Hannes Hegen (real name Johannes Eduard Hegenbarth, born May 16, 1925 in Böhmisch Kamnitz now Česká Kamenice) is a German illustrator and caricaturist and is most famous for creating the East German comic book Mosaik and its original protagonists, the Digedags.
He studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig. After his studies, he worked in Berlin, illustrating several magazines. His own creation Mosaik was first published in December, 1955. Hegen was solely responsible for only the first issues of the book. Later a team of artists and writers worked on the book, but only Hegen was credited on the cover. 223 issues were produced. Hegen worked on Mosaik until 1975, when he had a disagreement with the publisher and quit working, taking the rights to the Digedags characters with him. The Mosaik team continued without him and created new characters to appear in Mosaik.
Today, Hegen lives in Berlin and is working on reprint and book editions of the original Mosaik comics.
Hannes Hegen 2008 received the Max & Moritz Prize, the most important German prize for comic artists from the International Comic Salon - Erlangen.