Hungarian comics
Encyclopedia
Hungarian comics are comics
made in Hungary
and by the Hungarian diaspora of the surrounding countries. When dealing with Hungarian comics, one cannot separate comics made by Hungarians from translated foreign matter, since in some eras most of the publications come from the latter group and influence comics fandom and the general picture about comics in the country.
The roots of Hungarian comics reach back to the mid 19th century. Until the late 1930s the development of the genre were parallel to current European trends. Comic strips were generally found in newspapers and magazines, featuring works from both Hungarian and foreign artists. Since comics were so closely bound to the printed media, their creators were mostly caricature artists as well.
The years preceding World War II proved to be unfavorable for comics as the mainly Jewish owned yellow press basically disappeared together with comic strips (a great exception were children’s comics).
After the few years of the transitional phase following World War II, Hungarian cultural politics were influenced by the Soviet Union, as a consequence comics were regarded as “western cultural trash” and were basically forbidden for years. By the mid 1950s comics were tolerated, but with strict compromises. Under these years adaptational comics were made in great numbers. This period lasting until the late 1970s is regarded by some comics historians as the Golden Age of Hungarian comics; the most respected artists, Ernő Zórád, Imre Sebők and Pál Korcsmáros lived and were active during this period lasting until the mid 1970s.
In the 1980s, under a warmer political climate, translations of foreign comics were published in growing numbers. After the fall of the iron curtain a large variety of translated European and American comics were published in the country. Although most companies were full of enthusiasm, only few were strong enough in capital to live through the radically altering circumstances of the 1990s.
This course eventually resulted in the American (superhero) comics dominance by the middle of the decade. These years also witnessed the appearance of a new generation of Hungarian comics creators.
The few years preceding and following the new millennium seemed to be least successful for comics, many magazines folded during these years leaving several fans without comics. This and some other factors caused fans, artists, publishers, merchants to connect on the Internet and set up new foundations for a wholly revised comics scene. The period lasting since 2004-2005 is commonly referred to as the new wave of Hungarian comics, since comics scene participants show a degree of activity never seen before.
) from kép (picture) and regény (novel). The word was already used in the 1930s, but it only became the exclusive term after 1948, before that, képes történet (pictorial story) and other similar expressions described the medium The words comics (referring to American comics), manga
(referring to mainly Japanese comics), bd / bande dessinée (referring to Franco-Belgian comics
) are sometimes used in Hungary, but, apart from manga, are not generally in use. (The word sztrip or strip is also used by the Hungarian minorities in Vojvodina, Serbia.)
During the late 19th century Hungary, as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
, kept pace with the European trends, pointing in the direction of what later became to be known as modern comics. Rodolphe Töpffer
and especially Wilhelm Busch
(Max und Moritz
) were popular and had great effect on Hungarian journalism, and soon the Hungarian equivalents were born. One of the most important writers of the time, Mór Jókai
founded (1858 August 21) and edited a magazine called Üstökös (comet) based on Fliegende Blätter. (During the Monarchy German language Fliegende Blätter was a popular magazine in Hungary, with several thousand subscribers in the country.). Pages were filled with caricature
s and "pictorial stories" (called képtörténetek, képes történetek), the European predecessor of modern comics. A short story was told in few sequential pictures, and the text (many times in rhyming poetic form) was placed beneath the images. Many similar journals existed besides Üstökös. Hungary had a flourishing caricature culture at the time, and many of the greatest artists also drew these early types of comics.
boom of the USA had a growing effect on Hungarian newspaper publishing until the late thirties. American comics flooded all kinds of newspapers, magazines. Hári János (see image) (1936-1937), a magazine for children is considered to be the first Hungarian comic book magazine, with comic strips on every page. Walt Disney strips
, Secret Agent X-9
, Little Nemo in Slumberland (Kis Némó Álomországban), George McManus
strips and many others marked this period.
Not as many Hungarian comics were made in this period, while – for example – Yugoslavia, the southern neighbor, claims this period to be their Golden Age.
During this period the truncated Hungary
was an ally of Germany. In 1937 the Minister of Justice began restricting the great amount of pulp literature and yellow press
. In 1938 a decree ordered the whole press under the control of the Government. In the same year the "First Jewish Law" was issued. Among others the goal of these two were to “clean” Hungary’s cultural life, to eliminate pulp literature. As the Újság, a Hungarian extremist newspaper, commented in 1938: "These are not at all capable to nurture Hungarian self-knowledge, Hungarian honesty, Hungarian heroism, consequentially to nurture the Hungarian folk, national and racial self-knowledge." Since most of the comics were published in the mostly Jewish owned yellow press, comics vanished after the law took effect. The situation became even worse after the German troops marched into Hungary: all leftist and liberal media was banned. The only comics of the time were antisemitic ones, from magazines as the militant Harc (combat) or anticommunist
ones from newspapers as Egyedül vagyunk (we are alone).
In the post-war period, Hungary’s cultural-politics were heavily influenced by the Soviet Union
. In the first few years comics returned to the newspapers and other magazines: first humorous children comics in 1945, then communist propaganda strips in 1948. The Hungarian term for comics – képregény – became widespread during this short period. In 1950 – according to a famous anecdote – during a visit to Budapest, Finogenov, an influential aesthete from Moscow, called comic books an “imperialist vestige”. Within a few days Hungarian prime minister, Mátyás Rákosi
withdrew all the “western cultural trash” from the press.
Furthermore Dr. Fredric Wertham
’s Seduction of the Innocent
attracted some attention on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain
. His anti-comics accusations echoed in Hungarian newspaper articles. Some of these were written by Hungarian journalists, but some were translations of American articles (at least signed by American names). During these years even caricatures ridiculed comics for its aggressive nature and pairing it with western trash.
In 1954 Ernő Zórád, one of Hungary’s all-time greatest comic book artists, dared to bring back comics with his adaptation of Vladimir Obruchev
’s Plutonia (comics' title: Az Északi-sarkról a Föld belsejébe – From the North Pole to the Center of the Earth). This was published in Pajtás, a magazine for the Pioneer movement
(the communist co-ed equivalent for scouting). 1955 was a milestone in Hungarian comic book history, since this was the year when graphic illustrator Sándor Gugi convinced Tibor Horváth (Later Tibor Cs. Horváth) to create some comics together. It was also Gugi’s idea to produce comics that adapt classic literature. No one could call adaptations of famous and recognized literary works “decadent western trash”, so comics received a green light at the time. Gugi presumably got the idea of adaptational comics from Classics Illustrated
. Adaptational comics, what started out as a trick, became dominant for decades. Sándor Gugi left the field relatively early, but Tibor Cs. Horváth produced a vast of comics scripts for some very talented artists such as Imre Sebők, Pál Korcsmáros and Ernő Zórád. These three had their own easily recognizable style and are considered the greatest comic artists of Hungary.
At the time comics were not published in separate comic books, but sequentially in newspapers (e.g. Népszava
), magazines (e.g. Képes Újság, Pajtás), and the crossword puzzle magazine Füles. Füles later became a flagship of Hungarian comic publishing. (Füles published the most comics during the period. It was the most important publisher of Pál Korcsmáros and important publisher for artists like Ernő Zórád.) In December 1956, a few weeks after the soviet tanks ended the Revolution of 1956, György Gál and some journalists started conceiving a new, entertaining weekly magazine based on previous magazines such as Pesti Izé and Füles Bagoly. The magazine based on crossword puzzles, articles and comics immediately became a large success. Some say the magazine had a role in healing the wounds. Between January 1957 and December 1960 11 artists drew especially comics. The sum of their work during this period was 145 comics in 2000 pages. 50% of the storyboards were written by Tibor Cs. Horváth, the other by 17 other writers. 40% of the art was done by Pál Korcsmáros (in 1957 he drew 238 pages only for Füles), 20% by Ernő Zórád and 14% by Imre Sebők.
Some attempts were made to create pure comic magazines. One of these was Tábortűz (1957–1965), another magazine for Pioneers, based on the French Camera 34 and full of fresh ideas. Although it did not meet the Pioneer Association's ideas and ordered the editorial to drastically reduce the number of comic pages in the magazine.
Adaptational comics are still the source of controversies and debates. Although in most cases the art was beautiful, the panels were heavily packed with narrative texts – a trademark of Tibor Cs. Horváth. By the early sixties this comics type fell into a trap from which it could not escape until recent times. On one hand intellectuals criticized these works for the lack of originality, novelty and artistry, while another major accusation was that comics in general restrict reading habits. However, adaptational comics provided a safe relationship with the cultural-political leadership, and were still popular, comic book import was close to zero, so nothing forced comic artists to move on further.
Still, this compromise made the production of comics possible. In many other countries of the Ex-Eastern Bloc (e.g. Czechoslovakia
, Soviet Union
, Romania
) the situation was even worse with almost no comics of their own. However, it should be noted that some other Eastern Bloc countries at that time had substantial comic book culture, like Yugoslavia
and Poland
. (Yugoslavia was not influenced directly by the Soviet Union.) For further readings on Ex-Eastern bloc comics culture: Serbian comics
, Polish comics
, Czech comics
Ernő Zórád ended his professional relationship with Tibor Cs. Horváth and wrote his own comic scripts. Luckily Zórád was not just a great artist, but also a talented storyteller: these comics came much closer to the medium’s own language. He also made experimental collage comics in the early seventies attracting international attention. These works were invited to the Salone Internazionale del Comics festival in 1970 but his portfolio – due to Hungarian bureaucracy – has arrived late. Furthermore the works has been stolen from the festival. By the late seventies the classic trio of Hungarian comics creators disappeared: Korcsmáros died in 1975, Sebők died in 1980 and Zórád retired temporarily. Since young talents were not introduced during the preceding three decades (except for Attila Fazekas), many mark these years the end of Hungarian comics’ golden age.
In the early 1970s famous cartoonists (Attila Dargay
, Marcell Jankovics
) made ventures in the comics medium. Both of them were talented comic book creators, but both of them rather considered animation as their main field. Jankovics even went as far as publicly despising comics. Dargay continued to create comics in the 1980s.
At the time very few foreign comics were allowed to be published for the Hungarian market. The exceptions were mainly comics from the Eastern bloc or comics with socialist/communist background. The exceptions:
In an environment much more liberal, the Hungarian minorities of Yugoslavia published many comics. The most important publisher of the time was Forum Marketprint, which presented Buksi magazine in the sixties. This was the Hungarian language print of the Serbo-Croatian Kekec
magazine, also published by Forum-Marketprint.
) brought some changes in the field of comics. Some foreign comics were allowed to be published in Hungarian, not just comics from the Eastern Bloc
(e.g. Mozaik) or comics from communist French publisher L'Humanité
(Vaillant, Pif Gadget
), but some politically 'harmless' series as Asterix
and Lucky Luke
(as Wilám Will) in Alfa, Tom and Jerry
(as Tom és Jerry since 1987), Mickey Mouse
(as Miki egér from 1988) and Swedish Bobo and Góliát (both from 1986), Tumak, Pink Panther, Nils Holgerson, etc. One of the most important magazines of the era was Kockás, that selected stories from Pif and its predecessor Vaillant.
Again, comics published for the Hungarian minorities in Yugoslavia ranged on a much larger scale: Hägar
, larger selection of Asterix and Lucky Luke (in album format), Prince Valiant
, Biblical comics, etc. These were popular on both sides of the border, imported both legally and illegally to Hungary.
Most importantly this was the period when Hungarian comics spread from newspapers and magazines to individual comic books, albums. Generally these comics were published in two distinct formats:
Other important, but short comics were published in the sci-fi anthology, Galaktika
. Some of today’s artists made their first works here (Marabu, Mihály Vass, István Fujkin). The anthology also published foreign comics as Conan
, The Adventures of Funky Koval
(Funky Koval kalandjai by polish Maciej Parowski
, J. Rodek, B. Polch), Rail tracks leading to darkness (Sötétbe vezető sínpár by Czech Kája Saudek
).
It was during this era when comics appeared in the underground scene (concert posters, fanzines, samizdat
press). Usually underground creators of the time held comics as a cultural venture, producing few comics (László Rajk Jr.
, Inconnu Independent Art Group
).
Important periodicals publishing comics:
Important comic books or comic series:
The early nineties were a very chaotic, but exciting and optimistic era in terms of comics. Because no one was told what is and is not to be published, many saw great opportunities in releasing comics. In these years a large variety of comics came into the country (not as direct import, but in the form of translations): all kinds of European, American comics. Although most companies were full of enthusiasm, but only few were strong in capital. In the meantime, the whole newspaper and magazine distribution system went through major changes, leaving magazines in a worse situation. Magazine print numbers dropped by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude
. Therefore most of them disappeared after a few months or years. By 1992 such great series as Menő Manó (Italian comics
for teenage readers), Krampusz (Italian comics for adult readers), Hepiend Magazin (Conan
, Punisher
), Vampi
(European and American horror, fantasy
, erotic comics) vanished. Besides the inexperience of the small publishing companies, the comics-reading audience might not have been ready for these type of comics. In many cases their true value was only discovered in recent years.
