The skyscraper. 102 floors of life

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The skyscraper. 102 Floors of Life is a webcomic by the Berlin illustrator and author Katharina Greve . The comic strip shows a skyscraper to which Greve added an episode as a new floor every Tuesday. The skyscraper deals humorously with everyday life and comments on current events. Greve started the webcomic on September 29, 2015 with the basement, and completed it on September 5, 2017 with the 102nd floor. The work was awarded the Max and Moritz Prize as the best comic strip at the Erlangen Comic Salon in 2016, and in 2018 it received the Rudolph Dirks Award in the experimental / alternative category.

The webcomic was and can be seen in several international exhibitions, including a retrospective in the Caricatura Gallery in Kassel, in the Goethe Institute in Naples, at the 19th International Comicsalon Napoli COMICON, in the Krems Caricature Museum, in the Erika-Fuchs-Haus , in the literary café of the Stifterhaus in Linz, in the Museum of Architecture and Engineering in North Rhine-Westphalia and at the Erlanger Poetenfest 2017.
The online project was funded by the Kulturwerk Foundation of the Bild-Kunst collecting society .

Content, style and form

The topics of the webcomics range from marital quarrels, refugees, terror, emancipation to the Nobel Prize for Literature for Bob Dylan or the US presidential election . The main picture shows a half-cut apartment floor, the actions in the window of the adjoining apartment often allude to current events. Some episodes are interwoven in terms of content across the floors. The jury's rationale for the Max and Moritz Prize states that author Greve combines the directness of the one-image joke in a "refreshing way" with the potential of longer picture narration "to tell complex stories. In the end, the manifold interconnected episodes would result in something that formally expands the boundaries of the art form. In the Berliner Tagesspiegel , comic expert Lars von Törne describes Greve's imagery as clear and reduced, her "almost technical-looking drawing style" goes well with the topic. In an interview with the Swiss radio SRF2 Kultur, author and illustrator Greve said about the special possibilities of comics on the Internet that she always wondered "why there are so few webcomics that really work with the infinite drawing surface that the Internet offers . "

Reviews

The webcomic, as well as the book and scroll book Das Hochhaus - 102 floors Leben , published in September 2017, have received several reviews.

