Compendium of joint design projects by Marcus Lepie with Reinhard Kleist. Kleist studied graphic design at the Fachhochschule Münster. There he created his albums "Lovecraft," "Dorian" and as a thesis "Abenteur eines Weichenstellers". After finishing his degree he moved to Berlin. In 1996, at the International Comics Salon in Erlangen, he won the Max-and-Moritz-Prize for the best German-language Comic Album. Since 2003 he has been working together with author Tobias O. Meißner on the comics series "Berlinoir," which is published with Edition 52.
In September 2006, Kleist´s biography on Elvis Presley was released with the title "Elvis." In 2008, Kleist learned Spanish to travel to Cuba, where he drew and sketched street scenes from Havana, which he compiled in the graphic novel "Havanna" in 2007.
In 2011, his book "Der Boxer" (The Boxer) was released, which tells the story of Jewish Boxer Harry Haft. Kleist´s graphic novel about the Somali runner Samia Yusuf Omar was published in 2015 under the title "Der Traum von Olympia" (The Dream of Olympia). Several of his books have been translated into English, French or Arabic.