This was not the case for superhero
comics. In the last months of the People’s Republic of Hungary American superhero comics finally were allowed to be published. The first superhero story was published in 1989, in a special issue of Alfa magazine. This was the Revenge of the Living Monolith
(A monolit bosszúja), a Marvel team-up
story. Also in 1989, after a few years of publishing foreign children's comics (Bobo, Góliát, Pink Panther, Tumak, Pejkó, etc.) Interprint
plunged into superhero comics. First The Phantom
, than Spider-Man
. (In 1991 Interprint joined the Swedish Semic group, which resulted in Semic-Interprint.) The company started releasing Batman
in January 1990 and Superman
later in the same year. DC comics were not as popular as Marvel superheroes, so the titles merged and were made bimonthly in 1992 as Superman és Batman. X-Men
started in June 1992 and Marvel Extra (a compilation of all sorts of Marvel superhero stories) in February 1993.
Hungarian comic book artists found themselves in a very new and alien situation: while comics were having their heyday, young readers’ interest drifted from Hungarian comics to the much more modern and spectacular superhero comics. Attila Fazekas, whose Star Wars
adaptations were printed in 300,000 copies a decade earlier, now tries every way to remain on the surface. He produced and published his own magazine, Botond. These comic books comprised all kinds of stories, from historical to action. Every issue had a story of Botond, a character based on Hungarian legends and Asterix. He also experimented with erotic (or rather pornographic) comics – with surprisingly small success.
With no major outlet, Hungarian comics started to fade. To this day many directly accuse Semic Interprint and its monthly "dump" of superhero comics for this phenomenon. As the country’s leading comic book publisher, Semic Interprint never published a Hungarian comic book in these fragile years (cf. after WWII France - and many other West European countries - had an anti-American self-protective law, a foundation of their flourishing comics culture). Others protect it on the basis of free market.
In March 1994 Semic Interprint launched the bimonthly Kretén (cretin). This absurd and satirical humor magazine is somewhat like Mad
or Fluide Glacial
. In this magazine many talented artists introduced themselves to a larger audience (Zsolt H. Garisa, Zoltán “Zerge” Varga, Imre “Feki” Fekete, Csete, Gergely Göndöcs, etc.). It can be considered the most important and prestigious outlet for Hungarian comics at the time.
Füles and new crossword puzzle magazines are still popular in Hungary, but comics readers' attention has drifted away from these, leaving the collecting of the comics published in these to hardcore, and mostly veteran fans.
In 1996 Marvel went bankrupt and drastically raised the royalties collected upon translations, therefore Hungarian Marvel titles were canceled in December 1996 (Marvel Extra) and January 1997 (X-Men, Transformer). However the most popular title, Csodálatos Pókember (Amazing Spider-Man), managed to survive. In the same year Semic Interprint
started publishing Spawn
as a bimonthly with two stories in each issue. In 1999, after its tenth year, 120th issue the company doubled the magazine’s number of pages (from 32 to 76) and price too. Every issue contained three complete Spider-Man stories (The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker Spider-Man, Webspinners Tales of Spider-Man – all starting out from #1). The stories did not fulfill the Hungarian needs and the price seemed to be too high, resulting in the canceling of the title at the end of the year, along with Spawn. The price of the bimonthly, not so popular Superman és Batman managed to continue until December 2001, as the only superhero title published in Hungarian.
In 2001 Csodálatos Pókember was relaunched, but instead of carrying on with the Spider-Man continuity, it served a younger audience with the translations of Ultimate Spider-Man
. Leaving Kretén and the bimonthly Star Wars out of account, Semic Interprint shifted to the children’s audience with other flagship titles such as Dragon Ball
(cancelled soon after), Garfield
, and Dörmögő Dömötör
. Children's comics were the main profile of major publishers like Egmont (Tom és Jerry, Donald Kacsa magazin) and smaller companies such as Abrafaxe Kft. (Mozaik - later continued by N-Press, than Ratius).
Looking back, the total lack of a comic book scene in the early 2000s proved to have a cleansing effect and pushed many to rebuild the whole scene from its base. The first to act were remaining hardcore fans, who began to organize into web communities on Internet forum
s and a new scene developed on the basis of scanlations. Since no comic books were sold on the market, fans began to scan, translate, re-letter and share digital comics. In English speaking countries scanlations usually refer to manga, but in Hungary the process of fan translations and lettering started with Marvel superhero-type comics, and then moved on to other types. The most notable achievement of the Hungarian scanlating scene was that it brought together the fans, forming a base of comics fandom
. Although many different websites existed, each specializing in different comics genres, types (European, superhero, independent, manga, underground, etc.), Kepregeny.net managed to unite all different kind of comics fans. Kepregeny.net also started out as a scanlating and scanning website, its forum provided a platform for fans and professionals (artists, editors of earlier series, retailers etc.) to meet and discuss all kinds of issues. Many projects were eventually launched from there, and to this day it is a place for fan talk and professional debate and most notably Kepregeny.net can be regarded as the main information gateway for all comics fans and professionals.
2004 can be regarded as the breakthrough year in comics publishing. In February the Complete Maus
was released by Ulpius-ház, a larger publishing house. (The first book of Maus has already been published in the early nineties.) Besides the release of the graphic novel
, Ulpius organized an exhibition which exposed pages from Maus in Budapest’s subway carts, seen by one million passengers a day. The project became successful, and attracted large media attention. This project was timed for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the German occupation in March 1944, resulting in the deportation of 800,000 Hungarian Jews and other minorities. (This also is revealed in the graphic novel.)
Another milestone of the year was the publication of the Belgian album series, XIII. This, along with Largo Winch
has already been introduced to the Hungarian audience in 1995 as part of the X-07 black and white series in American comic book format.
That year also brought some changes in Hungarian comics:
Since then many smaller publishers, usually based around one or a few fans themselves, made ventures in releasing comics. These companies provide a very broad variety of comics, some specializing on smaller territories (manga, American mainstream), others representing a larger scale. In 2005 most of these companies forged into the Magyar Képregénykiadók Szövetsége (Hungarian Comic Publishers’ Association), based more on mutual interests and friendship, rather than strict rules and codes. Organizing festivals and fairs can be considered as the organization’s biggest success.
Publishers soon realized that in most cases the newspaper market is far from ideal for comics, however it might be feasible on the book market. This however is a phenomenon seen in many other comic cultures. In the last few years only three companies made efforts on the newspaper market: Panini Comics Italy
(four, later two Marvel titles) and Képes Kiadó (a black and white budget magazine called Eduárd fapados képregényújság) both failed at it, however Pesti könyv still sends its Lucky Lukes to the newspaper stands (beside bookstores). Bookstores have a constantly growing variety on graphic novels, trade paperbacks, albums, etc. This phenomenon is still new for many Hungarians, since they were used to searching for comics at the newspaper stands/shops, tobacconists, etc.
In a country with a population around 10 million, these 'books' are published in 2 to 5000 copies, which is extremely low, causing relatively high prices. Despite the low number of copies, comics and the theme of its revival has been a frequent topic of the media. In spite of this, prejudice concerning comics fades very slowly.
Also during this period, comics’ own offline printed media has been born in the form of semi fanzine-semi professional papers as Panel, Buborékhámozó (bubble-peeler).
The first significant amount of manga
were published in the last quarter of 2006 and by the end of 2007, it flooded the comics market, being the most popular among them. Unlike the second most popular type of comics – superheroes – manga fans have their own fan groups, conventions, and are less interested in other type of comics.
, Vampire Hunter D
, Dominion: Tank Police
, Who fighter with Heart of Darkness, Blade of the Phantom Master, Hoshi no Sabaku. (Latter is one of few manga, that's first Western edition was made by a Hungarian publisher.) Rare examples of gekiga
comics were published in the international anthology series, Papírmozi presenting works by artists Yoshihiro Tatsumi
, Katsuhiro Otomo
.
s. Today Dark Horse Comics
and Vertigo titles are just as common editorial picks as DC and Marvel titles. Many groundbreaking, cult comics, graphic novels have their Hungarian edition (i.e. Sandman, Batman: Year One
, Sin City
, Watchmen
, Understanding Comics
, Maus
, etc.) In 2006 31.3% of the comics published for the bookstore market were of American origin (claiming the highest portion), in 2009, despite the fact that the number of American comics grew by 80%, the portion of the total numbers released for the bookstore market decreased to 20.9%. In connection with American comics in Hungary it is important to point out, that more than half of the comics on the newsstand market are of American origin. A large portion of these are magazines dedicated to popular cartoon series (Tom and Jerry, Cartoon Network magazine, Sponge Bob, Scooby Doo, etc.)
dates back to a longer period of time than of American comics (see previous chapters), since the early 1990s most of these comics could not reach the popularity of superhero comics. From the mid nineties to 2004 German Mosaik
was the only major European comic book title published in the country. Today many Francophone albums
are published in Hungarian, but their print numbers range from a few hundred to one or two thousand. The future of these titles depends much on the enthusiasm and dedication of the editor and publisher.
Despite previous publications, Bonelli
titles could not reach substantial popularity. Dampyr, which started as an experiment to test cheaper Italian pulp comics, closed after six issues.
In 2006 17.2% of the comics released for the bookstore market were of European origin, in 2009 this ratio was 12.8% (the gross number of publications on the bookstore market grew 3 times between 2006 and 2009). Interestingly European comics constitute a substantial portion of the comics published for the alternative market: 36.2% of the comics on that particular market were of European origin in 2009. This is due to a large number of small print numbered, collector's editions of Mosaik books.
Despite the smaller sellings in this field, publishers and editors seek contact with European artists resulting in more offbeat publications from Marcel Ruijters (The Netherlands), Gradimir Smudja (Serbia, France), Alexandru "Ciubu" Ciubotariu (Romania), Risto Isomäki (Finland), two books from Aleksandar Zograf
(Serbia), Kati Kovács (Finland), Pieter De Poortere (The Netherlands), etc.
Artists – apart from very few exceptions – make their living from other related graphic fields such as advertisement, animation, therefore devoted artists work on their comics projects in their free time. This way artists gain less practice than their professional contemporaries and a project takes longer to reach its final stage. Naturally, the quality and genre of these works strongly vary resulting in readers losing their faith in domestic comics. At this point the vicious circle would close in if not for a few publishers devoted to Hungarian comics. And luckily many artists, artist groups decide to take publishing of their own works into their own hands.
To attract more attention to Hungarian creations, MKSZ founded the Alfabéta prize in 2006 to award domestic authors. (The name ironically rhymes and refers to the Hungarian word analfabéta - meaning illiterate
, a common offense against comics readers in the past.)
Comics made by Hungarian creators only make up around 8.1% (2009 data) of the comics sold in bookstores. This ratio is even less at the newsstands ruled by children’s magazine franchises (Cartoon Network, Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry, etc.). The real field for Hungarian authors is the alternative market, where 31 different Hungarian comics were published in 2009. And of course cross-word puzzle, humor and other type of magazines and periodicals are still a strong flagship of the country’s comics, if not the strongest.
In 2009 83 artists were active in the sense, that their works were published throughout the year. 28 of these artists had under 10 pages of comics published, 21 artists between 10 and 19 pages, another 20 artists between 20 and 49 pages, and 14 artists managed to draw over 50 pages that year.
Short comics under 10 pages are a relatively common form of comics, these are usually published in magazines, comics anthologies (most notably Pinkhell, Nero Blanco Comix, Panel specials, Sushi Strip) or the artist’s own collection (Balázs Gróf’s strips, Marabu’s Dodó strip series, Napirajz (Daily Drawings), a cult webcomic series, etc.). Individual graphic novels, comic books from Hungarian authors are not as common, but luckily each year produces a handful of them. Some of the most well known are Lencsilány by István Lakatos, Kalyber Joe Kalandjai (The Adventures of Kalyber Joe) by Roland Pilcz, Spirál by Attila Futaki (also published in France), Noktürn by Dániel Csordás, Gemini Jelentés (Gemini report) by Attila Fazekas and Antal Bayer, Rév: a Hívó (Haven: The Caller) by Róbert Odegnál, Rejtő/Korcsmáros classic comics remakes.
However some editors and journalists believe, Hungarian comics have the potential of recruiting more comics fans and reaching a cult status in Hungary. Editor, Antal Bayer speculates in a forum comment: "At the same time, I'm convinced that a really 'up-to-date' Hungarian comic could reach the cult status, then maintain massive popularity. We've seen how Napirajz moved the people, but we need something more than that for breakthrough. I can hardly wait for the Hungarian comic book which will be received with as much enthusiasm as the latest Rejtő/Korcsmáros reissue."
series of novels published by Walt Disney. Leslie Téjlor's erotic albums are published by the Dutch Sombrero or the Italian E.F. Edizioni. Zoltán Korcsok had a short story published in Heavy Metal Magazine. Henrik Horváth started working as an inker for several independent US companies in 2006, some of his works has been published by Image comics
. Judit Tondora works as a freelance artist (pencil, ink), her works can be seen in comics of independent publishers as Optic Comics, Outlaw Entertainment. On some of these projects pages are colored by Roland Pilcz.