  • In the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Thomas von Steinaecker writes that it is "one of the most original works of the Ninth Art of the recent past". The book and comic are full of "just as clever as they are mean bon mots", floor by floor the "image of the German affluent society" emerges. "Invisible cross-connections" create "a general narrative from individual socio-political cartoons". The book in landscape format invites you to take a closer look.
  • For Christian Gasser, "Das Hochhaus" is "one of the most original comics of the year", as he writes in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung . " The skyscraper is funny, of course, but the humor is rather nasty and dark." The idea of ​​the skyscraper is simple, clear and impressive. "The observation of everyday life, which usually takes place behind walls, not only tickles the voyeurism of the beholder, but also allows Greve to play through all imaginable (Western European) life situations in the smallest of spaces and in the most concise form. (...) This is how Greve designs with a light hand , clear lines and fine to mean humor, an enjoyable comédie humaine of our time, a cleverly composed novel, a sketchy moral picture that works wonderfully from the first reading, but when you repeatedly climb the stairs the discovery of further secret references, funny details, subtle allusions and livelier ones Meanness allowed. "
  • The portal stern.de sees in the comic "102 floors of the finest humor".
  • In Tagesspiegel , Ute Friederich emphasizes reading the seven-meter-long and 20-centimeter-wide scroll: "A format that comes very close to the original web structure, even if reading the scroll takes some getting used to." With her work, Katharina Greve has "wonderfully exhausted the means of the comic narrative form. That alone is great reading pleasure. In addition, there is the fact that you may recognize your own neighbors or even yourself in some of the residents."
  • Ralph Trommer described the work in the taz as an "original internet comic" with "bizarre people who populate it" and "room for many amusing stories". "Greve developed a cartoon (like a comic strip very broad) for each individual floor, which gives the reader a pointed insight into the lives of the residents ..."
  • For Matthias Penkert-Hennig, the "physical implementation" in a printed book was achieved through "clever design considerations", as he writes in the comic portal Comic.de. An "extremely innovative and immersive reading pleasure" resulted from the fact that the floors of the skyscraper were presented horizontally similar to a calendar, which was "a surprisingly well-functioning alternative to stepless, digital scrolling".
  • The Swiss radio SRF2 Kultur called the high-rise original and "a constantly growing panopticon of society in comic form".
  • The Tagesspiegel judged at the beginning of the webcomic “(...) it is becoming apparent that the diverse interconnected episodes will result in something that formally expands the boundaries of the art form.” In addition, the “basic idea” is reminiscent of the graphic novel Dropsie Avenue by Will Eisner and Building Stories by Chris Ware .
  • The design and communication magazine Page wrote that Greve was able to combine the one-picture joke with an extensive picture narration: "There is a small punch line on every floor, but as a whole," The high-rise "reads like a complex story."
  • Mira Nagar from the Flensburger Tageblatt wrote: “Behind the supposedly brightly colored pictures there is usually a load of social criticism” and described the high-rise as a mixture of “comic art, social criticism, soap opera and hidden object”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The high-rise: 102 floors of life . In: Die Zeit , February 2, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2016. 
  2. ↑ 17th International Comic Salon Erlangen 26. – 29. May 2016 - Best German-language comic strip on the pages of comic-salon.de, accessed on November 16, 2016
  3. ↑ Rudolph Dirks Award - International Prize for Graphic Literature of GERMAN COMIC CON. Accessed January 30, 2019 (German).
  4. ↑ Caricatura Galerie Kassel: My husband is also an atheist
  5. ^ Goethe Institute Naples - Exhibition - Katharina Greve: Komische Kunst
  6. ↑ COMICON 2017
  7. ↑ The high-rise in Krems
  8. ^ Artists in Residence and Das Hochhaus in Krems
  9. ↑ Erika-Fuchs-Haus - Museum for comics and language art, special exhibition The best German comics! Max and Moritz Prize 2016
  10. ↑ NEXTCOMIC in the literature café - KATHARINA GREVE presents her award-winning webcomic "The high-rise. 102 floors of life" - satellite exhibition on NEXTCOMIC 2017 ( memento of the original from August 29, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stifter-haus.at
  11. ↑ DAS HOCHHAUS in the exhibition "Everyone wants to live. Fair. Social. Affordable."
  12. ^ Katharina Greve: The skyscraper - life and death in the vertical
  13. ↑ Funded projects professional group II. (No longer available online.) VG Bild-Kunst, archived from the original on January 25, 2018 ; accessed on November 16, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bildkunst.de
  14. ↑ 17th International Comic Salon Erlangen, Max and Moritz Prize, jury statement, Best German-language comic strip, The high-rise - 102 floors of the life of Katharina Greve
  15. ↑ Katharina Greves "The Skyscraper" - 102 floors of living. In: Der Tagesspiegel , February 2, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2016. 
  16. ↑ The see-through skyscraper on the Internet: For a few weeks now, a skyscraper has been under construction on the website "das-hochhaus.de" that is growing steadily. A satirical insight into fictional living situations. . In: SRF , February 4, 2016. Retrieved November 16, 2016. 
  17. ↑ Thomas von Steinaecker: "More light!", Stupid cow! In: sueddeutsche.de . 2017, ISSN  0174-4917 ( sueddeutsche.de [accessed December 7, 2017]).
  18. ↑ Christian Gasser: Whoever climbs the storeys can experience something | NZZ . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . November 16, 2017, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed December 7, 2017]).
  19. ↑ 102 floors of the finest humor . In: stern.de . November 10, 2017 ( stern.de [accessed December 7, 2017]).
  20. ↑ Cross section of society. Retrieved December 7, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Ralph Trommer: Without anyone talking. September 30, 2017. Retrieved October 5, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Matthias Penkert-Hennig: THE HIGH HOUSE: 102 floors of life. October 10, 2017, accessed October 11, 2017 .
  23. ↑ The see-through skyscraper on the net , review and interview from 16:40.
  24. ↑ Katharina Greves "Das Hochhaus" - 102 floors of life , Der Tagesspiegel , February 2, 2016
  25. ↑ Lars von Törne: 102 floors of life. tagesspiegel.de, February 2, 2016, accessed November 16, 2016 .
  26. ↑ Miriam Harringer: You should read this webcomic with a digital elevator. June 16, 2016. Retrieved November 17, 2016 .
  27. ↑ Mira Nagar: Online cartoon “The Skyscraper” shows scenes from a neighborhood. January 21, 2016, accessed November 16, 2016 .