A small chronology of authors and illustrators of the most important comic figures.
This little book is dedicated to the creators and authors of the most important comic figures and stories. Almost everyone knows “Tintin”, but who knows what his inventor, Hergé, looked like or that he was plagued by nightmares of white surfaces?
A total of 16 comicstrip artists are portrayed here and sorted in the chronological order of their comic breakthrough. For the first time, the men and women behind the large figures will be given a stage. On the one hand, the shape of the book and the quality of the printing put them on a kind of pedestal, but the casual, curved drawing style is intended to loosen up this seriousness a little. A double page has been designed for each artist, on which a quotation, the most famous invented figures and stories as well as a small anecdote from the life of the respective artist can be found. It was important to me that the little story takes a look behind the façade and does not consist of “first page Wikipedia” information. Since this is still some kind of illustration project and not a multipage biography, I have read deeply in order to filter out a crazy or untypical quintessence of information. This can be tongue-in-cheek or critical, to fit in with the almost caricaturing drawings and the casual, profile-like presentation of the book.
When selecting the illustrators, I focused on who created the most famous characters or the most styledefining stories and, above all, who personally inspired me the most. In the early days of comic book history, I focused on portraying the few clear pioneers who were able to make their mark at the end of the 19th century through the first newspaper strips. As the story progresses, more and more styles, genres and ideas are added, which is why I relied more on my subjective feelings and consciously made the decision to leave out certain cartoonists or comic genres (like manga), as this book would have gone beyond the scope otherwise.
“The Makers of Heroes” thus allows a quick overview of the most important personalities of comic history, which should be interesting especially for connoisseurs of the genre and, due to the quick and elegant presentation, could also inspire newcomers to take a closer look at one or the other comic maker.