, Magyar Narancs
, Népszabadság
, Filmvilág, MoziNet, Műút.
s (editing and publishing by the same person, non-profit, authors not paid) and official magazines (ISSN number, well known experts as authors). Panel (March 2006-) was the first of the kind, followed by Buborékhámozó (March 2007-). About the importance of these small print numbered magazines Gyula Maksa, media researcher writes in his book, Variations on Comics (Változatok képregényre): "Although the comics critique has popped up, but it still hasn't made itself independent from the fine art, non illustrated literature and film critique. This could be also changed by Panel, the so called first Hungarian comics fanzine, which from its start seemed as a transition between the traditional fan magazine and a cultural periodical, that is to say, a prozine."
is Kepregeny.net. The independent portal gathers fans and professionals of the scene, therefore it is the catalyst of many comics projects: events, publications, workshops, etc. The portal has had a major role in the past few year’s new wave of comics in the country. Today the site hosts news, review and photo gallery sections, press archive, subpages (bibliographies, comics database, author’s webpages).
As in other countries, Hungarian comics blogs can be divided into three main groups: webcomics (i.e. Napirajz – Daily drawing, Fekete Macska – Black Cat), blogs of authors (almost all major authors own a blog, where they display new works, experiences, thoughts, etc.) and text based review blogs (i.e. Panel, Buborékhámozó, Heti5képregény). The two main internet portals - index.hu and origo.hu - both have their own specific book/literature blogs, where comics are frequent guests (Könyves blog - Book blog, Kötve fűzve - Bound and stiched). Although it also deals with other fanboy related issues, Geekz blog is considered as a major resource for comics reviews, interviews.
In 2006, HVG
magazine’s annual blog contest had a separate comics section. In 2007, although comics did not have its own category, a webcomic blog won in the Entertainment category, and another comics text-blog managed to fit into the top ten.
, a common offense against comics readers in the past.) It is presented at the Hungarian Comics Festival every spring.
Every year since 2005, Kepregeny.net gives place to the annual audience polls. These cover many more topics, not only Hungarian comics, but also translated materials, journalists, etc.
categories: newsstands, bookstores, alternative (similar to direct market
). Comics have been shifting towards bookstores since 2004, and the alternative market is widening every year.
It is important to point out that indirectly many Hungarian comics can be bought in this particular circulation, since cross-word puzzle and other magazines still publish comics.
This of course counter-reacts to the type and format of comics published today. For example, after Panini’s comic book series Hihetetlen Pókember (Amazing Spiderman) folded in January 2008, a smaller company, Kingpin continued the series at the bookstores in tpb format.
Képregény Nagyker (Comics Wholesale) as a middle-chain helps the large number of smaller companies reach the bookstores effectively. The company also represents the publishing companies at book fares and some other events.
Not only self published fanzines and comic books, but most small publishing companies rely on this distributional form, since the bookstore distributional system’s 45-55% share (wholesale company + bookstore or bookstore chain together) can be reduced or in some cases even eliminated. Another reason why Hungarian publishers prefer direct sales is that the Hungarian bookshop distributional system is based on commission system, where the publisher is not paid in advance by the distributor, only after the sold pieces, while at an event the publisher receives substantial income immediately. This makes larger direct discounts possible, therefore many fans choose to buy their comics at larger comics events (typically the "börze"-s, festivals). This together leads to a yearly routine, where most companies time their publications to the aforementioned larger events. Comics exclusively distributed through alternative methods put out a large portion of the overall number of the comic books published. In 2009 this ratio was 15.67%. The ratio of Hungarian comics published through this distributional form is conspicuously high: in 2009 59.6% of the comics in this network were of Hungarian origin, while 68.3% of the Hungarian comics published were only available through alternative distribution. Therefore this distributional system is regarded as the primary source for domestic comics.
Hungarian stores specializing in comic books are relatively rare, and are usually based on comic book import. Since the mid nineties a handful (1-4) of shops in Budapest have been serving the fan needs exceeding the variety provided by Hungarian publishers (not counting online shops and shops with only a complementary profile of comics). Eduárd képregénybolt (Eduárd comics store) was the first specializing in Hungarian comics and had the widest variety of small print number, self published comic books. The store closed in 2009, two years after its opening. As of January 2011, Trillian (specializing in current American and Manga titles) can be regarded as the most stable shop, running since 2004.
Most comic book publishing companies have their own web-shops, where the readers can purchase comics directly from the publisher. Comic book shops also have their web based mail ordering feature. Besides these, Comics Invest can be regarded as the only web-based distributional source with a wide variety of Hungarian and import comics.
Comics
Comics denotes a hybrid medium having verbal side of its vocabulary tightly tied to its visual side in order to convey narrative or information only, the latter in case of non-fiction comics, seeking synergy by using both visual and verbal side in...
made in Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
and by the Hungarian diaspora of the surrounding countries. When dealing with Hungarian comics, one cannot separate comics made by Hungarians from translated foreign matter, since in some eras most of the publications come from the latter group and influence comics fandom and the general picture about comics in the country.
The roots of Hungarian comics reach back to the mid 19th century. Until the late 1930s the development of the genre were parallel to current European trends. Comic strips were generally found in newspapers and magazines, featuring works from both Hungarian and foreign artists. Since comics were so closely bound to the printed media, their creators were mostly caricature artists as well.
The years preceding World War II proved to be unfavorable for comics as the mainly Jewish owned yellow press basically disappeared together with comic strips (a great exception were children’s comics).
After the few years of the transitional phase following World War II, Hungarian cultural politics were influenced by the Soviet Union, as a consequence comics were regarded as “western cultural trash” and were basically forbidden for years. By the mid 1950s comics were tolerated, but with strict compromises. Under these years adaptational comics were made in great numbers. This period lasting until the late 1970s is regarded by some comics historians as the Golden Age of Hungarian comics; the most respected artists, Ernő Zórád, Imre Sebők and Pál Korcsmáros lived and were active during this period lasting until the mid 1970s.
In the 1980s, under a warmer political climate, translations of foreign comics were published in growing numbers. After the fall of the iron curtain a large variety of translated European and American comics were published in the country. Although most companies were full of enthusiasm, only few were strong enough in capital to live through the radically altering circumstances of the 1990s.
This course eventually resulted in the American (superhero) comics dominance by the middle of the decade. These years also witnessed the appearance of a new generation of Hungarian comics creators.
The few years preceding and following the new millennium seemed to be least successful for comics, many magazines folded during these years leaving several fans without comics. This and some other factors caused fans, artists, publishers, merchants to connect on the Internet and set up new foundations for a wholly revised comics scene. The period lasting since 2004-2005 is commonly referred to as the new wave of Hungarian comics, since comics scene participants show a degree of activity never seen before.
Vocabulary
The Hungarian word for comics is képregény , a combined word (compoundCompound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...
) from kép (picture) and regény (novel). The word was already used in the 1930s, but it only became the exclusive term after 1948, before that, képes történet (pictorial story) and other similar expressions described the medium The words comics (referring to American comics), manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
(referring to mainly Japanese comics), bd / bande dessinée (referring to Franco-Belgian comics
Franco-Belgian comics
Franco-Belgian comics are comics that are created in Belgium and France. These countries have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are known as BDs, an abbreviation of bande dessinée in French and stripverhalen in Dutch...
) are sometimes used in Hungary, but, apart from manga, are not generally in use. (The word sztrip or strip is also used by the Hungarian minorities in Vojvodina, Serbia.)
History
The history of Hungarian comics is best divided along political eras, because of the great influence politics has made on comics.From the 19th century until World War I
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, kept pace with the European trends, pointing in the direction of what later became to be known as modern comics. Rodolphe Töpffer
Rodolphe Töpffer
Rodolphe Töpffer was a Swiss teacher, author, painter, cartoonist, and caricature artist. He is also considered to be the first modern comic creator.- Biography :...
and especially Wilhelm Busch
Wilhelm Busch
Wilhelm Busch was an influential German caricaturist, painter, and poet who is famed for his satirical picture stories with rhymed texts....
(Max und Moritz
Max and Moritz
Max and Moritz is a German language illustrated story in verse. This highly inventive, blackly humorous tale, told entirely in rhymed couplets, was written and illustrated by Wilhelm Busch and published in 1865...
) were popular and had great effect on Hungarian journalism, and soon the Hungarian equivalents were born. One of the most important writers of the time, Mór Jókai
Mór Jókai
Mór Jókai , born Móric Jókay de Ásva , outside Hungary also known as Maurus Jokai, was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist.-Early life:...
founded (1858 August 21) and edited a magazine called Üstökös (comet) based on Fliegende Blätter. (During the Monarchy German language Fliegende Blätter was a popular magazine in Hungary, with several thousand subscribers in the country.). Pages were filled with caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
s and "pictorial stories" (called képtörténetek, képes történetek), the European predecessor of modern comics. A short story was told in few sequential pictures, and the text (many times in rhyming poetic form) was placed beneath the images. Many similar journals existed besides Üstökös. Hungary had a flourishing caricature culture at the time, and many of the greatest artists also drew these early types of comics.
Notable artists
This list contains those comics artists, who are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.- János Jankó (TótkomlósTótkomlósTótkomlós is a town in Békés county, in the Southern Great Plain region of south-east Hungary.-Geography:It covers an area of 125.4 km² and has a population of 6638 people .-People:* János Jankó...
, October 1, or November 3, 1833 - BudapestBudapestBudapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, March 29, 1896), originally a painter, but for financial reasons chose to be a journal illustrator. He is considered to be the first Hungarian cartoonist who consciously dealt with this genre. Together with Jókai, they created many picture stories in the style of Wilhelm Busch. His published drawings exceed thirty thousand (accord ing to Kálmán György's cyclopedia: seventy thousand). - Károly Mühlbeck (Nagysurány, 1869 - SashalomSashalomSashalom is a neighbourhood within the XVI. district of Budapest. It is mostly a green and suburban environment away from traffic and businesses....
, 1943) illustrated humor magazines as Kakas Márton, Borsszem Jankó, etc. He created a unique form of the comic strip, that headlined the newspaper, Új idők. These sequential drawings usually did not tell a story in chronological order, they rather showed a current topic from multiple point of views. These very popular works were collected in an individual album in 1935. In May–June 2011 kArton gallery held the first exhibition solely dedicated to Károly Mühlbeck's caricatures and comic strips. - Ákos Garay (PusztaapátiPusztaapátiPusztaapáti is a village in Zala county, Hungary.-References:...
, October 3, 1866 - Budapest, January 25, 1952) painter, graphic artist, ethnographerEthnographyEthnography is a qualitative method aimed to learn and understand cultural phenomena which reflect the knowledge and system of meanings guiding the life of a cultural group...
. From 1883 he drew caricatures for most of the humor magazines (Kakas Márton, Bolond Istók, Fidibusz, Üstökös, Urambátyám, Magyar Figaró, Herkó Páter), Borsszem Jankó published his works for over 20 years. His early drawings were in a realistic style, later used distortion as an instrument for caricatures and humorous pictorial stories. One of the fundamental artists who helped Hungarian pictorial stories to reach its classic stage. - Dezső Bér (KalocsaKalocsaKalocsa is a town in Bács-Kiskun county, Hungary. It lies 88 miles south of Budapest. It is situated in a marshy but highly productive district, near the left bank of the Danube River. Historically it had greater political and economic importance than at present.Kalocsa is the Episcopal see...
, April 10, 1875 - Budapest, October 7, 1924) Graphic artist, painter. Contributing artist, later editor of the humor magazine, Borsszem Jankó. Almost solely dealt with cartoons. One of the fundamental artists, who helped Hungarian pictorial stories to reach its classic stage. He is considered to be one of the most influential cartoonist of his time. - Miltiadész Mannó (Budapest, March 13, 1879 - Budapest, February 17, 1935.) Graphic artist, painter, sculptor. Started his cartoonist career at Kakas Márton, than continued at Borsszem Jankó, Bolond Istók, Magyar Figaró. One of the fundamental artists who helped Hungarian pictorial stories to reach its classic stage.
- Mór JókaiMór JókaiMór Jókai , born Móric Jókay de Ásva , outside Hungary also known as Maurus Jokai, was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist.-Early life:...
(KomáromKomáromKomárom is a city in Hungary on the right bank of the Danube in Komárom-Esztergom county.The city of Komárom was formerly a separate suburban village called...
