German comics
This article needs to be updated.(November 2010) |
German comics | |
---|---|
Earliest publications | Mid-1930s |
Publishers | Brösel |
Series | "Vater und Sohn" "Nick Knatterton" "Werner" "Fix and Foxi" |
Languages | German |
Related articles | |
Dutch comics Hungarian comics Czech comics |
Part of a series on the |
Culture of Germany |
---|
Festivals |
Music |
German comics are comics written in the German language or by German-speaking creators, for the major comic markets in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, with spill-overs into the neighboring, but lesser, comic markets of Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and German-speaking Belgium.
The German language comic market is not as large or strong in sales as in most other
There continues to be a large presence of translated material in the German language market.
History
The German comic has many early forerunners. In the 19th century, satire publications like
For most of the post-World War II 20th century, the German-speaking comic market was dominated by translated importations like The Adventures of Tintin (German: Tim und Struppi), Asterix, and Micky Maus. Notable German comic translators are Erika Fuchs (Micky Maus), Gudrun Penndorf (Asterix) and Herbert Feuerstein (Mad). Towards the end of the century, superheroes, manga, and Calvin and Hobbes began to have a large presence in the translated comic market. However, there were some successful German creations during this time.
Between 1934 and 1937, the comic strip
Comic books were not published in
Jerry Siegel is a fellow who is intellectually and physically circumcised and has his headquarters in New York. He invented a colorful character that boasts a striking appearance, a strong body, and a red swim suit. ... The creative Israelite named this pleasing character with an overdeveloped body and underdeveloped brain 'Superman.'
— from the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps (April 25, 1940)[2][3]
In post-war (the 1950s and 1960s) West Germany, comic books and strips were largely inspired by American models. Comic books for children and young people were developed, such as Rolf Kauka's Fix and Foxi and adventure comics like Sigurd and Nick by Hansrudi Wäscher. After 1960 the West German publishers commissioned foreign artists and studios. Bessy was a Belgian production for the German market, Wendy was produced in Britain, and Gespenster Geschichten was drawn by Spanish artists. Despite dubious art quality and increasing resistance from educators, these comics were very popular.
Of somewhat better quality were the comics in weekly news magazines. In the 1950s, the series Nick Knatterton by Manfred Schmidt was published in the news magazine Quick. The detective story strip was inspired by Schmidt's dislike of Superman, and was in part intended as a parody. The news magazine Stern had several comics: Reinhold das Nashorn (by Loriot), Der kleine Herr Jakob (by Hans Jürgen Press), Jimmy das Gummipferd and Taró. Since 1953 the television magazine Hörzu has a long-running comic with the hedgehog Mecki. Germany has also popular advertising comic books like Lurchi, Max und Luzie, Mike der Taschengeldexperte, and Knax.
Comics in East Germany were less various in comparison with those in the west, but were more consistently of high quality. The most prominent publication was Mosaik, in which Hannes Hegen chronicled the adventures of the Digedags. When Hegen left in 1975, he took the characters with him. Mosaik continued without him and the characters were replaced by the Abrafaxe. The comic magazine Atze presented complete short stories with political contents, often depicting everyday life in the GDR, the history of the workers' movement or the communist anti-fascist resistance movement. More popular were the continuing stories of the two mice Fix und Fax (not to be confused with Kauka's Fix and Foxi) that bookended every issue of Atze.[4]
The first successful German-language comic strip with speech balloons was 1927 the Austrian daily strip Tobias Seicherl in Das Kleine Blatt.
Popular German-language comics in Switzerland are Globi and Papa Moll.
Until the beginning of the 1980s, German comics remained to a large extent limited to children's comics. Much as in the American comic scene, creators interested in making more sophisticated comics have had to battle the prejudice that comics are a medium that is only suitable for children. Sometimes political cartoonists from satirical magazines like
In 2000, Comicforum debuted on the web and acted as a hub for German comic creators. In 2004, it was recognized by the Interessenverband Comic, describing it as a factor the German comic landscape can no longer be imagined without.[5]
The most prestigious comic award for German-language comic artists is the
- 1984: Chris Scheuer (Austria)
- 1986: Matthias Schultheiss
- 1988: Franziska Becker
- 1990: Gerhard Seyfried
- 1992: Ralf König
- 1993: Walter Moers
- 1994: Hendrik Dorgathen
- 1996: Thomas Ott (Switzerland)
- 1998: Bernd Pfarr
- 2000: Martin tom Dieck
- 2002: Peter Puck
- 2004: Ulf K.
- 2006: Volker Reiche
- 2008: Anke Feuchtenberger
- 2010: Nicolas Mahler (Austria)
- 2012: Isabel Kreitz
- 2014: Ulli Lust (Austria)
- 2016: Barbara Yelin
- 2018: Reinhard Kleist
- 2020: Anna Haifisch
- 2022: Birgit Weyhe
See also
- List of German comic books
- List of German comic creators
Notes
- ^ Ross, Corey. Media and the Making of Modern Germany. See the chapter “National Socialist Restructuring of Media and Leisure”
- ^ "Justice League vs. The Mighty Thor (a parody created by this Third Positionist website)". National Futurism. 25 April 1940. Archived from the original on 23 December 2009. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
- ^ The SS and Superman--Das Schwarze Korps 25 April 1940:
- ^ Thiel, Paul (translated by Dwight R. Decker), "Comics in the German Democratic Republic," The Comics Journal #45 (March 1979), pp. 55-57, 59.
- ^ "ICOM zur Verleihung des Sonderpreises 2004 an das Comicforum" (in German). Interessenverband Comic. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
References
- Small Press Expo 2000 (CBLDF, 2000), pp. 253–259