Life is not a pony farm

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Life is not a pony farm is a webcomic designed by illustrator and author Sarah Burrini in strip form and which was published from May 2009 to April 2020. It belongs to the genre of humor.

In addition to individual strips and short, thematically related sequences, stories were told over and over again over several weeks to months, whereby the unity of the strip is essentially preserved. Larger-sized contributions only occasionally break the format. The title refers to the same winged word .

publication

One of the guests Mario Bühling

The series has appeared regularly on Mondays since May 18, 2009, and on Thursdays since August 2009 on Sarah Burrini's website. During trips and vacations, she was usually represented with guest contributions by artist friends (several times such as Mario Bühling, Erik , Andreas Eikenroth and David Füleki ). Another exception to the publication rhythm are periods in which, due to deadline pressure from other comic projects, a new strip was only published once a week, on Mondays. In autumn 2011 this was the case for eight weeks because of Astrum Noctis , from June 24, 2013 onwards, a comic book of over 100 pages that had not yet been presented in detail for a US publisher was the reason for this.

Parallel to the German version, the Strips also appear in English translation as Life Ain't No Ponyfarm , even if this version has been delayed since autumn 2012 and has gaps compared to the German version.

After the web publication, the strips will also be published in printed form, initially with the English version. The 24-page booklet, which was produced in early 2010 for a festival in London and one in Portland, contained a small selection of early strips. After a 40% shortened reprint of the story Free Ngumbe in the magazine Comix 09/2010, two volumes were published in German by Verlag Zwerchfell in June 2011 and May 2013. In June 2016, a third volume followed by Panini.

Quarks

As a kind of archetype (created 2006–2008) for the pony farm , this comic already includes the permanent staff of the later series. The protagonist is not called Sarah, but Elena. The six short stories from 3 to 20 pages in length are still in Din-A aspect ratio instead of in strip format. The penultimate episode, Things I Regret , was published in Comicgate Magazine 3 in May 2008 , a revised version (in which Elena became Sarah again) of all completed stories was published in 2012 under the title Life is not a pony farm - The Early Years in Edition Kwimbi.

characters

The "Ponyhof shared apartment" :

  • Sarah: Alter ego of the creator of the comic. In their characteristics and experienced events there is sometimes something autobiographical, without being able to put the figure and person together. Sarah, the cartoon character, doesn't have a designated last name either.
  • Ngumbe: The African dwarf elephant has been Sarah's roommate the longest. He made his first appearance before Quarks in a four-page short comic from 2005, published in PonyXPress No. 1. He has a misanthropic image and has a penchant for jazz, especially Miles Davis .
  • El Pilzo: The fly agaric has a past as a pro-wrestler , a talent for unusual DIY and business activities and a very cheeky mouth.
  • Buttercup: The pony, on the other hand, initially gave the impression of not being able to speak at all, even if some guest artists did not really want to believe this. In the story The Mafia Diary , which runs over several strips , an explanation is provided for this, but it did not become particularly talkative afterwards.
  • Kevin-Asmodias: The demon was the last to join and, unlike the others, has not yet appeared in quarks . He made his first visible appearance on the Strip on October 31, 2011, and received his name on December 22 of the same year. He escaped from Hell after his parents burned his Hellboy comics. They viewed them as trash because in it a demon is helping humanity. Without further ado, after reading the first volume by Zwerchfell, he took up residence in the shared apartment. Like Sarah, he is an avowed nerd .

