Walter Moers
Encyclopedia
Walter Moers is one of the best-known and commercially most successful German comic creators and author
s.
. He taught himself how to draw.
Moers has been publishing since 1984. He first became known with cartoon
-like comics that were marked by an ironic
view of the world and a conscious violation of political correctness
. Many of his works first appeared in the satirical
magazine
Titanic
. Although he doesn't contribute to the magazine anymore, he's still listed as contributor. His last work published in 'Titanic' was the Superhero-Parody 'Deadman' (not to be confused with the DC-Comics Superhero of the same name, Moers Character was just a dead man lying in a coffin for three pages without a word or any change in the pictures).
His best-known comic characters are:
In addition to these comics clearly intended for an adult audience, Moers also writes stories
and book
s that he has been publishing since 1985. In 1988, his first "Käpt'n Blaubär" story was published, a character that has since been popular on TV
, in books, and on audio cassettes.
Recently, Moers also became famous for his novels, especially the Zamonia series.
Moers wrote both the script
and the song
lyrics
for the movie
Kleines Arschloch (1997) and the script for the movie Käpt'n Blaubär (1999).
Walter Moers is said to avoid publicity and very rarely gives interview
s or allows himself to be photographed. Darcy McCallum, director of Miffmania & Color Blind Addiction is very interested in adapting Moers' City of Dreaming Books to screen, a book Darcy described as 'the best book about books, ever'.
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
s.
Life and work
Walter Moers held odd jobs after leaving school before starting a commercial apprenticeshipApprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...
. He taught himself how to draw.
Moers has been publishing since 1984. He first became known with cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
-like comics that were marked by an ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
view of the world and a conscious violation of political correctness
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
. Many of his works first appeared in the satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
Titanic
Titanic (magazine)
Titanic is a German monthly satirical magazine based in Frankfurt. It has a circulation of approximately 100,000.- History :Titanic was founded in 1979 by former contributors and editors of Pardon, a satirical monthly, which the group had left after conflicts with its publisher...
. Although he doesn't contribute to the magazine anymore, he's still listed as contributor. His last work published in 'Titanic' was the Superhero-Parody 'Deadman' (not to be confused with the DC-Comics Superhero of the same name, Moers Character was just a dead man lying in a coffin for three pages without a word or any change in the pictures).
His best-known comic characters are:
- Das kleine Arschloch (The little asshole), a precocious and irreverent little boy who constantly gets one over on the adults.
- Der alte Sack (The old curmudgeon), a terminally ill old man in a wheel chair who makes sarcastic comments on what he sees.
- Adolf, die Nazisau (Adolf, the Nazi pig), an absurd interpretation of Adolf HitlerAdolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
in today's world.
In addition to these comics clearly intended for an adult audience, Moers also writes stories
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
and book
Book
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...
s that he has been publishing since 1985. In 1988, his first "Käpt'n Blaubär" story was published, a character that has since been popular on TV
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
, in books, and on audio cassettes.
Recently, Moers also became famous for his novels, especially the Zamonia series.
Moers wrote both the script
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
and the song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
for the movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
Kleines Arschloch (1997) and the script for the movie Käpt'n Blaubär (1999).
Walter Moers is said to avoid publicity and very rarely gives interview
Interview
An interview is a conversation between two people where questions are asked by the interviewer to obtain information from the interviewee.- Interview as a Method for Qualitative Research:"Definition" -...
s or allows himself to be photographed. Darcy McCallum, director of Miffmania & Color Blind Addiction is very interested in adapting Moers' City of Dreaming Books to screen, a book Darcy described as 'the best book about books, ever'.
Works available in English translation
- Little asshole, 1991
- The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear, 2000 (UK) / 2005 (US)
- A Wild Ride Through the NightA Wild Ride Through the NightA Wild Ride Through the Night is a novel by the German Author/ Cartoonist Walter Moers. It was first published in German in 2001 and is the story of Gustave Doré, a young boy who goes on a death defying adventure to defy Death...
, 2004 - Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures : a novel in two booksRumo and His Miraculous AdventuresRumo and His Miraculous Adventures is a fantasy novel, written and comically illustrated by German author Walter Moers.The story follows the progress of a young Wolperting named Rumo, as he travels through the land of Zamonia and learns the perils and perks of the world and people...