, February 19 - Budapest, 1825 – May 5, 1904.): novelist, editor. Although not a cartoon artist, his contributions to the development of classic Hugnarian comics are great. He founded and edited humorous, political satire magazines, Nagy Tükör (1856) and mainly Üstökös (1858), which published the very first proto-comics. Jókai also wrote scripts for the cartoonists, these instructions in many cases included detailed layouts, sketches. When Jókai founded Nagy Tükör and Üstökös, cartoonists were hard to find in the country, therefore he himself drew many of the cartoons published in his magazines. This lasted until he employed János Jankó.
Between the two wars
The comic stripComic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
boom of the USA had a growing effect on Hungarian newspaper publishing until the late thirties. American comics flooded all kinds of newspapers, magazines. Hári János (see image) (1936-1937), a magazine for children is considered to be the first Hungarian comic book magazine, with comic strips on every page. Walt Disney strips
Disney comics
Disney comics are comic books and comic strips featuring Walt Disney characters.The first Disney comics were newspaper strips appearing from 1930 on . In 1940, Western Publishing began producing Disney comic books in the United States...
, Secret Agent X-9
Secret Agent X-9
Secret Agent X-9 was a comic strip begun by writer Dashiell Hammett and artist Alex Raymond . Syndicated by King Features, it ran from January 22, 1934 until February 10, 1996....
, Little Nemo in Slumberland (Kis Némó Álomországban), George McManus
George McManus
George McManus was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of Irish immigrant Jiggs and his wife Maggie, the central characters in his syndicated comic strip, Bringing Up Father....
strips and many others marked this period.
Not as many Hungarian comics were made in this period, while – for example – Yugoslavia, the southern neighbor, claims this period to be their Golden Age.
During this period the truncated Hungary
Treaty of Trianon
The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement signed in 1920, at the end of World War I, between the Allies of World War I and Hungary . The treaty greatly redefined and reduced Hungary's borders. From its borders before World War I, it lost 72% of its territory, which was reduced from to...
was an ally of Germany. In 1937 the Minister of Justice began restricting the great amount of pulp literature and yellow press
Yellow journalism
Yellow journalism or the yellow press is a type of journalism that presents little or no legitimate well-researched news and instead uses eye-catching headlines to sell more newspapers. Techniques may include exaggerations of news events, scandal-mongering, or sensationalism...
. In 1938 a decree ordered the whole press under the control of the Government. In the same year the "First Jewish Law" was issued. Among others the goal of these two were to “clean” Hungary’s cultural life, to eliminate pulp literature. As the Újság, a Hungarian extremist newspaper, commented in 1938: "These are not at all capable to nurture Hungarian self-knowledge, Hungarian honesty, Hungarian heroism, consequentially to nurture the Hungarian folk, national and racial self-knowledge." Since most of the comics were published in the mostly Jewish owned yellow press, comics vanished after the law took effect. The situation became even worse after the German troops marched into Hungary: all leftist and liberal media was banned. The only comics of the time were antisemitic ones, from magazines as the militant Harc (combat) or anticommunist
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
ones from newspapers as Egyedül vagyunk (we are alone).
Notable artists
This list contains those comics artists, who are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.- Károly Mühlbeck (see previous chapter)
- Kata Benedek: Drew comics for the children's magazine, Tündérvásár. Her series, Lekvár Peti kalandjai (The Adventures of Pete Jam) ran for over twenty years (1927–1947), and was one of the most popular children's series between the two wars.
- Jenő Jeney (Érendréd, 1874. – Budapest, 1942) painter, graphic artist, illustrator, cartoonist. Studied art from Károly Lotz, his first cartoons were published at the age of 16 (Magyar Figaró, Bolond Istók, Kakas Márton, Urambátyám, Üstökös, Kikiriki, Borsszem Jankó, Mátyás Diák). His style ranged from precisely detailed realistic cartoons to sketchy jokes, portraits. Friss Újság's Vasárnap (Sunday) published his comic strips even after 1938, when comics in general vanished from newspapers.
- Balázsfy Rezső (DöbröközDöbrököz-References:...
, August 4, 1885. – Budapest, April 21, 1973) Graphic artist, painter. Studied at Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts and the painting academy in Vienna. Friss Újság's Vasárnap (Sunday) published his and Jeney's comic strips even after 1938, when comics in general vanished from newspapers.
Main publications
This list contains those publications, that are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.- Áller Képes Családi lapja
- Hári János
- Tündérvásár
- A Kis Lap
- Hasznos Mulattató
- Vasárnap of Pesti Hírlap
- Vasárnap of Friss újság
Communist era
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In the first few years comics returned to the newspapers and other magazines: first humorous children comics in 1945, then communist propaganda strips in 1948. The Hungarian term for comics – képregény – became widespread during this short period. In 1950 – according to a famous anecdote – during a visit to Budapest, Finogenov, an influential aesthete from Moscow, called comic books an “imperialist vestige”. Within a few days Hungarian prime minister, Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi
Mátyás Rákosi was a Hungarian communist politician. He was born as Mátyás Rosenfeld, in present-day Serbia...
withdrew all the “western cultural trash” from the press.
Furthermore Dr. Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham
Fredric Wertham was a Jewish German-American psychiatrist and crusading author who protested the purportedly harmful effects of violent imagery in mass media and comic books on the development of children. His best-known book was Seduction of the Innocent , which purported that comic books are...
’s Seduction of the Innocent
Seduction of the Innocent
Seduction of the Innocent is a book by German-American psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, published in 1954, that warned that comic books were a negative form of popular literature and a serious cause of juvenile delinquency. The book was a minor bestseller that created alarm in parents and galvanized...
attracted some attention on the eastern side of the Iron Curtain
Iron Curtain
The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...
. His anti-comics accusations echoed in Hungarian newspaper articles. Some of these were written by Hungarian journalists, but some were translations of American articles (at least signed by American names). During these years even caricatures ridiculed comics for its aggressive nature and pairing it with western trash.
In 1954 Ernő Zórád, one of Hungary’s all-time greatest comic book artists, dared to bring back comics with his adaptation of Vladimir Obruchev
Vladimir Obruchev
Vladimir Afanasyevich Obruchev was a Russian and Soviet geologist who specialized in the study of Siberia and Central Asia. He was also one of the first Russian science fiction authors.- Scientific research :...
’s Plutonia (comics' title: Az Északi-sarkról a Föld belsejébe – From the North Pole to the Center of the Earth). This was published in Pajtás, a magazine for the Pioneer movement
Pioneer movement
A pioneer movement is an organization for children operated by a communist party. Typically children enter into the organization in elementary school and continue until adolescence. The adolescents then typically joined the Young Communist League...
(the communist co-ed equivalent for scouting). 1955 was a milestone in Hungarian comic book history, since this was the year when graphic illustrator Sándor Gugi convinced Tibor Horváth (Later Tibor Cs. Horváth) to create some comics together. It was also Gugi’s idea to produce comics that adapt classic literature. No one could call adaptations of famous and recognized literary works “decadent western trash”, so comics received a green light at the time. Gugi presumably got the idea of adaptational comics from Classics Illustrated
Classics Illustrated
Classics Illustrated is a comic book series featuring adaptations of literary classics such as Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Iliad. Created by Albert Kanter, the series began publication in 1941 and finished its first run in 1971, producing 169 issues. Following the series' demise, various companies...
. Adaptational comics, what started out as a trick, became dominant for decades. Sándor Gugi left the field relatively early, but Tibor Cs. Horváth produced a vast of comics scripts for some very talented artists such as Imre Sebők, Pál Korcsmáros and Ernő Zórád. These three had their own easily recognizable style and are considered the greatest comic artists of Hungary.
At the time comics were not published in separate comic books, but sequentially in newspapers (e.g. Népszava
Népszava
Népszava is a Social-democratic newspaper established in 1877 in Budapest by Viktor Külföldi. It was the official newspaper of the Hungarian Social Democratic Party until 1948....
), magazines (e.g. Képes Újság, Pajtás), and the crossword puzzle magazine Füles. Füles later became a flagship of Hungarian comic publishing. (Füles published the most comics during the period. It was the most important publisher of Pál Korcsmáros and important publisher for artists like Ernő Zórád.) In December 1956, a few weeks after the soviet tanks ended the Revolution of 1956, György Gál and some journalists started conceiving a new, entertaining weekly magazine based on previous magazines such as Pesti Izé and Füles Bagoly. The magazine based on crossword puzzles, articles and comics immediately became a large success. Some say the magazine had a role in healing the wounds. Between January 1957 and December 1960 11 artists drew especially comics. The sum of their work during this period was 145 comics in 2000 pages. 50% of the storyboards were written by Tibor Cs. Horváth, the other by 17 other writers. 40% of the art was done by Pál Korcsmáros (in 1957 he drew 238 pages only for Füles), 20% by Ernő Zórád and 14% by Imre Sebők.
Some attempts were made to create pure comic magazines. One of these was Tábortűz (1957–1965), another magazine for Pioneers, based on the French Camera 34 and full of fresh ideas. Although it did not meet the Pioneer Association's ideas and ordered the editorial to drastically reduce the number of comic pages in the magazine.
Still, this compromise made the production of comics possible. In many other countries of the Ex-Eastern Bloc (e.g. Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
, Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
) the situation was even worse with almost no comics of their own. However, it should be noted that some other Eastern Bloc countries at that time had substantial comic book culture, like Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
and Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. (Yugoslavia was not influenced directly by the Soviet Union.) For further readings on Ex-Eastern bloc comics culture: Serbian comics
Serbian comics
Serbian comics are comics written and produced in Serbia. During the 1970s and 1980s many comics have been published, often in other Serbo-Croatian variants than Serbian proper.- Before 1941 :...
, Polish comics
Polish comics
Polish comics are comics written and produced in Poland. Very few of these comics have been published in languages other than Polish.- History :...
, Czech comics
Czech comics
- History :The beginnings of the comics genre in the Czechoslovakia are connected with the popular magazine Mladý hlasatel , published in the 1930s. In 1938, the magazine began publishing a popular comic series Rychlé šípy, written by Jaroslav Foglar and drawn by Jan Fischer...
Ernő Zórád ended his professional relationship with Tibor Cs. Horváth and wrote his own comic scripts. Luckily Zórád was not just a great artist, but also a talented storyteller: these comics came much closer to the medium’s own language. He also made experimental collage comics in the early seventies attracting international attention. These works were invited to the Salone Internazionale del Comics festival in 1970 but his portfolio – due to Hungarian bureaucracy – has arrived late. Furthermore the works has been stolen from the festival. By the late seventies the classic trio of Hungarian comics creators disappeared: Korcsmáros died in 1975, Sebők died in 1980 and Zórád retired temporarily. Since young talents were not introduced during the preceding three decades (except for Attila Fazekas), many mark these years the end of Hungarian comics’ golden age.
In the early 1970s famous cartoonists (Attila Dargay
Attila Dargay
Attila Dargay was an animator from Hungary. He was born in Mezőnyék.-Life:He finished his academic studies in 1948. He worked at Hungary's National Theatre as scenery painter; then he became an animated-film director in 1957. His films are popular among both children and adults...
, Marcell Jankovics
Marcell Jankovics
Marcell Jankovics is a Hungarian graphic artist, cartoon director, animator and author. He received his Oscar nomination for the 1974 animated short movie "Sisyphus".d That movie was used for a GMC Yukon Hybrid ad during the 2008 Super Bowl based on an agreement between the Hungarian film studio...
) made ventures in the comics medium. Both of them were talented comic book creators, but both of them rather considered animation as their main field. Jankovics even went as far as publicly despising comics. Dargay continued to create comics in the 1980s.
At the time very few foreign comics were allowed to be published for the Hungarian market. The exceptions were mainly comics from the Eastern bloc or comics with socialist/communist background. The exceptions:
- Mozaik: The East German MosaikMosaikMosaik is a German comic book. First published in December 1955, it is the longest-running German monthly comic book and the only one originating in East Germany that still exists. Mosaik also appeared in other countries and other languages...
was first published in 1971 and ran as a monthly comic book series from 1973 until 1990. Outside East-Germany Mosaik was the most popular in Hungary, and still has many hardcore fans. The issues were edited in Hungary, published and printed in GDR together with the original German version, than distributed by the Hungarian Postal ServiceMagyar PostaMagyar Posta Zrt. is the postal administration of Hungary. Besides normal mail delivery, Magyar Posta also offers logistics, banking, and marketing services.-External links:*...
. The title returned to the newsstands in 2001 and is still published alongside many special issues for collectors.
- Pif and Vaillant: These were imported from France and sold at newspaper stands. This was allowed because the biweekly magazine belonged to the communist L'HumanitéL'HumanitéL'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
newspaper group. - In the seventies some French (mainly from Vaillant) and Italian (mainly western from Bonelli) comics were published in Füles, Pajtás, etc.
- Danish and Finnish editions of American superhero comics were printed in Hungary’s Kossuth nyomda. A large number of these forbidden fruits were sold/traded on flea markets, despite the fact most Hungarians could not read them.