Other frequently recurring characters :

  • Dennis: A school friend of Sarah, whom she met again on the strip on May 31, 2010 after many years and who will soon become her permanent love interest .
  • Lorna: A graphic designer and good friend of Sarah, who made her first appearance in the series shortly before Dennis, on May 20, 2010. She gained greater importance for the strip when she and Sarah looked for a new studio together with Sarah in the episode of December 1, 2011 and moved into a little later. Lorna is an image of a real person, the freelance illustrator Lorna Egan, who also designed the pony farm guest trip on April 12, 2010.
  • Shu Thu Zar: Ngumbe first met the female elephant on March 1, 2010, when he was locked up in Cologne Zoo. After this episode named Free Ngumbe , she is in two more multi-strip sequel stories , Ngumbe's Quest and Body Swap ! Ngumbes "turtle barrel".
  • Kitty Litter: Sarah's neighbor leads a group of smug superheroes under this pseudonym who clash with Sarah in her disguise as a nerd girl . Their "special ability" is to be able to gain mental control over kittens. She had her first appearance on January 17th, 2013, her cat Mister Schnuffelfluff (also called melee weapon by Ngumbe ) appeared a week earlier, on January 10th.
  • Mr. Piepenbrock: A real neighborhood bird that Ngumbe often has to be annoyed with.

Prices

Already in 2010, when the Sondermann of the Frankfurt Book Fair was expanded to include the new category “Webcomic”, the pony farm was among the four nominated titles, in 2012 Sarah Burrini won this award with it. Before that, 2011, he was at the Comic Festival Munich with the PENG! awarded in the category “Best German Online Comic”. Also in 2011, the book Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof received the first Golden Garden Gnome from the Comicgarten Leipzig . (A prize in which a jury awards twelve monthly nominations, from which they choose the winner in the comic garden.)

In 2018, Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof received the Max and Moritz Prize for the best German-language comic strip.

Reception in the press

Lars von Törne recognizes the flawless, clear drawings full of playful reflections on the limits and possibilities of the comic medium in the review of the first volume from the Diaphragmatic in the Tagesspiegel and appreciates the dialogues and mini-dramas that are bursting with references to real life and pop culture - and which, in addition to mostly accurate punch lines, contain a lot of wisdom in easily consumable doses.

Ole Frahm writes in the Frankfurter Rundschau on the occasion of Burrini's second nomination as Sondermann: Your panels come up with many loving details. At a game convention, for example, the play devil with the fly agaric stands in line for “The Michael Jackson Dance Experience”, “the only one under two kilometers”, while the game “Call of Mutti” is advertised on a poster in the background.

Book editions

  • 2011: Life is not a pony farm (collected webcomics from May 18, 2009 - December 30, 2010). Zwerchfell-Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-928387-95-8
  • 2012: Life is not a pony farm - The Early Years . Edition Kwimbi, Cologne
  • 2013: Life is not a pony farm 2 - Welcome to reality (collected webcomics from January 3, 2011 - September 27, 2012). Zwerchfell-Verlag, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-943547-07-8
  • 2016: Life is not a pony farm: Vol. 3: Nerd Girl never gives up . Panini, Stuttgart, ISBN 978-3-8332-3360-9

Web links

Individual evidence

Sarah Burrini on the blog for her webcomic

  1. ↑ On June 20, 2013 (blog entry about the day trip). Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  2. ↑ February 17, 2010 . Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  3. ↑ July 10, 2008 . Retrieved June 12, 2013.
  4. ↑ June 4, 2006 . Retrieved June 12, 2013.
  5. ^ On August 13, 2010 . Retrieved June 12, 2013.
  6. ^ On December 1, 2011 (blog entry about the day trip). Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  7. ↑ On April 12, 2010 (blog entry about the day trip). Retrieved July 16, 2013.

Others

  1. ↑ Dating of the German comic guide
  2. ↑ Comix 10/2010, page 18: The Web-Sondermann is coming! ; Publisher: JNK, Verlag Jurgeit, Krismann & Nobst
  3. ^ Report on the Golden Garden Gnome on SPLASHComics . Retrieved June 13, 2013.
  4. ↑ Article from November 15, 2011 on the homepage of the Tagesspiegel . Retrieved July 16, 2013.
  5. ^ Article from September 5, 2012 on the homepage of the Frankfurter Rundschau . Retrieved July 16, 2013.