, 2004 - The City of Dreaming BooksThe City of Dreaming BooksThe City of Dreaming Books is the fourth novel in the Zamonia series written and illustrated by German author Walter Moers, but the third to be translated into English by John Brownjohn...
, 2006. ISBN 0-436-20609-9 - The Alchemaster’s ApprenticeDer SchrecksenmeisterThe Alchemaster's Apprentice is a fantasy novel by Walter Moers, first published in August 2007. It is the fifth of his novels set on the continent of Zamonia, and as in the earlier Ensel and Krete and The City of Dreaming Books, Moers purports to be acting merely as the translator of a work by...
, 2009 (English Edn). 978-1-846-55222-9
Works
- Die Klerikalen, 1985 (comic)
- Aha!, 1985 (comic)
- Hey!, 1986 (comic)
- Das Tier (the animal), 1987 (story with pictures)
- Schweinewelt (pigs' world), 1987 (comic)
- Die Schimauski-Methode (the Schimauski method), 1987 (children's book)
- Herzlichen Glückwunsch (congratulations), 1985 (comic)
- Von ganzem Herzen (whole-heartedly), 1989 (comic)
- Kleines Arschloch (little asshole), 1990 (comic)
- Schöne Geschichten (beautiful stories), 1991 (comic)
- Das kleine Arschloch kehrt zurück (the little asshole returns), 1991 (comic)
- Schöner leben mit dem kleinen Arschloch (better living with the little asshole), 1992 (illustrated satires)
- Es ist ein Arschloch, Maria (it's an asshole, Mary), 1992 (comic)
- Der alte Sack, ein kleines Arschloch und andere Höhepunkte des Kapitalismus (the old curmudgeon, a little asshole and other pinnacles of capitalism), 1993 (comic)
- Arschloch in Öl (asshole in oil), 1993 (graphical parodiesParodyA parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
) - Du bist ein Arschloch, mein Sohn (you're an asshole, son), 1995 (comic)
- Sex und Gewalt (sex and violence), 1995 (comic)
- Wenn der Pinguin zweimal klopft (the penguin always knocks twice), 1997 (comic)
- Kleines Arschloch – Der Film (little asshole – the movie), 1997 (movie: script and song lyrics)
- Adolf, 1998 (comic)
- Feuchte Träume (wet dreams), 1999 (comic)
- Adolf, Teil 2 (Adolf, part 2), 1999 (comic)
- Die 13½ Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär (The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear), 1999 (novel)
- Käpt'n Blaubär – Der Film (captain Bluebear – the movie), 1999 (movie: script; for children)
- Ensel und Krete (the plot of which is loosely based on "Hansel and Gretel"), 2000 (novel)
- Schwulxx-Comix (gay'xx comix), 2000 (comic, with Ralf KönigRalf KönigRalf König is one of the best known and most commercially successful German comic book creators. His books have been translated into many languages...
) - Wilde Reise durch die Nacht (A Wild Ride Through the Night), 2001 (novel)
- Schamlos! (unashamedly!), 2001 (comics with additional material)
- Der Fönig (the Fing), 2002 (story with pictures about a King who always mixes up the letters "F" and "K")
- Rumo & Die Wunder im Dunkeln (Rumo : And His Miraculous Adventures), 2003 (novel)
- Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher (The City of Dreaming Books), 2004 (novel)
- Adolf. Der Bonker (Adolf. The Bunker), 2005 (comic, the truth about Adolf Hitler's last days in the bunker)
- Das kleine Arschloch und der alte Sack - Sterben ist Scheiße (The little asshole and the old curmudgeon – To die is shit), 2006 (movie: script)
- Der SchrecksenmeisterDer SchrecksenmeisterThe Alchemaster's Apprentice is a fantasy novel by Walter Moers, first published in August 2007. It is the fifth of his novels set on the continent of Zamonia, and as in the earlier Ensel and Krete and The City of Dreaming Books, Moers purports to be acting merely as the translator of a work by...
, (The Alchemaster's Apprentice) 2007 (novel) - Das Labyrinth der Träumenden Bücher, (The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books), 2011 (novel)
External links
- - I'm sitting in my Bunker - video clip (English version)
- Adolf - Ich hock' in meinem Bonker - original version of the video clip in German with English subtitles