In an environment much more liberal, the Hungarian minorities of Yugoslavia published many comics. The most important publisher of the time was Forum Marketprint, which presented Buksi magazine in the sixties. This was the Hungarian language print of the Serbo-Croatian Kekec
Kekec
Kekec is a Slovenian book fictional child hero character created by Josip Vandot.It was first published in Zvonček publication in 1918. He is widely recognized as a Slovenian cultural icon. Kekec is a brave boy, a fearless shepperd from the highlands of his home region, the Karavanke and Julian Alps...
magazine, also published by Forum-Marketprint.
Notable artists
Although Zórád, Korcsmáros and Sebők are commonly mentioned as the three musketeers of comics, the era had many more talented and important artists. This list contains names emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.- Sándor Gugi(Budapest, September 12, 1917. – Budapest, December 31, 1998.) Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under the instruction of Vilmos Aba-Novák. In 1949 he left teaching to become a newspaper illustrator at Szabad NépNépszabadságNépszabadság is a major left-leaning Hungarian newspaper, founded in 1956 as successor of "Szabad Nép" , the central organ of the dissolved Hungarian Working People's Party...
. Started drawing comics in 1954 at Tanácsok lapja, a periodical for the workers of local municipalities.Tanács is the Hungarian term for municipality used in the socialist era, meaning council. A year later he advised Horváth Tibor (script) to work together on adaptational comics, a specific comics genre that would dominate Hungarian comics production for decades. Between 1954 and 1960 he laid down the basis of comics writing and drawing in the country, than suddenly left the field only to return with two Rejtő adaptations in 1970. Gugi could create in many different styles at an equally high quality. He is also known for spending much time researching clothes, architecture, furniture and other details before starting drawing a comic. In 2006 a collection of his works were reprinted in the comic book history series, Fekete-Fehér Képregénymúzeum (Black and White Comics Museum). - Ernő Zórád
- Pál Korcsmáros
- Imre Sebők
- Attila Dargay
- György Szitás
- Róbert Szenes (Budapest, 1932 – 1971) Graphic artist, illustrator. The artist possessing a great affinity towards mechanicsSzenes illustrated and drew covers for Hungarian DIY magazine, Ezermester for more than a decade. is known for his precise and detailed sci-fi adaptations made for Füles. A collection of his works were reprinted in 2007.
- Marcell Jankovics
- István Endrődi
Main publications
This list contains those publications, that are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.- Füles
- Népszava
- Buksi (Yugoslavia)
- Pajtás
Last decade of communism
The popularity of comics streaming into the country made many ask the question: why are not there individual comic book series published? (N.B. at the time the main field of Hungarian comics were still newspapers, magazines.) The Ministry of Culture, the Office of Information and the General Directory of Publishing previously never authorized such attempts. The less harsh tone of the mid- and late-eighties (see GlasnostGlasnost
Glasnost was the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information, introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev in the second half of the 1980s...
) brought some changes in the field of comics. Some foreign comics were allowed to be published in Hungarian, not just comics from the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
(e.g. Mozaik) or comics from communist French publisher L'Humanité
L'Humanité
L'Humanité , formerly the daily newspaper linked to the French Communist Party , was founded in 1904 by Jean Jaurès, a leader of the French Section of the Workers' International...
(Vaillant, Pif Gadget
Pif gadget
Pif Gadget was a French comic magazine for children that ran from 1969 to 1993 and 2004 to 2009. Its audience peaked in the early 1970s.-History:Created as an outlet of the French Communist Party, it was initially entitled Le Jeune Patriote...
), but some politically 'harmless' series as Asterix
Asterix
Asterix or The Adventures of Asterix is a series of French comic books written by René Goscinny and illustrated by Albert Uderzo . The series first appeared in French in the magazine Pilote on October 29, 1959...
and Lucky Luke
Lucky Luke
Lucky Luke is a Belgian comics series created by Belgian cartoonist, Maurice De Bevere better known as Morris, the original artist, and was for one period written by René Goscinny...
(as Wilám Will) in Alfa, Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
(as Tom és Jerry since 1987), Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse
Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...
(as Miki egér from 1988) and Swedish Bobo and Góliát (both from 1986), Tumak, Pink Panther, Nils Holgerson, etc. One of the most important magazines of the era was Kockás, that selected stories from Pif and its predecessor Vaillant.
Again, comics published for the Hungarian minorities in Yugoslavia ranged on a much larger scale: Hägar
Hägar the Horrible
Hägar the Horrible is the title and main character of an American comic strip created by cartoonist Dik Browne , and syndicated by King Features Syndicate. It first appeared in February 1973, and was an immediate success. Since Browne's retirement in 1988 , his son Chris Browne has continued the...
, larger selection of Asterix and Lucky Luke (in album format), Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant
Prince Valiant in the Days of King Arthur, or simply Prince Valiant, is a long-run comic strip created by Hal Foster in 1937. It is an epic adventure that has told a continuous story during its entire history, and the full stretch of that story now totals more than 3700 Sunday strips...
, Biblical comics, etc. These were popular on both sides of the border, imported both legally and illegally to Hungary.
Most importantly this was the period when Hungarian comics spread from newspapers and magazines to individual comic books, albums. Generally these comics were published in two distinct formats:
- Small (cca. 15 x 21.5 cm), cheap, black and white comic books. These were usually reissues of stories that ran in 4 page installments in Füles. Even the size was the same. Later Attila Fazekas made comics that were published originally in this format. Most notable of these reissues was the Rejtő sorozat sequel, that collected then already classic adaptations of Jenő Rejtő’s novels. Despite the fact that these were drastically re-edited by Tibor Cs. Horváth they were very popular, bringing these stories close to another young generation. Among these comic books, most loved were Pál Korcsmáros’ art, that captured Rejtő’s absurd and grotesque humor. (Some issues were published in 300,000 copies.)
- Large colored albums. These were mainly Ernő Zórád’s comics. In some cases they were also reissues, but redesigned, colored by the artist himself. They were published in two unanimous series.
Other important, but short comics were published in the sci-fi anthology, Galaktika
Galaktika
was arguably the greatest and most popular science fiction magazine of Hungary, published between 1972 and 1995. The peak of 94,000 copies was very high was arguably the greatest and most popular science fiction magazine of Hungary, published between 1972 and 1995. The peak of 94,000 copies was...
. Some of today’s artists made their first works here (Marabu, Mihály Vass, István Fujkin). The anthology also published foreign comics as Conan
Conan (Marvel Comics)
Conan is a fictional character based on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian. He was introduced to the comic book world in 1970 with Conan the Barbarian, written by Roy Thomas, illustrated by Barry Smith and published by Marvel Comics....
, The Adventures of Funky Koval
Funky Koval
Funky Koval is a 3-part Polish science fiction/detective story/political fiction genre comic book published in People's Republic of Poland in the 1980s. It gained a cult following and is still recognized as one of the best Polish comics.-History:...
(Funky Koval kalandjai by polish Maciej Parowski
Maciej Parowski
Maciej Parowski is a Polish publicist, essayist, writer and translator. Critic of science-fiction, chief editor of Nowa Fantastyka from 1992-2003, editor of several science-fiction series and anthologies. Chief editor of Czas Fantastyki...
, J. Rodek, B. Polch), Rail tracks leading to darkness (Sötétbe vezető sínpár by Czech Kája Saudek
Kája Saudek
Kája Saudek is a Czech comics illustrator. He is one of the most important exponents of the Czech comics since the late 1960s. He is the twin brother of the photographer and painter Jan Saudek.- Biography :...
).
It was during this era when comics appeared in the underground scene (concert posters, fanzines, samizdat
Samizdat
Samizdat was a key form of dissident activity across the Soviet bloc in which individuals reproduced censored publications by hand and passed the documents from reader to reader...
press). Usually underground creators of the time held comics as a cultural venture, producing few comics (László Rajk Jr.
László Rajk Jr.
László Rajk Jr. is an architect and designer born in 1949 in Budapest, Hungary.Son of the most known show trial victim, Hungary's foreign minister László Rajk. Famous in his own right for anti-regime activities. As an architect, he became the member of the Hungarian avantgarde movement...
, Inconnu Independent Art Group
Inconnu Independent Art Group
Inconnu Art Group - - is the name of a Hungarian group of maverick fine artists in the communist and postcommunist era. Original and founder members are Bokros Péter, Molnár Tamás, Csécsei Mihály, Mészáros Bánk, Letenyei József, Sipos Mihály, Kopács Kovács Miklós, Morva Ibolya...
).
Notable artists
This list contains those comics artists' name, who are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.- Ernő Zórád
- Attila Dargay
- Attila Fazekas
- Lívia RuszLívia RuszLívia or Livia Rusz is a Romanian and Hungarian graphic artist, best known for her work in illustration, comic strip and comic book genres...
(Note: Lívia Rusz is also regarded as the most important female comics artists of Romania.)
Main publications
These lists contain those publications, that are emphasized in Hungarian comics history writings.Important periodicals publishing comics:
- Füles
- Jó Pajtás (Yugoslavia)
- Pajtás
- Galaktika
Important comic books or comic series:
- Kockás
- Rejtő sorozat
- AZ sorozat - Asterix and Lucky Luke (Yugoslavia)
- Nem minden arany ami fénylik; Miskati közbelép
- Csillagok háborúja (Star Wars)
- Bucó Szeti Tacsi
Childhood of democratic Hungary (1989-2003)
The early nineties were a very chaotic, but exciting and optimistic era in terms of comics. Because no one was told what is and is not to be published, many saw great opportunities in releasing comics. In these years a large variety of comics came into the country (not as direct import, but in the form of translations): all kinds of European, American comics. Although most companies were full of enthusiasm, but only few were strong in capital. In the meantime, the whole newspaper and magazine distribution system went through major changes, leaving magazines in a worse situation. Magazine print numbers dropped by 1 or 2 orders of magnitude
Order of magnitude
An order of magnitude is the class of scale or magnitude of any amount, where each class contains values of a fixed ratio to the class preceding it. In its most common usage, the amount being scaled is 10 and the scale is the exponent being applied to this amount...
. Therefore most of them disappeared after a few months or years. By 1992 such great series as Menő Manó (Italian comics
Italian comics
Italian comics are comics made in Italy. They are locally known as fumetto – plural form fumetti – although this latter term is often used in English to describe a specific comic genre . The most popular Italian comics have been translated into many languages...
for teenage readers), Krampusz (Italian comics for adult readers), Hepiend Magazin (Conan
Conan (comics)
Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard was first adapted into comics published Marvel Comics beginning with the series Conan the Barbarian in 1970...
, Punisher
Punisher
The Punisher is a fictional character, an anti-hero appearing in comic books based in the . Created by writer Gerry Conway and artists John Romita, Sr., and Ross Andru, the character made its first appearance in The Amazing Spider-Man #129 .The Punisher is a vigilante who employs murder,...
), Vampi
Vampi
Vampi is a fictional character, a comic book vampire vigilante created by Kevin Lau based on the earlier comic character, Vampirella.-Comic Books: Vampi Vicious Rampage #1-#2Vampi vs. Xin #1-#2Vampi Vicious Circle #1-#3Vampi Vicious #1-#3...
(European and American horror, fantasy
Fantasy comics
A number of fantasy themed comic books exist. For example:* Arion* Arrowsmith* Battle Chasers* Bone* Cerebus The Aardvark* Conan* Conan The Barbarian* The Dark Tower* Dungeon Siege: The Battle for Aranna...
, erotic comics) vanished. Besides the inexperience of the small publishing companies, the comics-reading audience might not have been ready for these type of comics. In many cases their true value was only discovered in recent years.
This was not the case for superhero
Superhero
A superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
comics. In the last months of the People’s Republic of Hungary American superhero comics finally were allowed to be published. The first superhero story was published in 1989, in a special issue of Alfa magazine. This was the Revenge of the Living Monolith
Living Monolith
The Living Monolith is a fictional character, a supervillain in the . He first appeared in X-Men #54 .Abdol was the Living Pharaoh while in his normal appearance, but once he obtained enough cosmic energy, he would increase in mass, size, and power, thus becoming the Living Monolith.Abdol has...
(A monolit bosszúja), a Marvel team-up
Team-up
In American superhero comic books, a team-up is when two superheroes or superhero teams who usually do not appear together fight crime together.-Overview:Team-ups can either happen within one of the character's main series or in their own separate series...
story. Also in 1989, after a few years of publishing foreign children's comics (Bobo, Góliát, Pink Panther, Tumak, Pejkó, etc.) Interprint
Semic Interprint
Semic Interprint is a Hungarian publishing company, located in Budapest. It was recently re-named to Adoc-Semic. It publishes mainly translated Hungarian comics and magazines...
plunged into superhero comics. First The Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...
, than Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...
. (In 1991 Interprint joined the Swedish Semic group, which resulted in Semic-Interprint.) The company started releasing Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
in January 1990 and Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
later in the same year. DC comics were not as popular as Marvel superheroes, so the titles merged and were made bimonthly in 1992 as Superman és Batman. X-Men
X-Men
The X-Men are a superhero team in the . They were created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and first appeared in The X-Men #1...
started in June 1992 and Marvel Extra (a compilation of all sorts of Marvel superhero stories) in February 1993.
