Gerhard Seyfried Explained

Gerhard Seyfried (born March 15, 1948)[1] is a German comic artist, cartoonist, and writer. One of the most popular German underground artists, he won the Max & Moritz Prize in 1990.[1]

Working method

With Flucht aus Berlin (1989/90) he changed his drawing style and switched from the "scurrying line that curls around the tiniest little things" (F. W. Bernstein)[2] to ligne claire. In the meantime, he uses the computer to color his figures: "I draw with pencil, then trace it with ink, but no longer color by hand.[3] That's too expensive and too toxic." His colleague Ziska judged, "He's very precise and an incredibly good technician."[4] When he works alone on a new comic book, he does without a "storyboard," i.e., a visualized scene book, and relies entirely on his spontaneous intuition.[5] Only in the case of the comic albums that were created together with Ziska was a storyboard developed jointly.[6]

When writing his historical novels, on the other hand, he first reconstructs the "framework of historical events."[7] To do this, however, he does not limit himself to the historical-scientific secondary literature, but researches archives for original documents and primary sources. Old photographs are also helpful to him, since he can "glean a vast amount of stuff from them."[8] Only at the end of the research does he connect the context of the events with fictional characters, who act primarily as observers.[9]

Notes and References

  1. Encyclopedia: Gerhard Seyfried . Lambiek Comiclopedia . 17 July 2014 .
  2. Martin Frenzel: Ausstellungen. Die Wimmelbilder-Welten des Gerhard Seyfried: Harmonian Anarchy vom Feinsten. In: comicoskop.com, September 2015.
  3. Plutonia Plarre: „Die Grünen werden mir unheimlich“. In: taz-Berlin, 24. September 2017, Interview.
  4. [Bernd Drücke]
  5. News: Plarre . Plutonia . 2017-09-24 . Comiclegende Seyfried über linke Politik: „Die Grünen werden mir unheimlich“ . de . Die Tageszeitung: taz . 2022-10-15 . 0931-9085.
  6. Web site: deutschlandfunkkultur.de . Dr. Phob. Schräublelocker, Facebook und der Überwachungsstaat . 2022-10-15 . Deutschlandfunk Kultur . de.
  7. Natalie Tenberg: Gerhard Seyfried wird 60: „Ich sage nicht, Bullen seien Schweine“. In: taz, 15. März 2008, Interview.
  8. Natalie Tenberg: Gerhard Seyfried wird 60: „Ich sage nicht, Bullen seien Schweine“. In: taz, 15. März 2008, Interview.
  9. [Nomen nominandum|N.N.]