Zoran Smiljanić (1961) has drawn around 1700 comic book pages. His early comics were politically engaged, explicit, and provocative. In 1987, he published his first graphic novel Hardfuckers, provoking the socialist government of the time. He addressed Slovenia’s past and present in the War Stories and Family Stories cycles. Since 2000 he has tackled historical and biographical topics. Together with co-scriptwriter Marijan Pušavec, he created the most extensive Slovenian graphic epic, Mexikaners, which contains 350 hand-coloured pages. In the graphic novel The Final Flight of Toni Mrlak, he discusses the dark aspects of the Slovenian War of Independence. This was followed by the biographies of Plečnik, Kajuh, and Cankar. The latter received the Book of the Year Award at the Slovenian Book Fair and the Zlatirepec Award. He also received the latter for his historical graphic novel Black Flame: The Arson of the Slovenian National Centre in Trieste (2020). He is the recipient of the Hudi Maček Award and the City of Kranj Award for his contributions to the recognition and unique landscape of Slovenian comics. His comics have been translated into German, Italian, English, and Czech.