Hungarian comic book artists found themselves in a very new and alien situation: while comics were having their heyday, young readers’ interest drifted from Hungarian comics to the much more modern and spectacular superhero comics. Attila Fazekas, whose Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
adaptations were printed in 300,000 copies a decade earlier, now tries every way to remain on the surface. He produced and published his own magazine, Botond. These comic books comprised all kinds of stories, from historical to action. Every issue had a story of Botond, a character based on Hungarian legends and Asterix. He also experimented with erotic (or rather pornographic) comics – with surprisingly small success.
With no major outlet, Hungarian comics started to fade. To this day many directly accuse Semic Interprint and its monthly "dump" of superhero comics for this phenomenon. As the country’s leading comic book publisher, Semic Interprint never published a Hungarian comic book in these fragile years (cf. after WWII France - and many other West European countries - had an anti-American self-protective law, a foundation of their flourishing comics culture). Others protect it on the basis of free market.
In March 1994 Semic Interprint launched the bimonthly Kretén (cretin). This absurd and satirical humor magazine is somewhat like Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
or Fluide Glacial
Fluide Glacial
Fluide Glacial is a monthly French comics magazine and a publishing house founded on April 1, 1975 by Marcel Gotlib and Jacques Diament. During its years of publication it has featured the work of French and international authors and graphic artists such as Jacques Lob, Édika, Claire Bretécher,...
. In this magazine many talented artists introduced themselves to a larger audience (Zsolt H. Garisa, Zoltán “Zerge” Varga, Imre “Feki” Fekete, Csete, Gergely Göndöcs, etc.). It can be considered the most important and prestigious outlet for Hungarian comics at the time.
Füles and new crossword puzzle magazines are still popular in Hungary, but comics readers' attention has drifted away from these, leaving the collecting of the comics published in these to hardcore, and mostly veteran fans.
In 1996 Marvel went bankrupt and drastically raised the royalties collected upon translations, therefore Hungarian Marvel titles were canceled in December 1996 (Marvel Extra) and January 1997 (X-Men, Transformer). However the most popular title, Csodálatos Pókember (Amazing Spider-Man), managed to survive. In the same year Semic Interprint
Semic Interprint
Semic Interprint is a Hungarian publishing company, located in Budapest. It was recently re-named to Adoc-Semic. It publishes mainly translated Hungarian comics and magazines...
started publishing Spawn
Spawn (comics)
Spawn is a fictional comic book superhero who appears in a monthly comic book of the same name published by Image Comics. Created by writer/artist Todd McFarlane, Spawn first appeared in Spawn #1...
as a bimonthly with two stories in each issue. In 1999, after its tenth year, 120th issue the company doubled the magazine’s number of pages (from 32 to 76) and price too. Every issue contained three complete Spider-Man stories (The Amazing Spider-Man, Peter Parker Spider-Man, Webspinners Tales of Spider-Man – all starting out from #1). The stories did not fulfill the Hungarian needs and the price seemed to be too high, resulting in the canceling of the title at the end of the year, along with Spawn. The price of the bimonthly, not so popular Superman és Batman managed to continue until December 2001, as the only superhero title published in Hungarian.
In 2001 Csodálatos Pókember was relaunched, but instead of carrying on with the Spider-Man continuity, it served a younger audience with the translations of Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultimate Spider-Man
Ultimate Spider-Man was a superhero comic book series that was published by Marvel Comics from 2000 to 2009. The series is a modernized re-imagining of Marvel's long-running Spider-Man comic book franchise as part of its Ultimate Marvel imprint...
. Leaving Kretén and the bimonthly Star Wars out of account, Semic Interprint shifted to the children’s audience with other flagship titles such as Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Akira Toriyama. It was originally serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1984 to 1995; later the 519 individual chapters were published into 42 tankōbon volumes by Shueisha. Dragon Ball was inspired by the classical Chinese novel Journey to the...
(cancelled soon after), Garfield
Garfield
Garfield is a comic strip created by Jim Davis. Published since June 19, 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield ; his owner, Jon Arbuckle; and Arbuckle's dog, Odie...
, and Dörmögő Dömötör
Dörmögo Dömötör
Dörmögő Dömötör is a bear similar to Winnie the Pooh popular in Hungarian culture. Dörmögő Dömötör also is a children's magazine established in 1957 by state owned Ifjúsági Lapkiadó. The magazine's mascot is the aforementioned bear, but it presents many different kind of stories, comics, puzzles,...
. Children's comics were the main profile of major publishers like Egmont (Tom és Jerry, Donald Kacsa magazin) and smaller companies such as Abrafaxe Kft. (Mozaik - later continued by N-Press, than Ratius).
Recent revival (2004-)
After the comic book boom of the 1990s comics fans witnessed a fast downfall around the turn of the Millennium. 2003 can be regarded as the low-point in the scene, when 117 individual comic publications were issued throughout the whole year. The vast majority of these comics were children’s comics sold at newspaper stands. By 2003 a generation reached their adolescence with no substantial comic book intake, and the generation that once grew up on superhero comics was left with hardly any comics since the late nineties and more importantly: reached their young adulthood.Looking back, the total lack of a comic book scene in the early 2000s proved to have a cleansing effect and pushed many to rebuild the whole scene from its base. The first to act were remaining hardcore fans, who began to organize into web communities on Internet forum
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
s and a new scene developed on the basis of scanlations. Since no comic books were sold on the market, fans began to scan, translate, re-letter and share digital comics. In English speaking countries scanlations usually refer to manga, but in Hungary the process of fan translations and lettering started with Marvel superhero-type comics, and then moved on to other types. The most notable achievement of the Hungarian scanlating scene was that it brought together the fans, forming a base of comics fandom
Fandom
Fandom is a term used to refer to a subculture composed of fans characterized by a feeling of sympathy and camaraderie with others who share a common interest...
. Although many different websites existed, each specializing in different comics genres, types (European, superhero, independent, manga, underground, etc.), Kepregeny.net managed to unite all different kind of comics fans. Kepregeny.net also started out as a scanlating and scanning website, its forum provided a platform for fans and professionals (artists, editors of earlier series, retailers etc.) to meet and discuss all kinds of issues. Many projects were eventually launched from there, and to this day it is a place for fan talk and professional debate and most notably Kepregeny.net can be regarded as the main information gateway for all comics fans and professionals.
2004 can be regarded as the breakthrough year in comics publishing. In February the Complete Maus
Maus
Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...
was released by Ulpius-ház, a larger publishing house. (The first book of Maus has already been published in the early nineties.) Besides the release of the graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
, Ulpius organized an exhibition which exposed pages from Maus in Budapest’s subway carts, seen by one million passengers a day. The project became successful, and attracted large media attention. This project was timed for the 50th anniversary commemoration of the German occupation in March 1944, resulting in the deportation of 800,000 Hungarian Jews and other minorities. (This also is revealed in the graphic novel.)
Another milestone of the year was the publication of the Belgian album series, XIII. This, along with Largo Winch
Largo Winch
Largo Winch is a Belgian comic book series by Philippe Francq and Jean Van Hamme, published by Dupuis.The principal character is Largo Winch whose birth name is Largo Winczlav. Other important characters include Nerio Winch , senior Group W executives John D. Sullivan and Dwight E...
has already been introduced to the Hungarian audience in 1995 as part of the X-07 black and white series in American comic book format.
That year also brought some changes in Hungarian comics:
- Endre Sarlós’ Szigetvár ostroma (a historical album about the Turkish siege of SzigetvárBattle of SzigetvárThe Siege of Szigetvár or Battle of Szigeth was a siege of the Szigeth Fortress in Baranya which blocked Suleiman's line of advance towards Vienna in 1566 AD...
in 1556) was published and sold at newspaper stands. Unfortunately the pages originally composed in landscape format, were reorganized to portrait A4 format and were paired with weak lettering. - Attila Fazekas’ Botond revived after an 11 year hiatus.
- After a long time the first underground comic book anthology, PTSD antológia appeared.
- A group of graphic artists joined forces as Magyar Képregény Akadémia (Hungarian Comics Academy – a rather self-ironic name).
- Képes Kiadó, the publishing company of Pál Korcsmáros’ son and grandson started into a series in which the original Korcsmáros and Rejtő classic comics were rearranged into European styled colored albums. The texts were rewritten, the drawings supplemented and corrected where needed, and colored by the team of Zsolt H. Garisa and Zoltán “Zerge” Varga. This series has started in 2003, but 2004 brought larger recognition.
Since then many smaller publishers, usually based around one or a few fans themselves, made ventures in releasing comics. These companies provide a very broad variety of comics, some specializing on smaller territories (manga, American mainstream), others representing a larger scale. In 2005 most of these companies forged into the Magyar Képregénykiadók Szövetsége (Hungarian Comic Publishers’ Association), based more on mutual interests and friendship, rather than strict rules and codes. Organizing festivals and fairs can be considered as the organization’s biggest success.
Publishers soon realized that in most cases the newspaper market is far from ideal for comics, however it might be feasible on the book market. This however is a phenomenon seen in many other comic cultures. In the last few years only three companies made efforts on the newspaper market: Panini Comics Italy
Panini Comics
Panini Comics is an Italian comic book publisher. A division of Panini Group, best known for their collectible stickers, it is headquartered in Modena, Italy...
(four, later two Marvel titles) and Képes Kiadó (a black and white budget magazine called Eduárd fapados képregényújság) both failed at it, however Pesti könyv still sends its Lucky Lukes to the newspaper stands (beside bookstores). Bookstores have a constantly growing variety on graphic novels, trade paperbacks, albums, etc. This phenomenon is still new for many Hungarians, since they were used to searching for comics at the newspaper stands/shops, tobacconists, etc.
In a country with a population around 10 million, these 'books' are published in 2 to 5000 copies, which is extremely low, causing relatively high prices. Despite the low number of copies, comics and the theme of its revival has been a frequent topic of the media. In spite of this, prejudice concerning comics fades very slowly.
Also during this period, comics’ own offline printed media has been born in the form of semi fanzine-semi professional papers as Panel, Buborékhámozó (bubble-peeler).
The first significant amount of manga
Manga
Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...
were published in the last quarter of 2006 and by the end of 2007, it flooded the comics market, being the most popular among them. Unlike the second most popular type of comics – superheroes – manga fans have their own fan groups, conventions, and are less interested in other type of comics.
Comics published, variety
Generally mainstream American and manga comics receive the largest attention from the consumers, but the large number of small publishers ensure a wide and colorful variety of comics.Manga, oriental comics
In 2006 13,8% of the comics published that year for the bookstore market were related to manga/global manga. Although not too many manga were published in 2006, it was the breakthrough of that particular genre, style, stream with rapidly growing publication numbers. By 2009 58,1% of the comics published for that same market were manga. Apart from a few exceptions, manga published in Hungary usually come from the shōjo and shōnen demographic genres (primarily shōjo). Seinen mangas are not as frequent as the prior two demographic genres, some examples include BerserkBerserk (manga)
is a manga series written and illustrated by Kentaro Miura. Set in a medieval Europe-inspired world, the story centers around the characters of Guts, an orphaned mercenary, and Griffith, the leader of a mercenary band called the...
, Vampire Hunter D
Hideyuki Kikuchi's Vampire Hunter D
Hideyuki Kikuchi's Vampire Hunter D, known simply as in Japan, is a manga adaptation of the Vampire Hunter D novel series by acclaimed horror writer, Hideyuki Kikuchi....
, Dominion: Tank Police
Dominion: Tank Police
is a two volume manga series written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. Set in the fictional city of Newport, Japan, in a future in which bacterial air pollution has become so severe that people must wear gas masks when outdoors, the series follows a police squadron that uses tanks.Dominion has...
, Who fighter with Heart of Darkness, Blade of the Phantom Master, Hoshi no Sabaku. (Latter is one of few manga, that's first Western edition was made by a Hungarian publisher.) Rare examples of gekiga
Gekiga
is Japanese for "dramatic pictures." The term was coined by Yoshihiro Tatsumi and adopted by other more serious Japanese cartoonists who did not want their trade to be known as manga or "irresponsible pictures." It's akin to Will Eisner who started calling his comics "graphic novels" as opposed...
comics were published in the international anthology series, Papírmozi presenting works by artists Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Yoshihiro Tatsumi
is a Japanese manga artist who is widely credited with starting the gekiga style of alternative comics in Japan, having allegedly coined the term in 1957....
, Katsuhiro Otomo
Katsuhiro Otomo
is a Japanese comic book creator, screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the creator of the manga Akira and its animated film adaptation. Otomo has also directed several live-action films, such as the 2006 feature film adaptation of the manga Mushishi.-Biography:Katsuhiro Otomo was...
.
