Ulf K. was born in 1969 in Oberhausen, Germany, right in the heart of the Ruhrgebiet. It was there, in the shadows of the blast furnaces, that he spent his childhood and adolescence, as well as studied graphic design at the University of Essen. In 1996, he was briefly pulled to Paris, but became so homesick that he quickly fled back to the shade of his beloved blast furnaces. Today the artist lives with his family in Düsseldorf. In 2004, Ulf K. was awarded the Max and Moritz Prize as Best German-Language Cartoonist at the International Comic Salon in Erlangen. His first project with Top Shelf is Hieronymus B.