50 years of "U-Comix": lively body under power

Everybody listen: "U-Comix" is 50! Ink! Double ink! N / A?

All right, I see, the rejoicing is expandable. It was a long time ago. Those who remember probably say, "50, are not they dead?" They were also for a while, admitted. It took a real Doctor Frankenstein, who has re-energized the corpse, but since we are already in the middle of the topic. Because actually it is exactly what "U-Comix" has always been, a kind of Frankensteinian ninth-art monster, a comic magazine, composed of idiosyncratic parts, all of course dug up, because the "U" stands for "underground" ": Underground.

The underground is what gathers below the mainstream, created in the 1960s in the US after conservative currents forced the Comics Code Authority there, a self-censorship of the comic book publishers. Without the CCA seal, only the less lucrative publishing with independent publishers remained - something for people who considered content more important than profits. So (depending on the view) wacky, tasteless lunatics or sensational, opinionated, unadapted artists like Gilbert Shelton.

In 1969, Raymond Martin decided to publish the same in Germany. Unfortunately, (and, sigh, there is) something much more effective here than the CCA: the broad belief that comics are stupid or for kids or both, and that's why they are best neither read nor bought. The idea of ​​selling underground comics in this market was, to put it mildly: sporty and led to the first bankruptcy.

Only the Nuremberg Alpha Verlag under its active boss Achim Schnurrer brought in the mid-eighties economic momentum into the thing: Schnurrer specified the U-Comix clientele, were targeted those who were no longer in the "MAD" age, but like something similar had have. Humor, a bit alternative, a bit spontaneous, bright, consistently inhibiting. Schnurrer brought back the old hippie content, brought to the French like Gotlib new faces like Pierre Clement or more German content, people like Walter Moers, Klaus Cornfield, Ralf King or the grandiose Gerd Bauer.

In addition, he had spied a much larger market: special albums of the artists whose individual stories the readers in the magazine know and appreciate had learned - Ralf King's classic "condom of horror", for example, at first by no means Rowohlt, but in the Alpha Verlag. The bankruptcy in 1997 was less economical than public prosecutor. Probably that's why no one subsequently found himself risking "U-Comix" - until 2013.

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For the past six years, the draftsman Steff Murschetz breathes new life into the corpse, and the pleasingly traditional consciousness: "U-Comix" is a lovingly mixed treasure trove, the anniversary edition also has two real sensations on board. Murschetz has unearthed untranslated yet by Gilbert Shelton, four fat-freddy adventures, by Shelton betextet, drawn by Hal Robins, Jack Jackson, Spain Rodriguez and Paul Mavrides. No less amazing: Murschetz has reactivated Édika.

In fact, many, including myself, have believed that the French cult escalation master was either missing or dead or starving for lack of readers. After all, he was one of the top stars of the faded "U-Comix", with about 20 own albums full of blooming nonsense - and yet you had read since the bankruptcy in Germany nothing more from him. See there: Édika was never gone, he sits and draws yet, it just did not like him to translate any more. In addition, he is not easy to find and reach, Murschetz has run after him for years. Two Édika stories have the jubilee book, the reunion alone is already worth the purchase price.

The 3D-Running-Gag of the magazine is not always helpful: Murschetz donated 3D glasses, the cover and 14 pages are a bit three-dimensional, well, and some women are attracted when you look at them with one eye, and when you do not take the other one. A bit of sex has always belonged to U-Comix, but - as this time - so exaggerated silly that any pornographic utility is ruled out.

What else is there? A nicely ill amount from Klaus Cornfield: a new adventure with Acne-Jürgen. And also very nice irritating: The processing of the focal theme "Zorro" by Stefan Lausl. His Zorro takes Greta Thunberg with him in the car, and it turns out very quickly that the noble hero is not well-meaning enough for the even more noble young heroine and sets the completely wrong priorities anyway. But please, there are many flavors and some may prefer Murschetz 'astonishingly serious engagement with mining in the Ruhr area.

There is enough choice, and with a bit of luck, the "U-Comix" will make it until the 60th. It's their wish.

U-Comix No. 198 . "50 years of U-Comix". 148 pages, 12 euros.