, the uptight Owl and the highly volatile Werewolf Jones.

His work is published as a way to ‘begin a conversation about difficult subjects from the most uncomfortable and revealing points to show what it is like to experience pain when no one is around to take your feelings seriously.’ His approach to this message is that rather than making the reader sympathise with his characters, he forces then to ‘discover the humanity in the deeply deformed protagonist on their own.’

Hanselmann's primary English-language publisher is Fantagraphics Books. He is currently living in California with his wife and daughter.

In March 2020, he began serializing a pandemic-themed serial, Crisis Zone, on his Instagram.

In October 2022, Megg, Mogg & Owl made their animated debut in the anthology film ''The Paloni Show! Halloween Special!'' for Hulu produced by Justin Roiland. The short is titled Megahex, Devil’s Night, and featured the voices of Emma Chamberlain as Megg, Macaulay Culkin as Mogg, Dave Foley as Owl, and Jon Glaser as Werewolf Jones.

Production
The publication of his first Meg, Mog and Owl book was in 2014, called Megahex. With two more full length Meg, Mog and Owl books and online strips later being released. His next major story of the series is ‘Bad Gataway’.

The series of Meg Mog and owl have been released in fourteen languages, and Simone had hopes that it could be seen as a drugged up ‘How I Met Your Mother’ comedy show in the future.

Whilst publishing, financially Simone couldn’t advertise or publish it to certain news artists, whilst also worrying that it would break his mum’s heart, with her knowing the truth to his stories.

Simone Hansellman was approached with the same offer as Helen Nicoll, for his comics to de digitalised into an animated cartoon. However when reading the script and ideas produced for him, the original messaged had been toned down to appeal to their audience. He claimed he might have botched a deal with the network involved, by insisting on retaining rights to all the characters, but isn’t bothered about the lack of progress.

After many discussions Simone decided he would only let his comics be produced if he was the producer and director.

Later Life
Since 2014 Simone has released two more full length ‘expansion campaign’ Meg, Mog and Owl books, dozen of zines and online strips. Recently finishing the next big keystone in the series. Bad Getaway is a 176 page comic book, a final sequence from Meg, Mog and Owl series including, Megahex, Meg and Mog in Amsterdam and One More Year. It is a collection of stories that bridges the books together by creating a new family base for Meg and Mog as they’ve grown older throughout the books.

Nominations

 * 2013 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Comic for St. Owl's Bay
 * 2014 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Story for "Jobs" from Life Zone
 * 2016 in selection at Angoulême festival BD for "Magical Ecstacy Trip"
 * 2016 Ignatz Award for Best Series and Best Story for Amsterdam
 * 2017 in selection at Angoulême festival BD for "Megg & Mogg in Amsterdam"
 * 2017 Eisner Award for Best Short Story for "The Comics Wedding of the Century"
 * 2017 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album Reprint for "Megg & Mogg in Amsterdam"
 * 2018 Angoulême International Comics Festival Award for "Best Series"

Minicomics, webcomics, and anthology contributions

 * St. Owl's Bay (2013), broadsheet newspaper, published by Floating World Comics
 * Mould Map 3 (2014), two-page strip, published by Landfill Editions
 * Megg, Mogg, & Owl (2014–ongoing), weekly comic, published online by Vice
 * Werewolf Jones and Sons issue 1 (2015), with HTMLflowers; self-published
 * Dome (2016), three-page strip, published by Lagon Revue and Breakdown Press
 * Winter Trauma (2016), self-published minicomic
 * Drone (2016), edition of 400, self-published minicomic
 * Minihex (2016), published by Fantagraphics
 * Landscape (2016), self-published minicomic
 * Gouffre (2017), 10 page strip, published by Lagon Revue
 * Portrait (2017), edition of 400, self-published minicomic
 * Hard Rubbish (2017), 12 pages, edition of 300, self-published minicomic
 * Innessential Garbage (2017), published by Fantagraphics
 * WOTW (2017), 16 pages, edition of 500, self-published minicomic
 * XMP-165 (2017), 28 pages, edition of 500, self-published magazine
 * Performance (2017),16 pages, 3000 copies, broadsheet newspaper, published by Floating World
 * Lucidity (2017), 44 pages, edition of 550, self-published minicomic
 * Werewolf Jones and Sons 2 (2017), with HTMLflowers; 24 pages, edition of 500, self-published
 * Romance (2017), 12 pages, edition of 600, self-published minicomic
 * Apartments 24 pages, edition of 600, self-published minicomic
 * Entertainment 24 pages, edition of 600, self-published minicomic
 * Megg, Mogg, & Penguins 16 pages, edition of 700, self-published minicomic
 * Decade 60 pages, edition of 750, signed and numbered self-published minicomic
 * Knife Crime (July 2019), 36 pages, self-published minicomic
 * Werewolf Jones and Sons #3 (2019), with HTMLflowers, 28 pages, edition of 500, self-published minicomic
 * Megahex 2020 Winter Trauma Annual (December 2019), 52 pages, edition of 700, self-published minicomic
 * Below Ambition (2020), 36 pages, edition of 600, self-published minicomic

Books

 * Life Zone (2013), Space Face Books, ISBN 978-0983800545 (all stories in Life Zone are republished in One More Year)
 * Megahex (2014), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 978-1606997437
 * Worst Behavior (2015), Pigeon Press, ISBN 978-1935443117 (this is a black-and-white book; the same story appeared in One More Year)
 * Megg & Mogg in Amsterdam (And Other Stories) (2016), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 978-1606998793
 * One More Year (2017), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 978-1-60699-997-4
 * Bad Gateway (2019), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 978-1-68396-207-6
 * Seeds and Stems (2020), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 978-1-68396-309-7
 * Crisis Zone (2021), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 978-1-68396-444-5
 * Below Ambition (2022), Fantagraphics Books, ISBN 978-1-68396-549-7