American comics
In Hungary American comic book publishing dates back to the late eighties (see The last decade of communist Hungary section in history chapter), but until the middle of the first decade of the new millennium these comics were limited to the superhero genre (Batman, Superman, Spider-man, X-men, etc.), children's (well known titles from the TV screen: Tom and Jerry, Disney characters, etc.), humor comics (Garfield). Parallel to the Hungarian comics market moving to the bookstores, publishers put more emphasis on graphic novelGraphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
s. Today Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
and Vertigo titles are just as common editorial picks as DC and Marvel titles. Many groundbreaking, cult comics, graphic novels have their Hungarian edition (i.e. Sandman, Batman: Year One
Batman: Year One
"Year One", later referred to as "Batman: Year One", is an American comic book story arc written by Frank Miller, illustrated by David Mazzucchelli, colored by Richmond Lewis, and lettered by Todd Klein...
, Sin City
Sin City
Sin City is the title for a series of neo-noir comics by Frank Miller. The first story originally appeared in "Dark Horse Presents Fifth Anniversary Special" , and continued in Dark Horse Presents #51–62 from May 1991 to June 1992, under the title of Sin City, serialized in thirteen parts. Several...
, Watchmen
Watchmen
Watchmen is a twelve-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colourist John Higgins. The series was published by DC Comics during 1986 and 1987, and has been subsequently reprinted in collected form...
, Understanding Comics
Understanding Comics
Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art is a 215-page non-fiction comic book, written and drawn by Scott McCloud and originally published in 1993. It explores the definition of comics, the historical development of the medium, its fundamental vocabulary, and various ways in which these elements...
, Maus
Maus
Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...
, etc.) In 2006 31.3% of the comics published for the bookstore market were of American origin (claiming the highest portion), in 2009, despite the fact that the number of American comics grew by 80%, the portion of the total numbers released for the bookstore market decreased to 20.9%. In connection with American comics in Hungary it is important to point out, that more than half of the comics on the newsstand market are of American origin. A large portion of these are magazines dedicated to popular cartoon series (Tom and Jerry, Cartoon Network magazine, Sponge Bob, Scooby Doo, etc.)
European comics
Although publishing and distributing European comicsEuropean comics
European comics is a generalized terms for comics produced in Continental Europe. Though technically European, British comics are for historical and cultural reasons considered separate from European comics due to the existence of a well-established domestic market and traditions which more closely...
dates back to a longer period of time than of American comics (see previous chapters), since the early 1990s most of these comics could not reach the popularity of superhero comics. From the mid nineties to 2004 German Mosaik
Mosaik
Mosaik is a German comic book. First published in December 1955, it is the longest-running German monthly comic book and the only one originating in East Germany that still exists. Mosaik also appeared in other countries and other languages...
was the only major European comic book title published in the country. Today many Francophone albums
Franco-Belgian comics
Franco-Belgian comics are comics that are created in Belgium and France. These countries have a long tradition in comics and comic books, where they are known as BDs, an abbreviation of bande dessinée in French and stripverhalen in Dutch...
are published in Hungarian, but their print numbers range from a few hundred to one or two thousand. The future of these titles depends much on the enthusiasm and dedication of the editor and publisher.
Despite previous publications, Bonelli
Sergio Bonelli Editore
Sergio Bonelli Editore is a publishing house of Italian comics. It takes its name from its president and comic book author, Sergio Bonelli....
titles could not reach substantial popularity. Dampyr, which started as an experiment to test cheaper Italian pulp comics, closed after six issues.
In 2006 17.2% of the comics released for the bookstore market were of European origin, in 2009 this ratio was 12.8% (the gross number of publications on the bookstore market grew 3 times between 2006 and 2009). Interestingly European comics constitute a substantial portion of the comics published for the alternative market: 36.2% of the comics on that particular market were of European origin in 2009. This is due to a large number of small print numbered, collector's editions of Mosaik books.
Despite the smaller sellings in this field, publishers and editors seek contact with European artists resulting in more offbeat publications from Marcel Ruijters (The Netherlands), Gradimir Smudja (Serbia, France), Alexandru "Ciubu" Ciubotariu (Romania), Risto Isomäki (Finland), two books from Aleksandar Zograf
Aleksandar Zograf
Sasa Rakezic is a Serbian cartoonist, author of such works as Life Under Sanctions, Psychonaut, Dream Watcher, and Bulletins from Serbia....
(Serbia), Kati Kovács (Finland), Pieter De Poortere (The Netherlands), etc.
Hungarian creations
Taking in consideration the wide selection of comics printed in Hungary, comics created by Hungarians only provide a smaller part of the variety. The reason reflects a complex and mainly economic type of problem that has occupied some, for the last two decades. Generally speaking, the small market does not permit the publishing of domestic comics with larger costs than the royalties of foreign materials. Even if the publisher can agree with an author or team of authors, it has to take greater risks compared to the already known foreign product, where the reception could be previously estimated.Artists – apart from very few exceptions – make their living from other related graphic fields such as advertisement, animation, therefore devoted artists work on their comics projects in their free time. This way artists gain less practice than their professional contemporaries and a project takes longer to reach its final stage. Naturally, the quality and genre of these works strongly vary resulting in readers losing their faith in domestic comics. At this point the vicious circle would close in if not for a few publishers devoted to Hungarian comics. And luckily many artists, artist groups decide to take publishing of their own works into their own hands.
To attract more attention to Hungarian creations, MKSZ founded the Alfabéta prize in 2006 to award domestic authors. (The name ironically rhymes and refers to the Hungarian word analfabéta - meaning illiterate
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
, a common offense against comics readers in the past.)
Comics made by Hungarian creators only make up around 8.1% (2009 data) of the comics sold in bookstores. This ratio is even less at the newsstands ruled by children’s magazine franchises (Cartoon Network, Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry, etc.). The real field for Hungarian authors is the alternative market, where 31 different Hungarian comics were published in 2009. And of course cross-word puzzle, humor and other type of magazines and periodicals are still a strong flagship of the country’s comics, if not the strongest.
In 2009 83 artists were active in the sense, that their works were published throughout the year. 28 of these artists had under 10 pages of comics published, 21 artists between 10 and 19 pages, another 20 artists between 20 and 49 pages, and 14 artists managed to draw over 50 pages that year.
Short comics under 10 pages are a relatively common form of comics, these are usually published in magazines, comics anthologies (most notably Pinkhell, Nero Blanco Comix, Panel specials, Sushi Strip) or the artist’s own collection (Balázs Gróf’s strips, Marabu’s Dodó strip series, Napirajz (Daily Drawings), a cult webcomic series, etc.). Individual graphic novels, comic books from Hungarian authors are not as common, but luckily each year produces a handful of them. Some of the most well known are Lencsilány by István Lakatos, Kalyber Joe Kalandjai (The Adventures of Kalyber Joe) by Roland Pilcz, Spirál by Attila Futaki (also published in France), Noktürn by Dániel Csordás, Gemini Jelentés (Gemini report) by Attila Fazekas and Antal Bayer, Rév: a Hívó (Haven: The Caller) by Róbert Odegnál, Rejtő/Korcsmáros classic comics remakes.
However some editors and journalists believe, Hungarian comics have the potential of recruiting more comics fans and reaching a cult status in Hungary. Editor, Antal Bayer speculates in a forum comment: "At the same time, I'm convinced that a really 'up-to-date' Hungarian comic could reach the cult status, then maintain massive popularity. We've seen how Napirajz moved the people, but we need something more than that for breakthrough. I can hardly wait for the Hungarian comic book which will be received with as much enthusiasm as the latest Rejtő/Korcsmáros reissue."
Self-published comics, minicomics
As mentioned before, Hungarian alternative and underground comics reach back to the 1970s, 1980s. Usually underground comics appeared in (rock music) fanzines (e.g. Dall-Ass, Genyó Szívó Disztroly). Individual underground comic books only appeared in the mid 2000s with publications as PTSD antológia (2004), Sushi Strip (2005). The first Hungarian fanzine dedicated to comics is Panel (2006). These publications had an encouraging effect on other comics artists. In 2007 a larger boom happened in the field, many young artists chose to publish their own comic books in 30-300 copies. As in the case of other scenes, these works range from alternative to mainstream-like comics. The phenomena continued in 2008. Manga fans are also active in this field. Larger events - especially the annual festival in spring - usually give space to these artists to sell their comics.Artists working abroad
Only a couple of Hungarian artists so far have been able to work for Western European or US companies, although previously many classic Hungarian comics (works primarily by Zórád, Sebők, Korcsmáros, Fazekas) were translated and published throughout the world (mainly "friendly" - meaning socialist - countries as Yugoslavia, East-Germany, Cuba, Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc., but some Zórád comics were published in such countries as Sweden, The Netherlands.). The first was Attila Fazekas, back in 1991 (he was the artist on a few issues of the German edition of Ghostbusters). Attila Futaki and Gergely Nikolényi’s Spiral appeared in France in 2008, and Futaki is currently working on the comic adaptation of the Lightning ThiefPercy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief
Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief is a 2010 fantasy-adventure film directed by Chris Columbus. The film is loosely based on The Lightning Thief, the first novel in the Percy Jackson & The Olympians series by Rick Riordan...
series of novels published by Walt Disney. Leslie Téjlor's erotic albums are published by the Dutch Sombrero or the Italian E.F. Edizioni. Zoltán Korcsok had a short story published in Heavy Metal Magazine. Henrik Horváth started working as an inker for several independent US companies in 2006, some of his works has been published by Image comics
Image Comics
Image Comics is a United States comic book publisher. It was founded in 1992 by high-profile illustrators as a venue where creators could publish their material without giving up the copyrights to the characters they created, as creator-owned properties. It was immediately successful, and remains...
. Judit Tondora works as a freelance artist (pencil, ink), her works can be seen in comics of independent publishers as Optic Comics, Outlaw Entertainment. On some of these projects pages are colored by Roland Pilcz.
Mainstream print
Since 2004-2005 comics became a more frequent topic in the press and electronic media. In spite of this, prejudice concerning comics has finally began to fade away. Comic-book-friendly magazines and newspapers, where comics related articles are more frequent include Beszélő, Magyar HírlapMagyar Hírlap
Magyar Hírlap is a Hungarian daily. It started in 1968 as a newspaper of the Hungarian government. In 1990 it became independent. In November 2006, media tycoon Gábor Széles bought Magyar Hirlap...
, Magyar Narancs
Magyar Narancs
Magyar Narancs is a weekly liberal magazine with a strong satiric tone appearing on Thursdays in Hungary. It is informally referred to as Mancs which is a joking abbreviation of the name. The language of the magazine is unique in that it uses everyday speech and not the strict language of common...
, Népszabadság
Népszabadság
Népszabadság is a major left-leaning Hungarian newspaper, founded in 1956 as successor of "Szabad Nép" , the central organ of the dissolved Hungarian Working People's Party...
, Filmvilág, MoziNet, Műút.
Underground print
Written periodicals dealing with comics as such, sold at newspaper stands or bookstores do not exist in Hungary, although there are some magazines sold on the direct market (festivals, comic-book stores, etc.). These magazines have a small print number (100-350), resulting in a hybrid between fanzineFanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s (editing and publishing by the same person, non-profit, authors not paid) and official magazines (ISSN number, well known experts as authors). Panel (March 2006-) was the first of the kind, followed by Buborékhámozó (March 2007-). About the importance of these small print numbered magazines Gyula Maksa, media researcher writes in his book, Variations on Comics (Változatok képregényre): "Although the comics critique has popped up, but it still hasn't made itself independent from the fine art, non illustrated literature and film critique. This could be also changed by Panel, the so called first Hungarian comics fanzine, which from its start seemed as a transition between the traditional fan magazine and a cultural periodical, that is to say, a prozine."
Internet sites, blogs
Hungary’s main comics portalWeb portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
is Kepregeny.net. The independent portal gathers fans and professionals of the scene, therefore it is the catalyst of many comics projects: events, publications, workshops, etc. The portal has had a major role in the past few year’s new wave of comics in the country. Today the site hosts news, review and photo gallery sections, press archive, subpages (bibliographies, comics database, author’s webpages).
As in other countries, Hungarian comics blogs can be divided into three main groups: webcomics (i.e. Napirajz – Daily drawing, Fekete Macska – Black Cat), blogs of authors (almost all major authors own a blog, where they display new works, experiences, thoughts, etc.) and text based review blogs (i.e. Panel, Buborékhámozó, Heti5képregény). The two main internet portals - index.hu and origo.hu - both have their own specific book/literature blogs, where comics are frequent guests (Könyves blog - Book blog, Kötve fűzve - Bound and stiched). Although it also deals with other fanboy related issues, Geekz blog is considered as a major resource for comics reviews, interviews.
In 2006, HVG
Heti Világgazdaság
Heti Világgazdaság is a Hungarian weekly economic and political magazine with its editorial office in Budapest. Some articles are also available online and in English....
magazine’s annual blog contest had a separate comics section. In 2007, although comics did not have its own category, a webcomic blog won in the Entertainment category, and another comics text-blog managed to fit into the top ten.
Major events
- Magyar Képregény Fesztivál - Hungarian Comics Festival. (since 2005) Annual - supposedly the biggest - event every spring, organized by the Hungarian Comic Publishers' Association. The event's main focus is on the programs (debates, meeting artists, presentations, movies, etc.). The association’s prize, Alfabéta is also announced during the festival.
- Képregény Börze – Comics Exchange Market. These events can be regarded as the most fan oriented events, which explains, why these comics marketMarketA market is one of many varieties of systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby parties engage in exchange. While parties may exchange goods and services by barter, most markets rely on sellers offering their goods or services in exchange for money from buyers...
s are frequently mistranslated to comic-cons (comic-book conventionsFan conventionA fan convention, or con , is an event in which fans of a particular film, television series, comic book, actor, or an entire genre of entertainment such as science fiction or anime and manga, gather to participate and hold programs and other events, and to meet experts, famous personalities, and...
). On these events anyone (fans, retailers, publishers) is allowed to sell their own used or new comics. They are held twice a year (spring and fall). The first was held in 2001.
- Hungarocomix. A fair showcasing the publishers’ yearly work and products, also organized by the Hungarian Comic Publishers' Association. Usually it takes place a few weeks before Christmas. In 2010 it was merged with the Christmas season anime, video game, role playing events in a large event hall, causing overall mixed critical responses.
- Szegedi Képregényfesztivál – Szeged Comics Festival (Since 2009) The only comics festival outside Budapest to reach higher attendance (in 2010 around 700 visitors) and favorable critical response. The festival is organized by the city library of Szeged and the local comics scene. Held in November.
- Caricature and Comics Auction (since 2005) Auction dedicated to comics and caricature original art. It is held every November in the Műcsarnok since 2005. 2010 was the first year when the auction was not held, although according to the organizers, kArton gallery, it is planned to continue in 2011.
Clubs
- Képregény Kedvelők Klubja (KKK in short) – Comics Fans’ Club. Every last Thursday of the month. They are usually held in kArton galéria. (During late-spring or summer the event has usually been held on the terrace of Kultiplex until its closing; in 2008 the summer scene moved to Szimpla kert.) Every month a theme is discussed and special guests, hosts are invited. The "club" is open to all people, but usually most of the audience consists of veteran fans and professionals.
Official organizations
- MKSz - Magyar Képregény Szövetség / Hungarian Comics Association (until 2010: Magyar Képregénykiadók Szövetsége / Hungarian Comics Publishers Association) The Association was founded in 2005 by 5 comics publishing companies (ADOC-Semic, Képes Kiadó, Krak, Ratius, Míves Céh), later most smaller publishing companies joined. It’s main goal was to amend the reputation of comics in Hungary, to multiply the number of comics published and to organize an annual comics festival. In 2010 the association decided to reform itself from its base: leaving the word publisher out of its name, it opened memberships status to the public, positioning itself from a publisher’s association to a fan association. This move attracted some heavy criticism.
- MKA - Magyar Képregény Akadémia / Hungarian Comics Academy Found in May 2004 as a comics artist collective. Hence the rather self ironic naming the association does not represent any official, „academic” artistic view, and is not involved in teaching activities. MKA’s main activities are organizing exhibitions, producing and publishing their own magazine, Pinkhell. In 2010 the organization melted into MKSZ. Although the academy is the only artist collective to form as an official organization, some other artist groups were formed in the past, and many artists choose to work as independents.
Awards
To attract more attention to Hungarian creations, MKSZ founded the Alfabéta prize in 2006 to award domestic authors. (The name ironically rhymes and refers to the Hungarian word analfabéta - meaning illiterateLiteracy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
, a common offense against comics readers in the past.) It is presented at the Hungarian Comics Festival every spring.
Every year since 2005, Kepregeny.net gives place to the annual audience polls. These cover many more topics, not only Hungarian comics, but also translated materials, journalists, etc.
Distribution
Comic publications fall into one or more of the following three distributionalDistribution (business)
Product distribution is one of the four elements of the marketing mix. An organization or set of organizations involved in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption by a consumer or business user.The other three parts of the marketing mix are product, pricing,...
categories: newsstands, bookstores, alternative (similar to direct market
Direct market
The direct market is the dominant distribution and retail network for North American comic books. It consists of one dominant distributor and the majority of comics specialty stores, as well as other retailers of comic books and related merchandise...
). Comics have been shifting towards bookstores since 2004, and the alternative market is widening every year.
Newspaper stands
Traditionally, comics were sold at newspaper stands, with only very few exceptions in bookstores until the middle of the first decade of the new millennium. Leaving the low point of 2001-2003 behind, when very few comics were published, most publishing companies decided on releasing their comics to the bookstore market. A major exception from this is the group of children's comics and children's magazines, containing comics. Since 2006 magazines usually based on cartoon characters and containing gadgets (i.e. Cartoon Network magazine, Sponge Bob, Scooby Doo, Spiderman, Totally Spies, etc.) flooded the market. Due to these publications, newspaper stand comics still put out 55.7% of the comics published that year, although comics made for older readers are rare. The fact that many series released for newsstands in the period between 1990 and 2003, now - after their relaunching - can be found at bookstores (i.e. Tintin, Asterix, Batman, Marvel titles, etc.), illustrates the trend.It is important to point out that indirectly many Hungarian comics can be bought in this particular circulation, since cross-word puzzle and other magazines still publish comics.
Bookstores
Since 2004-2005 smaller publishing companies have targeted the bookstores for its conditions better suit comic book publishing: smaller copy number required to cover the network, products are longer time in market compared to newspaper stands. (In Hungary a book's average "rotational index" is 1.5, meaning that it takes one and a half years until a book is sold on the market.). In 2003 - about one or two years before the trend started - only 8.6% of the comics published were distributed through bookstores, while 89.7% were sold at newspaper stands. In 2009 these ratios changed drastically: 28.67% of the comics published were purchasable at bookstores, and 55.67% of the comic books accessible at the newsstands. The number of books sold at bookstores grew 8.6 times, while the number of comic books distributed through the newspaper chains grew 1.6 times since 2003. As pointed out previously, not only the number of comics differ between comics sold at newspaper stands and bookstores, but their content, audience, format and prices. (The average price of a comic book at a newspaper stand in 2009 was 716.8 HUF, a bookstore comics' average price was 2177.8 HUF.)This of course counter-reacts to the type and format of comics published today. For example, after Panini’s comic book series Hihetetlen Pókember (Amazing Spiderman) folded in January 2008, a smaller company, Kingpin continued the series at the bookstores in tpb format.
Képregény Nagyker (Comics Wholesale) as a middle-chain helps the large number of smaller companies reach the bookstores effectively. The company also represents the publishing companies at book fares and some other events.
Alternative
This form covers comic book stores, comics events, direct ordering from the publisher, and shops directly connected with the publisher.Not only self published fanzines and comic books, but most small publishing companies rely on this distributional form, since the bookstore distributional system’s 45-55% share (wholesale company + bookstore or bookstore chain together) can be reduced or in some cases even eliminated. Another reason why Hungarian publishers prefer direct sales is that the Hungarian bookshop distributional system is based on commission system, where the publisher is not paid in advance by the distributor, only after the sold pieces, while at an event the publisher receives substantial income immediately. This makes larger direct discounts possible, therefore many fans choose to buy their comics at larger comics events (typically the "börze"-s, festivals). This together leads to a yearly routine, where most companies time their publications to the aforementioned larger events. Comics exclusively distributed through alternative methods put out a large portion of the overall number of the comic books published. In 2009 this ratio was 15.67%. The ratio of Hungarian comics published through this distributional form is conspicuously high: in 2009 59.6% of the comics in this network were of Hungarian origin, while 68.3% of the Hungarian comics published were only available through alternative distribution. Therefore this distributional system is regarded as the primary source for domestic comics.
Comic book shops
Hungarian stores specializing in comic books are relatively rare, and are usually based on comic book import. Since the mid nineties a handful (1-4) of shops in Budapest have been serving the fan needs exceeding the variety provided by Hungarian publishers (not counting online shops and shops with only a complementary profile of comics). Eduárd képregénybolt (Eduárd comics store) was the first specializing in Hungarian comics and had the widest variety of small print number, self published comic books. The store closed in 2009, two years after its opening. As of January 2011, Trillian (specializing in current American and Manga titles) can be regarded as the most stable shop, running since 2004.
Webshops
Most comic book publishing companies have their own web-shops, where the readers can purchase comics directly from the publisher. Comic book shops also have their web based mail ordering feature. Besides these, Comics Invest can be regarded as the only web-based distributional source with a wide variety of Hungarian and import comics.
Museums
- kArton galéria / kArton Galery Opened in 2001. Gallery dedicated to comics and caricature art. The gallery has the greatest collection of Hungarian original comics art. Besides hosting a few comics exhibitions every year, it organizes the annual comics and caricature auction and is the home of the monthly Comics Fans’ Club (Képregény Kedvelők Klubja). official website
Well known or important comic book artists, publishers, editors with Hungarian roots
Note: the following list contains people, who have/had Hungarian heritage, although were not involved directly in the Hungarian comics scene. This list is to be regarded as trivia.- Joseph PulitzerJoseph PulitzerJoseph Pulitzer April 10, 1847 – October 29, 1911), born Politzer József, was a Hungarian-American newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer introduced the techniques of "new journalism" to the newspapers he acquired in the 1880s and became a leading...
(Politzer József). - Hungarian immigrant, born in MakóMakóMakó is a town in Csongrád County in southeastern Hungary. It lies on the Maros River, near the Romanian border. The area of the town is of which is arable land. The climate is very warm with hot and dry summers. Makó and the surrounding region get the most sunshine in Hungary, about 85-90...
. Newspaper publisher, journalist, editor. Publisher of The Yellow KidThe Yellow KidThe Yellow Kid emerged as the lead character in Hogan's Alley, drawn by Richard F. Outcault, which became one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips in an American newspaper, although its graphical layout had already been thoroughly established in political and other, purely-for-entertainment...
comic strip, one of the first Sunday newspaper comic strips. - Alex TothAlex TothAlexander Toth was an American professional cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but is known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera throughout the 1960s and 1970s. His work included Super Friends, Space Ghost, The...
. Son of Hungarian immigrants. Many interviews and colleague's memoirs reflect, that he remained intact with his (parent's) cultural background. Toth is widely known for his work on Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but he is also regarded as a major artist in comic book history. - Paul GulacyPaul GulacyPaul Gulacy is an American comic book illustrator best known for his work for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, and for drawing one of the first graphic novels, Eclipse Enterprises' 1978 Sabre: Slow Fade of an Endangered Species, with writer Don McGregor.-Early life and career:Paul Gulacy began...
. Exact Hungarian roots are not known, although his name is a westernized form of the Hungarian surname Gulácsy. American comic book artist, best known for works for DC and Marvel comics. - Paul WinklerPaul Winkler (publisher)Paul Winkler was a French writer, journalist and publisher of Jewish-Hungarian ancestry. Before being the head of Press Alliance, Winkler operated Europe's largest feature syndicate, Opera Mundi, in France....
. Born in Budapest. He was the first to establish Disney comics in France, which happened to be the start of French comic books. - Marcel Gotlib. Born in Paris from Jewish-Hungarian immigrants. The family talked Hungarian until Gotlib was 15. Through his own work and the magazines he co-founded, L' Écho des Savanes and Fluide Glacial, Gotlib was one of the key figures in the switch in French-language comics from their children's entertainment roots to an adult tone and readership. His series include La Rubrique-à-Brac, Gai-Luron, Superdupont, and Hamster Jovial.
- Endre Lukács. Born in Budapest. Drew Donald Duck comics and covers in the Netherlands for 30 years. According to Lambiek, his significance for the Dutch Donald Duck can be likened to that of Carl Barks in the States. Walt Disney complimented him as one of the greatest Disney artists.
- Miriam Katin. Born in Budapest, emigrated in 1957. She has published her work in magazines like Monkey Suit and Drawn & Quarterly, where it gained a lot of acclaim. She often uses her memories of the Russian occupation in the 1950s for her comics.
- Rick Magyar. American Comic Book artist, inker of many DC and Marvel comics. Exact Hungarian heritage is unknown, although the surname Magyar is from Hungarian (the word actually meaning "Hungarian").
- Alex BlumAlex BlumAlexander Anthony Blum was a comic book artist best remembered for his contributions to the long-running comic book series Classics Illustrated . Born in Hungary, Blum studied at the National Academy of Design in New York before signing-on with the Eisner & Iger shop...
. Born as Blum Sándor Aladár in Hungary, 1889, immigrated to the United States. As a comic book artist he is best remembered for his contributions to the long-running comic book series Classics IllustratedClassics IllustratedClassics Illustrated is a comic book series featuring adaptations of literary classics such as Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Iliad. Created by Albert Kanter, the series began publication in 1941 and finished its first run in 1971, producing 169 issues. Following the series' demise, various companies...
.